Meet the new James Bond villain? Saoirse Ronan is 'dead serious' about wanting to play a 007 baddie

This is not the first time that Oscar-nominated Irish actress Saoirse Ronan has expressed a desire to play a Bond villain... But with her recent comments and her husband currently rumoured to be the frontrunner for the next 007, we need this casting to happen now more than ever. Irish actress Saoirse Ronan has doubled down on her wish to join the cast of the next James Bond film, and wants to play the next villain. While the next actor to play 007 has not been revealed – even though we can expect some news on that front soon – the star of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Lady Bird, Brooklyn and Little Women says she wants to get in touch with her dark side. “I want to go dark,” she said in a recent interview with Empire. “I said that I wanted to be a Bond villain and I’m dead serious.” The Oscar-nominated actress continued: “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.” This is not the first time that Ronan has expressed her desire to play a Bond villain. In 2024, she told Vanity Fair: “I will stand by really wanting to play a Bond villain, which I will say again and again. Because anytime that I’ve gotten a chance to play someone who’s a little bit evil, I just love it. And I think it would be really fun to do that again.” Ronan's husband, Slow Horses star Jack Lowden, is currently considered one of the frontrunners to play 007. Should both actors be cast in Bond 26, they would become the first married couple to star opposite one another in a James Bond movie. Take a look at this absurdly good looking and talented pair: Make it happen, Bond casting director Nina Gold. Oh, and while we’re at it, find yourself a partner who looks at you like this: In another 2024 interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Ronan revealed that should she be faced with the ultimate choice, she would rather her husband be Bond than her being cast as a Bond villain. Check out the footage below: About Ronan’s campaign to become a Bond villain, we previously wrote: “Ronan would be the perfect foil for a new Bond – not just because she has the range to play any role but because she would inject an intriguing level of humanity within a level of sadism and maliciousness that we haven’t seen her fully embrace yet. More than that, if a necessary 007 renaissance is to take place for the 26th film, so should the role of the female villain.” We added: “Traditionally, male antagonists have been the standard for the 007 franchise, and when actresses have been cast as baddies, they’ve been relegated to side-villains / secondary scoundrels. (...) It’s time the Bond series had a properly vicious primary female villain, and casting an actress of Ronan’s versatility and charisma could not only break the antiquated trend, but also take the franchise in a bold new direction.” The search for the next James Bond is underway, with auditions reportedly taking place this month. Reports have continued to swirl around who might next wield the Walter PPK, with Lowden, Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Louis Partridge and Tom Francis all rumoured frontrunners for the role. Bond 26 will be directed by Canadian filmmaker and four-time Oscar nominee Denis Villeneuve and is being written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. Production is expected to kick off in 2027, with a release planned for 2028. Saoirse Ronan will next be seen in Sam Mendes’ Beatles biopics as Linda McCartney, as well as Alice Rohrwacher’s highly anticipated Three Incestuous Sisters with Josh O’Connor, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley (our April Fool’s pick for the next Bond) and Mick Jagger. No release date has yet been announced.