The idea of casting a female James Bond rears its head every few years, often when the next chapter in the cinematic 007 saga is in its very early stages of development. And now that Doctor Who has cast Jodie Whittaker as its first female Doctor, of course, the topic is coming up again.
Uproxx has asked Rosamund Pike, who played the Bond girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Die, what she thinks about casting a female James Bond. Pike had a strong opinion on the matter:
“I’d just say write a new story. I mean James Bond is a character that Ian Fleming created. I mean, you know of course the brand has become bigger and whatever, but take one of the Bond Girls and give her her own story. I think the character of James Bond is a man. He is really. But I mean, to have such a character in a completely independent series, why should a woman get sort of sloppy seconds? Why should she have once been a man and now it has to be played by a woman? Why not make a kick-ass female agent in her own right?”
Pike added this, shortly after her previous comment:
“Yeah, you can’t always just flip it and just say, ‘Oh, she’s a woman now.’ I mean, that’s to underestimate a woman entirely I think. There’s nothing really about the James Bond character as written by Ian Fleming that resembles a woman.”
Pike makes some compelling points, there. And she would probably be happy to hear that Bond won’t be cast as a female at any point in the particularly near future: after all, Daniel Craig just confirmed that Bond 25 is the next film on his schedule.
It’ll be interesting to see, when the next recasting of Bond does come around, if a change from the norm is made.