Cillian Murphy has today spoken about who he thinks will play James Bond in the famous espionage franchise.
Replacing Daniel Craig's 007- the upcoming Bond 25 film is expected to be Craig's last - there has been an extraordinary level of speculation about who the role should go to, with many advocating for Tom Hardy or Cillian Murphy, while others have been pushing hard for a female James Bond.
Idris Elba, Richard Madden, Tom Hardy and Tom Hiddleston have all been touted as possible replacements, as well as Murphy, who currently plays the Peaky Blinders' ringleader Tommy Shelby in the hit series.
However, when asked about the chance of Murphy becoming Bond, he disputed the rumours and ruled himself out of the running for an interesting reason.
'There's two things I'll say about [it],' he told The Guardian. 'Firstly, there's a whole other industry which is completely separate from the film side of things and that's the bookies.
'The second thing I'd say is that I think it should be a woman, which rules me out.'
There was recently much excitement when it was reported that the 'new 007' will be British actress Lashana Lynch, who by being both black and female is vastly different from the usual choice for the MI6 spy.
However, while people jumped to assume this means she is like-for-like replacing Craig, the report continued that 'she's not the new bond, but a new character who takes over his secret agent number [007] after he leaves MI6... Bond is still Bond but he's been replaced as 007 by this stunning woman'.
Both Lynch and Craig have publicly been announced as starring in the next film in the franchise, which has been co-written by Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge and is currently filming.
