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22nd Jan 2025

Legendary James Bond actress gives great answer when asked who should be next 007

Stephen Porzio

In a new interview with JOE, Michelle Yeoh talked about James Bond and working with Cillian Murphy.

Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh is the star of Star Trek: Section 31, a new Star Trek movie coming to Paramount+ this week.

A spin-off to the TV series Star Trek: Discovery, the film sees Yeoh reprising her role as anti-hero Philippa Georgiou as she gets swept up in a new adventure that forces her to “face the sins of her past”.

Ahead of its release, JOE spoke with Yeoh about the sci-fi but also asked her a couple of questions about her incredible career – including working with Irish stars Pierce Brosnan and Cillian Murphy.

The actress starred with Brosnan in the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies, in which she played fan favourite character Wai Lin, and appeared in the sci-fi cult classic Sunshine opposite Cillian Murphy.

During the conversation with Yeoh, we asked her about working with Murphy on Sunshine and if she was happy to see the Irishman win his Oscar for Oppenheimer the year after Yeoh won her Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

In response, she said: “Oh, I was absolutely delighted, very very happy for him, because even when we did Sunshine, it was just so clear what an incredible actor that he is – how he morphs into one character and then into another.

“It’s always beautiful when people that you love – colleagues, actors that you worked with – get their chance to be on stage to get the accolades they so rightly deserve.

“The latest one is [other Sunshine co-star] Hiroyuki Sanada, who won the best actor [at the Emmys and Golden Globes] for Shōgun. I was like yes, finally.”

Following on from this, we highlighted to Yeoh how Brosnan recently said that Murphy would make a “magnificent” 007.

Asking the Bond actress for her thoughts on this, she replied, laughing: “I think Cillian is too busy to be Bond right now.”

She then said she would like to see a less established actor play the role, explaining:

“That’s the interesting thing about Bond. They always find a very very good actor but possibly not such a well-known, Oscar-winning actor.

“We always like to be nicely surprised by [Bond movie producers] Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson to see who is the next Bond.”

Star Trek: Section 31 premieres Friday, January 24 exclusively on Paramount+.

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