Helen Mirren Says ‘You Can’t Have a Woman’ Playing James Bond

Helen Mirren has strong opinions on James Bond.

While discussing her upcoming movie The Thursday Murder Club with Saga magazine alongside costar (and former 007) Pierce Brosnan, the Oscar-winning actress, 80, said that despite her feminist principles, she believes the iconic spy character has to be a man — or it’s no longer Bond at all.

In the interview, published online Aug. 18, Mirren was asked whether her role of a spy — she plays a retired one, Elizabeth, in Thursday Murder Club — “is a better portrayal of it than in the world of 007.” Her answer? Sort of.

It’s “more realistic,” she told the U.K.-based magazine. “But not so much fun as Bond!”

“I’m such a feminist, but James Bond has to be a guy. You can’t have a woman. It just doesn’t work,” Mirren said, echoing her previously stated opposition to the idea of recasting the character as a woman.

“James Bond has to be James Bond,” she added in the Saga interview, “otherwise it becomes something else.”

Speaking about her character in the upcoming adaptation of Richard Osman’s bestselling book, the actress also told Saga that “so many women have worked in that world,” and Elizabeth is “a manifestation of a reality, that’s for sure.”

Mirren’s Bond commentary comes as the next 007 movie is in the works following Daniel Craig’s five-film streak as the super-spy, with the next actor for the job still up in the air. It also comes after she criticized the decades-old British spy franchise earlier this year.

In a March interview with The London Standard, the actress said that the Bond movies were “not my thing” due to the way female characters have historically been portrayed in them.

While she is a fan of Brosnan — who shot to fame while playing the fictional MI6 agent in the ’90s — and other past Bond actors like Craig, 57, Mirren “never liked James Bond,” she told the U.K.-based newspaper.

“I never liked the way women were in James Bond,” Mirren told The London Standard.

“The whole concept of James Bond is drenched and born out of profound sexism,” Mirren explained. “Women have always been a major and incredibly important part of the Secret Service, they always have been. And very brave. If you hear about what women did in the French Resistance, they’re amazingly, unbelievably courageous. So I would tell real stories about extraordinary women who’ve worked in that world.”

Brosnan — who also stars alongside Mirren in MobLand — later expressed support for the actress’s take on the longtime spy franchise.

When asked about the interview at the New York City Mobland premiere in March, the franchise alum, 72, told PEOPLE: “She let them have it.” And though he and Mirren hadn’t discussed her views on the franchise prior to the premiere “at all,” Brosnan said he understood where she was coming from.

“Yes, there’s a certain agreement there,” Brosnan told PEOPLE of Mirren’s criticisms. “But there’s a certain world and room to move within the proscenium arch of what [Bond creator and author] Ian Fleming put down.”

“So there’s always going to be conflict,” he added.

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In his and Mirren’s latest interview with Saga, the former 007 actor also expressed support to whomever Craig passes the torch to for the next Bond film.

“I wish them well,” he said of the next Bond. “I’m so excited to see the next man come on the stage and to see a whole new exuberance and life for this character.”

“I adore the world of James Bond. It’s been very good to me. It’s the gift that keeps giving,” he told the magazine. “And I’m just a member of the audience now, sitting back, saying: ‘Show us what you’re going to do.’ ”

The Thursday Murder Club is on Netflix Aug. 28.