A “Bond Girl” returning!? The times sure have changed, Mr. Bond.
According to the Daily Mail, who spoke with Bond 25 director Cary Joji Fukunaga, Lea Sydoux will be returning to the role of Madeleine Swann in the next Bond film. He also revealed that Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris have all come onboard for the film as well. Given the return of Daniel Craig and the continuation of his Bond it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the latter three would be joining, but the return of Sydoux is pretty surprising, especially since there have been so many screenplay changes for this film.
Seydoux will be the first-ever “Bond Girl” to reprise her role in a Bond film. While Maud Adams holds the previous honor of being the only “Bond Girl” to appear in two movies — she played two different characters, playing age-appropriate love interests to Roger Moore’s Bond in both The Man With the Golden Gun and Octopussy — we’ve never seen a Bond love interest return.
Of course, this makes perfect sense if you know Bond literary storyline. Craig’s entire tenure has been about rebirthing Bond, and telling the story of how he became who he is. In the books that really culminates with the death of his new wife at the hands of Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and now it appears that’s the direction that the Bond producers are going here. This is, honestly, the only fitting conclusion to Craig’s tenure, and if they’d gone any other direction, especially after the end of Spectre, it would be hard to understand why. It makes sense that Craig would step out (most likely) on a film closely based to OHMSS, as that would pass off the baton to another actor who could play Bond as Bond.
Bond 25 is scheduled for release on February 14, 2020.
