Gemma Arterton has said that a woman taking over the role of the 007 spy James Bond would be “too outrageous”.
The 38-year-old actor, who played British operative Strawberry Fields in the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace, addressed the possibility of switching the gender of the titular agent and said that “tradition” needs to be respected.
When asked by The Times whether a woman playing James Bond would be like Mary Poppins being played by a man, Arterton expressed that the public may not like it, since the role has been played by male actors for more than five decades.
“They talk about it, but I think people would find it too outrageous,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to respect the tradition.”
The St Trinian’s actor also spoke about her small role in the Bond franchise and said she was “perplexed” over the attention she received for “five minutes” of airtime.
“I don’t regret doing a Bond film, but I am perplexed why it has followed me around. I was only in the film for five minutes,” she said.
The comments come after Arterton admitted there was “so much wrong” with Bond women in a previous interview.
During one scene in Quantum of Solace, Bond (Daniel Craig) and Fields (Arterton) are supposed to be posing as teachers, and the plan is for them to stay at a cheap hostel. However, Bond refuses and instead books them into a five-star hotel, which is where he ends up seducing Arterton’s character.
Speaking to The Sun in 2020, Arterton claimed that she still receives criticism for the part, and said she had realised there is “still so much wrong with Bond women”.
“At the beginning of my career, I was poor as a church mouse and I was happy just to be able to work and earn a living,” she said. “I still get criticism for accepting Quantum Of Solace, but I was 21, I had a student loan, and you, know, it was a Bond film.”
She added: “But as I got older I realised there was so much wrong with Bond women. Strawberry should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes.”
Since Daniel Craig announced his retirement from the franchise, a number of actors have been rumoured to replace him as the British spy, including Idris Elba, Tom Hardy and Kraven the Hunter actor Aaron-Taylor Johnson, who is the current favourite.
He starred in five films, starting with Casino Royale in 2006, which he followed up with Quantum of Solace, Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time To Die in 2021.
The Knives Out actor recently described Quantum of Solace as a “difficult second album” and said it was a “f***ing nightmare” making the film as they were mostly without a script when cameras started rolling.
“We should never have started production,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, before adding that he ended up “writing a lot of lines” for the film.
