Saoirse Ronan is being tipped by the bookies to become the new James Bond girl in the next 007 movie which could be a career highlight for the Irish actress.
The spy with a license to kill hasn’t been seen on the big screen since 2021’s No Time to Die, in which Daniel Craig plays the iconic character for the fifth and final time.
While the race is on to replace Craig, Lady Bird actress Ronan is 5/1 to be cast as the next Bond Girl, a character who is also a love interest, female companion or enemy for Bond.
Ronan faces stiff competition from former Corrie actress and Fool Me Once’s Michelle Keegan who is the current favorite for the role at odds of 2/1.
After missing out on the role of Lois Lane in the 2025 Superman reboot, Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dinever is also in the hunt and has odds of 3/1,
Nicola McGeady of Ladbrokes said: ‘Rumors are swirling about who will be the new Bond girl, and patriotic punters are already showing their support for Saoirse Ronan, who is the frontrunner to land the coveted role.’
Ronan is known to shy away from big-budget films, often preferring to play dramatic roles in cinema’s most critically acclaimed films such as Brooklyn, Little Women and Mary Queen of Scots.
However, Ronan might consider moving on to more audience-friendly films after See How They Run and Foe underperformed at the box office.
Speaking in 2020, Saoirse said she would love to do ‘a Bond’ movie and has ‘moved on to bigger things’ in the past but was passed over for roles.
‘What I really want to do is, like, I want to play a villain in a Bond film, or something like that. That would be incredible. But I’d love to do something really big,’ she told MTV News.
It could be an Irish-centric James Bond movie, with Paul Maskall reportedly in talks to become the seventh actor to play the character who loves nothing more than a shaken, shaken martini.
The producers of 007 will be keen to see how Mescal fares in the long-awaited Gladiator sequel, playing Lucius, the son of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla and the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus.
