Whenever We Actually See No Time to Die, Lashana Lynch Really Is the New 007

Whenever We Actually See No Time to Die, Lashana Lynch Really Is the New 007

Considering the movie was meant to come out approximately 300 years ago in the Astral Era known by historians as “earlier this year,” we’ve known that Lashana Lynch’s No Time to Die character was a 00 — and the source of many a rumour about whether or not she’d be the next Bond. We’re still waiting on the movie’s release, but at least we now know she is the new Bond. Sort of.

No Time to Die’s ongoing pre-marketing campaign continued apace this week with Lynch chatting to Harpers Bazaar about her role as Nomi in the movie, and confirmed something we’ve long speculated about the MI6 agent but couldn’t be quite be clear on: She is in indeed the new 007 when we meet her in the movie. The magazine writes, “An instinctual and deliberate artist, she is focused on the true story of the Black woman, on communicating her honestly and with purpose. We saw this in her nuanced, solid performance as the single mother and pilot Maria Rambeau in last year’s Captain Marvel, in which she successfully stretched the bounds of what a hero is meant to be, and we will see it again in her outing as the first ever female 007.”

Considering the movie opens with Bond in retirement, it’s no surprise that there’s a new 007 around (Harpers writes more specifically, “she stars as Nomi, the secret agent who inherits the 007 title while Bond himself is in exile.”). It doesn’t necessarily mean that Nomi could still be holding the moniker by the end of the film — Bond could reclaim it in part, before giving it up again for whoever will lead the franchise after Daniel Craig finally hangs up his licence to kill. We don’t know. But we know at least the mere possibility that a black woman being referred to in this movie as “007” has already seen Lynch face abuse.

“I am one Black woman–if it were another Black woman cast in the role, it would have been the same conversation, she would have got the same attacks, the same abuse,” Lynch told Harpers. “I just have to remind myself that the conversation is happening and that I’m a part of something that will be very, very revolutionary.”

Although Bond producers have seemingly pushed back on the idea of a female Bond for now, at least, let’s hope Nomi is the first step in choosing a new 007 that breaks boundaries that have been in place since the earliest days of the franchise.

No Time to Die is currently expected to release on April 1, 2021. Maybe. God, who knows at this point?