Daniel Craig has no time for inane questions. Especially, if they’re centered around Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s involvement in the new 25th James Bond movie script No Time to Die.
While interviewing the actor for The Sunday Times, the reporter told the 007 actor and said that in the entire history of the Bond franchise, only one woman, Johanna Hardwood, who wrote on Dr. No (1962) and From Russia With Love (1963), had received a writing credit before Waller-Bridge came on board to give the script a refresh.
He then went on to ask Daniel Craig if Emmy-winning Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, brought aboard the James Bond franchise to “punch up” the script of No Time to Die, was a diversity hire.
“Look, we’re having a conversation about Phoebe’s gender here, which is f***ing ridiculous,” he said. “She’s a great writer. Why shouldn’t we get Phoebe onto Bond?”
Craig, is a big fan of Waller-Bridge’s work and went on to defend the star.
“That’s the answer to that. I know where you’re going, but I don’t actually want to have that conversation. I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. She’s a f***ing great writer. One of the best English writers around. I said, ‘Can we get her on the film?’ That’s where I came from.”
In May, the writer and actor told Deadline that she was excited for the opportunity to work on a James bond movie and she would not be changing the character of Bond, but would make sure that the movie “treated women properly.”
Shesaid: “I just want to make sure that when they get those pages through, that Lashana [Lynch], Léa [Seydoux] and Ana [de Armas] open them and go, ‘I can’t wait to do that.’
Lashana Lynch will also star in the movie as a 007 agent. A film insider spilled the beans earlier this year and said: “Bond, of course, is sexually attracted to the new female 007 and tries his usual seduction tricks, but is baffled when they don’t work on a brilliant, young black woman who basically rolls her eyes at him and has no interest in jumping into his bed. Well, certainly not at the beginning.”
The movie will see Craig reprise his role as the 007 agent for the final time and is directed by True Detective director Cary Joji Fukunaga.
