Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, could not put himself in profile before a thorny issue that has been generating debate for many months.
Will the next 007 agents be a woman? The possibility, which has been gaining strength, runs into opposition from the bulk of the followers of a saga that began in 1952 with Agent 007 against Dr. No, in which Bond was Sean Connery. Writer Ian Fleming came up with a male spy and the franchise is based on it. Introducing a female agent as a new 007 is a turning point that sounds like no return to many.
In an interview with the Magazine, Craig finally got down to business, raising an interesting new scenario in his response: “In my opinion, there should be better roles for both women and actors of color. But why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a role as good as that created for a woman? There have been, but of ephemeral existence: recent testimony is Lara Croft, a character based on the video game of the same name, and Salt, both examples played by Angelina Jolie. The spies also play a fundamental role in the latest installments of Mission Impossible, although the main protagonist is still a man.
Craig is not the only one to whom a Jane Bond –we speculate– does not quite fit. In 2020, producer Barbara Broccoli stated in an interview published by Variety that Bond could be any color, but always a man. Like Daniel Craig, he would like to see more roles written for women instead of pushing them to characters originally written for men. “I'm not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play him. I think women are much more interesting than that."
On the other side, some are committed to moving forward and anticipating the apathy of the studios by changing roles as long as the industry does not create those heroines that the new times demand. Until that happens, the following controversy is already sown: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, star of the Fleabag series, sounds like the new Indiana Jones, once Harrison Ford hangs up his hat after the fifth installment of the saga.
