Monica Bellucci, 50, is the oldest actress to ever take on the role of a “Bond girl.”
Shocked when approached by director Sam Mendes to play the part, Bellucci asked if she was replacing Dame Judi Dench in the role of M.
“I just blurted out: I’m not a girl, I’m a woman, I’m a mature woman,” she said. “Do I have to replace Judi Dench?"
Dench, 80, had played M, the head of MI6, in seven Bond films before her character was killed in the 007 movie, Skyfall (2012).
“Why do you call me?” Bellucci asked Mendes, who was laughing, taken by her astonishment.
“I’m 50 years old. What am I going to do in James Bond?”
She went on to praise Mendes for putting Bond in a relationship with a “mature woman” and said that she believed he would be a “hero among women,” taking on an older actress in the upcoming film.
“After my audition [director] Sam Mendes told me that, for the first time in history, he wanted a woman of a similar age to the actor playing Bond,” Bellucci told Daily Mail.
“I told Sam he would be a hero among women for casting me in Spectre.”
The Italian actress and fashion model added that since she is “so much more mature” than the many women that played the role of “Bond girl” in past movies, she’d “prefer to be called a Bond woman or perhaps a Bond lady” instead.
“Compared to the Bond girls who have gone before me, I am so much more mature. I’d prefer to be called a Bond woman or perhaps a Bond lady.”
The upcoming 24th James Bond film Spectre is set to be released Nov. 6, 2015.
H/T Uproxx