Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) receives an update to her mission from James Bond (Daniel Craig) in Quantum of Solace (2008), MGM
In sharing an opinion with a number of her fellow Bond girls, Quantum of Solace star Gemma Arterton has made it clear that she has extreme reservations about gender-swapping the James Bond franchise’s titular super spy.
Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) has questions about James Bond’s (Daniel Craig) qualifications in Quantum of Solace (2008), MGM
Arterton, who played MI6 agent Strawberry Fields in the 2008 film, offered her opinion on the contentious topic during a recent interview with UK news outlet The Times.

“Isn’t a female James Bond like Mary Poppins being played by a man?” she argued. “They talk about it, but I think people would find it too outrageous. Sometimes you just have to respect the tradition. 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.”
Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) makes the acquaintance of James Bond (Daniel Craig) in Quantum of Solace (2008), MGM
Gemma is only the latest Bond girl to make this sort of statement.

As previously reported, in 2022, Ana de Armas also pushed back at the concept of gender-swapping James Bond. In an interview, she stated, “There’s no need for a female Bond… There shouldn’t be any need to steal someone else’s character, you know, to take over.”

The actress continued, “This is a novel, and it leads into this James Bond world and this fantasy of that universe where he’s at.”
Paloma (Ana De Armas) and James Bond (Daniel Craig) have their cover blown in No Time to Die (2021) MGM Studios
But the former Bond girl didn’t stop there.

She also pointed out that if studios were serious about female representation they’d make a new character instead of just swapping genders.

“What I would like is that the female roles in the Bond films, even though Bond will continue to be a man, are brought to life in a different way,” De Armas asserted. “That they’re given a more substantial part and recognition. That’s what I think is more interesting than flipping things.”
Paloma (Ana De Armas) waits to make contact with James Bond (Daniel Craig) in No Time to Die (2021) MGM Studios
And while not a Bond girl herself, long-time Producer Barbara Broccoli has also flatly shut down the idea of a female James Bond, telling The Guardian in 2018, “He’s a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male. And that’s fine. We don’t have to turn male characters into women.”

While there has been a fair amount of pushback against the concept of gender-swapping 007, many fans still worry that it could still happen, with one of the main reasons for this concern being the fact that Broccoli said she and her team were working on “reinventing” the franchise for its next, post-Daniel Craig era.
James Bond (George Lazenby) finds some light reading to pass the time in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), United Artists
Ultimately, it will be some time before we know for sure what this means for the legendary 007.

But for now, fans can count Arterton as one of their allies in the battle to keep at least one popular fictional character true to their source material.