Rachel Weisz isn’t being contrarian for contrarian’s sake; she’s being consistent. When asked if she would ever consider playing a female version of James Bond, Weisz’s response was instant: “Definitely not. That’s a male character written by a man for a man. No, no, I’m no personal interest in that. But if somebody else does, that’s great. But yeah.”
Weisz’s perspective, it seems, isn’t based on women being incapable of leading action films; it’s based on the perspective that Hollywood needs to stop simply trying to adapt male icons and simply change their gender. Instead, Weisz believes that Hollywood needs to take that same money and that same prestige and put it toward building original female characters from scratch.
Originality over franchise rebranding trends
Weisz has cited Dead Ringers as proof of concept. In the original 1988 film, Jeremy Irons played the role of Elliot. In the Prime Video version, Weisz not only played a version of Irons’ character; she and writer Alice Birch also rewrote Elliot and Beverly Mantle from the ground up, focusing on womanhood, bodily autonomy, and sisterhood. “She wrote it, and she wrote the most two completely distinct characters on the page. Elliot’s like full of appetite and wild and ethically a bit dubious, and Beverly’s very serious and has a complicated relationship to pleasure. And yeah, they’re just different. They’re different. Amazing,” she said to Extra TV.
Then there’s the personal level. When the interviewer made a joke about what her “family” thinks—meaning Daniel Craig—Weisz shot back with typical dry wit: “My family, like who?” before confirming that Craig is indeed a big fan of her work. In previous interviews, she’s confessed that life is “much less stressful” now that Craig is no longer Bond, because she used to worry about the dangerous stunts he performed himself.
What’s interesting is that Bond producer Barbara Broccoli seems to share Weisz’s sentiments. Broccoli has expressed that Bond is a male character and will most likely remain that way, and that we should instead be focusing on creating interesting female-led stories.
In a world obsessed with reboots and rebranding, Weisz’s take seems almost revolutionary: don’t retrofit. Create. And whether fans agree or not, you can’t say she isn’t clear about it.
