Helen Mirren Says “I’m Such a Feminist, but You Can’t Have a Woman” Playing James Bond: “It Just Doesn’t Work”

Helen Mirren Says “I’m Such a Feminist, but You Can’t Have a Woman” Playing James Bond: “It Just Doesn’t Work”

Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren is weighing in on the James Bond debate, and she’s made her stance clear.

“I’m such a feminist,” the legendary Brit told Saga Magazine in a new interview alongside her The Thursday Murder Club co-star Pierce Brosnan, famed for his stint as Ian Fleming’s iconic spy. “But you can’t have a woman. It just doesn’t work. James Bond has to be James Bond, otherwise it becomes something else.”

Brosnan concurred with Mirren, and added about the next actor to take on the role: “I wish them well. I’m so excited to see the next man come on the stage and to see a whole new exuberance and life for this character…. I adore the world of James Bond,” he said, “It’s been very good to me. It’s the gift that keeps giving. And I’m just a member of the audience now, sitting back, saying: ‘Show us what you’re going to do.’”

All eyes are on Amazon MGM Studios as it gears up for its first 007 movie after buying the rights off stepsiblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for a reported $1 billion earlier this year. Denis Villeneuve is set to direct and Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, is penning the script.

“I’m hoping that, being a Bond fan for so many years, it will be imbued into me and I will be able to produce something that’s the same but different, and better, stronger and bolder,” Knight told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast earlier this month.

Speculation about who might succeed Daniel Craig as Bond is rife, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jacob Elordi, Tom Holland and Harris Dickinson among the hottest names to be thrown around. Of course, the woman-wooing MI6 agent is a role some believe should not exclude female actresses, too.

But Mirren isn’t the only one who believes Bond is a man’s job: Halle Berry, who starred in Die Another Day, told a Cannes Film Festival press conference in May: “In 2025, it’s nice to say, ‘Oh, she should be a woman.’ But,” she added, “I don’t really know if I think that’s the right thing to do.”