Saoirse Ronan is “dead serious” about playing a James Bond villain.
As the race to play 007 amps up — and Ronan’s husband and father of her child, Jack Lowden, among the rumored contenders — the Oscar-nominated actress talked to Empire about one day playing an antagonist in the franchise. Denis Villeneuve is set to direct an upcoming Bond film for Amazon MGM Studios, with Peaky Blinders mastermind Steven Knight penning the script.
“I want to go dark,” the star of Little Women and Lady Bird told the outlet while promoting her latest feature, Bad Apples. “I said that I wanted to be a Bond villain and I’m dead serious,” she added. “I think it would be really interesting, having a young female villain. Especially for girls and women, to see someone who can just take all that pent-up anger and direct it somewhere, there’s something interesting in that dramatically. So I would love to do more of that.”
If her dream were to become a reality, the Irish actress would join a prestigious lineup of Bond baddies — a group that includes Rami Malek, Christoph Waltz, Javier Bardem and Mads Mikkelsen in the Daniel Craig era alone.
Reports have continued to swirl around who might next don the tuxedo of Ian Fleming’s beloved spy. Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Tom Holland, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Harris Dickinson and Ronan’s partner Lowden (Slow Horses) are among some of the more high-profile names to have been floated but Amazon has refused to confirm any casting decisions just yet. (The studio struck a deal with longtime franchise stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to take full control of the character and its IP in February 2025.)
