UPDATE 8/26: Ronan’s husband is reportedly testing. Page Six says Jack Lowden screen tests for Bond in early September, though an unknown — Poor Things bit player Jack Barton — is the current favorite. Full story on the Barton report.
Saoirse Ronan wants into the James Bond franchise, and not as the Bond girl.
The four-time Oscar nominee tells Empire she is “dead serious” about playing a Bond villain, and she wants the role to take her somewhere her filmography rarely goes.
“I want to go dark,” Ronan said. “I said that I wanted to be a Bond villain and I’m dead serious.”
Her pitch is specific: a young woman as the main villain.
“I think it would be really interesting, having a young female villain,” she said. “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.”
The comments come from Empire’s interview for Bad Apples, director Jonatan Etzler’s dark comedy in which Ronan plays Maria, a primary school teacher who winds up with her most disruptive pupil locked in her basement. Paramount releases it in U.S. theaters September 18.
Ronan told Empire she does not consider Maria “an out-and-out psychopath,” calling her “the nicest villain you could play.” A Bond villain, presumably, would not be so nice.
Ronan Already Said Her Husband Should Be Bond
Ronan has floated this before.
In October 2024, on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, she said she could not see herself doing Marvel, dodged the old rumor that she was up for Yelena Belova in Black Widow, and said she would rather do Bond, specifically as the villain.
What has changed since then is the other half of her household.
As we reported earlier this month, British TV presenter Richard Osman says Slow Horses star Jack Lowden, Ronan’s husband, is being “strongly considered” for the next James Bond. That is still a rumor. Osman’s source is unnamed, no trade has confirmed Lowden is testing, and Osman himself warned that supposedly definite Bond tips have gone nowhere before.
It does put Ronan’s comments in a new light. In that same 2024 interview, Horowitz asked her to choose between playing the villain herself or her husband landing 007. Her answer: “He should be Bond.”
Now she is telling Empire she is dead serious about the villain. Either she has decided the two are not mutually exclusive, or Amazon could end up with a very interesting decision on its hands.
Amazon Wants ‘Something Really Different’
The people Ronan needs to convince have also changed.
In 2024 she said she was nervous to raise the idea with Barbara Broccoli and would do “whatever Barbara wants.” Broccoli no longer controls Bond.
Amazon MGM does, with Amy Pascal producing, Denis Villeneuve directing, Steven Knight writing and Nina Gold running casting, and the movie reportedly targeting 2028.
Pascal has said the next Bond has to be “something really different.”
As we reported, she told Deadline a casting announcement by the end of the year is “a good bet” and that whatever Amazon lands on needs to be “stirring and exciting and different.”
A young female main villain checks that box.
In 25 movies, Bond has had exactly one woman as the lead villain, Sophie Marceau’s Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough, and that was 1999. Ronan is 32, has the range to go from Lady Bird to Hanna, and is now openly campaigning for the job.
Amazon is still working out who plays Bond. Ronan just made sure it knows who wants to play the villain.
