The internet may have wanted a Black Bond, or a female Bond, but it looks like we’re getting both. And neither.
Lashana Lynch has been tapped to play the new 007 in the upcoming Bond 25 film, the Independent reports. While Lynch, who recently played Maria Rambeau opposite Brie Larson in Captain Marvel, will reportedly be playing the new agent 007, the character James Bond is still expected to be portrayed by Daniel Craig.
“There is a pivotal scene at the start of the film where M [played by Ralph Fiennes] says, ‘Come in 007,’ and in walks Lashana who is Black, beautiful, and a woman. It’s a popcorn-dropping moment. Bond is still Bond but he’s been replaced as 007 by this stunning woman,” an insider told the Daily Mail.
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This means that while Lynch will be taking on the agent number 007, James Bond is still Bond. Bond is expected to be in retirement at the start of the events of the upcoming film, essentially making the coveted agent number 007 open for Lynch’s taking.
The casting of Lashana Lynch as the first female 007 is the latest evidence that Bond 25 will be a much more inclusive installment than its predecessors. The hiring of feminist TV writer and actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge to write the script for the film was perhaps the first suggestion that Bond 25 would be in the very least, much more empathetic to its female characters.
Waller-Bridge, who is the creator of Killing Eve and Fleabag, previously said that her intention was to make sure that the Bond girls felt like real people. Given the feminist approaches of her TV shows, Lynch should have a lot of material to work with, even if Craig is still the star of the film as Bond.
The Bond 25 film is being directed by Cary Fukunaga (True Detective), and is expected to hit theatres on April 8, 2020.