Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren is weighing in on the James Bond debate, and she’s made her stance clear.

“I’m such a feminist,” the legendary Brit told Saga Magazine in a new interview alongside her The Thursday Murder Club co-star Pierce Brosnan, famed for his stint as Ian Fleming’s iconic spy. “But you can’t have a woman. It just doesn’t work. James Bond has to be James Bond, otherwise it becomes something else.”

Brosnan concurred with Mirren, and added about the next actor to take on the role: “I wish them well. I’m so excited to see the next man come on the stage and to see a whole new exuberance and life for this character… I adore the world of James Bond,” he said, “It’s been very good to me. It’s the gift that keeps giving. And I’m just a member of the audience now, sitting back, saying: ‘Show us what you’re going to do.’”

All eyes are on Amazon MGM Studios as they gear up for their first 007 movie after buying the rights off step-siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for a reported $1bn earlier this year. Denis Villeneuve is set to direct and Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, is penning the script.

“I’m hoping that, being a Bond fan for so many years, it will be imbued into me and I will be able to produce something that’s the same but different, and better, stronger and bolder,” Knight told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast earlier this month.

Speculation about who might succeed Daniel Craig as Bond is rife, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jacob Elordi, Tom Holland and Harris Dickinson among the hottest names to be thrown around. Of course, the woman-wooing MI6 agent is a role some believe should not exclude female actresses, too.

But Mirren isn’t the only one who believes Bond is a man’s job: Halle Berry, who starred in Die Another Day, told a Cannes Film Festival press conference in May: “In 2025, it’s nice to say, ‘Oh, she should be a woman.’ But,” she added, “I don’t really know if I think that’s the right thing to do.”