The name’s Bond…Jane Bond: Priyanka Chopra wants to be the next 007

Mumbai, May 24, 2016: Ever since Daniel Craig announced that he wanted to set aside his martini glass and licence to kill, there’s been an intense amount of speculation over who the next James Bond will be. Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston — even BBC’s War and Peace hottie James Norton — have all been named at one point of time or the other, as possible candidates to slip into 007’s suave shoes.

But there may be a surprise in store yet.

The new Bond — if fan sentiment is an indication — could very well be a woman. And that woman could very well be Priyanka Chopra.

The Quantico actress has been moving from strength to strength in her Hollywood career, and she features on the cover of Complex magazine this month.

It is this cover story with Complex that has caused Priyanka to be named as a frontrunner to play the super spy, by fans.

In the course of the interview, Priyanka was asked about the rumours that she will be the “next Bond girl”. To which, our lady promptly replied: “F*** that. I want to be the next Bond!”

Incidentally, Priyanka isn’t the only actress fans are clamouring for, as a Bond reincarnation. Just last week, X-Filesactress Gillian Anderson was the subject of a Twitter frenzy, after a poster of her as “Jane Bond” went viral on the micro-blogging platform.

Priyanka’s statements come at an interesting time — there’s been a lot of talk about the next Bond moving away from the white, British type.

Incidentally, the actress is already breaking gender norms with her role in Baywatch — the role of the antagonist, which Priyanka plays, was originally written as a male character. Quite a contrast to the report that Marvel changed a female villain into a male one in Iron Man 3, as they felt they would lose out on toy sales otherwise.

It isn’t that the Bond films haven’t experimented with the gender of characters before: Judi Dench starred as the head of MI5 and Bond’s boss, “M”. In the Ian Fleming novels, “M” was a man.

Apart from Priyanka, a few other actress’ names have also been proposed as the next Bond — Emilia Clarke, Rosario Dawson among them. Will one of them get to play the next James — sorry, Jane — Bond? We’ll be the first to raise our martini glasses — shaken, not stirred — to that.