{"id":74505,"date":"2025-08-18T02:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/74505\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T02:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:26:08","slug":"james-bond-should-be-a-man-says-dame-helen-mirren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/74505\/","title":{"rendered":"James Bond should be a man, says Dame Helen Mirren"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755298269_385_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/6f7604d0-7bc3-11f0-9ba0-cb1cdc075b66.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Getty Images An older woman with white hair cut in a chin-length bob is looking to the right of the camera. She is wearing pearl earrings and a chunky gold and pearl necklace, with a high necked white top.\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj\"\/>Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Dame Helen Mirren has said James Bond should be played by a man, even though she is &#8220;such a feminist&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">In a new interview with Saga Magazine, the Oscar-winning actor said &#8220;you can&#8217;t have a woman. It just doesn&#8217;t work. James Bond has to be James Bond, otherwise it becomes something else&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Amazon MGM Studios will produce the next iteration of the spy franchise, with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight set to write what will become the 26th film in the series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The Studios previously said they were planning a &#8220;fresh&#8221; take on franchise but would honour the &#8220;legacy&#8221; of the &#8220;iconic character&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The 80-year-old is currently starring opposite former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan in the much anticipated film adaption of The Thursday Murder Club, in which she plays a retired spy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Brosnan, 72, also told the magazine that he believed a male actor should continue to play Bond and he was excited to &#8220;see a whole new exuberance and life for this character.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">He starred in four Bond films during his tenure as 007, starting with GoldenEye in 1995 and finishing with Die Another Day, which was released in 2002. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Mirren has previously been quoted saying that the concept of James Bond was &#8220;born out of profound sexism&#8221;, and that women have always been an &#8220;incredibly important part&#8221; of the Secret Service. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Mirren and Brosnan are not the first to push back on the idea of Bond being played by a woman, with the sentiment echoed by Brosnan&#8217;s Die Another Day costar, Halle Berry. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;In 2025, it&#8217;s nice to say, &#8216;Oh, she should be a woman.&#8217; But, I don&#8217;t really know if I think that&#8217;s the right thing to do,&#8221; she said, speaking at Cannes Film Festival in May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The James Bond franchise was owned by the Broccoli family for more than 60 years, but producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson sold creative control to Amazon for a reported $1bn (\u00a3760m) earlier this year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Speculation about who will next play the titular character has been rife, with British actors Aaron Taylor-Johnson and James Norton rumoured as frontrunners for the part.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">There is no current release date set for the next film. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Dame Helen Mirren has said James Bond should be played by a man, even though she&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-74505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}