Saoirse Ronan Is "Dead Serious" About Playing a Bond Villain — and Her Husband Is Rumoured for 007

Saoirse Ronan wants to play a James Bond villain, and she is not joking about it. "Dead serious," the four-time Oscar nominee told Empire magazine, pitching herself as a young female antagonist who could channel something audiences rarely see on screen.

Ronan's idea is specific. She told Empire she would like to play a young female Bond villain, saying it would be interesting for girls and women to see pent-up anger directed somewhere — a villain whose menace carries a point of view, not just a scheme. The interview was picked up and confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter on 24 August 2026.

What gives the pitch an extra twist is the household it comes from. Ronan's husband, Jack Lowden, is among the names floated as a possible next James Bond, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The two actors married and share a child. If Lowden landed the tuxedo and Ronan landed the lair, Bond fandom would get a real-life couple playing hero and villain on opposite sides of the table.

For now, neither role has been cast. The Bond field is crowded. Lowden competes for 007 against Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Tom Holland, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Harris Dickinson, all names circulating in trade reporting without any official confirmation — rumour, in other words, until Amazon MGM Studios says otherwise.

Amazon took full creative control of the Bond franchise in February 2025, when the studio struck a deal with longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to acquire the character and its intellectual property outright. Broccoli and Wilson had steered Bond through the Daniel Craig era; the Amazon deal handed the keys to a new custodian.

That custodian has since named its director. Denis Villeneuve, whose credits include the Dune films, is set to helm the next Bond film for Amazon MGM Studios, with Steven Knight — creator of Peaky Blinders — writing the script. No release date has been announced, and casting remains the subject of speculation rather than signed contracts.

Bond villains have a long tradition of prestige casting. Christoph Waltz joined the franchise as the villain in 2015's Spectre, which opened to $73 million in the US (domestic — the United States and Canada combined) and earned an A- CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences, per The Hollywood Reporter. Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci co-starred in that film as the new Bond women.

Ronan is no stranger to awards attention. Around the 2015 awards season she was expected to be in the best-actress conversation for her performance as an Irish immigrant in New York torn between two men — a role that cemented her reputation for carrying emotionally complex leads.

Her next screen appearance is in Sam Mendes' Beatles biopics, where she plays Linda McCartney. Those films are expected to span four separate releases, one for each band member, though Ronan's involvement places her squarely in one of the biggest ensemble productions currently in the pipeline.

Whether Villeneuve or Knight have Ronan in mind for their Bond film is unknown. No casting has been announced, and the producers have not publicly commented on her Empire interview. But the campaign is now on the record — and in Ronan's words, it is dead serious.