Ben Whishaw has confirmed he will not return as Q in the next James Bond film, and he is not sentimental about it. The actor, who held the role for nine years across Skyfall, Spectre and No Time to Die, told The Sunday Times the franchise 'needs to be reinvented completely'.
His own character shows why he thinks so. When No Time to Die revealed Q to be gay, the moment was over in a flash and never mentioned again, which is exactly what Whishaw says bothered him. He has said he wondered at the time, 'Are we doing this, and then doing nothing with it?'
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Whishaw says he has not been asked back. He told The Sunday Times that he rarely thinks about Bond these days, and when asked what the next film should do, he said: 'The world has changed so much since the last Bond film, so you have to find what is relevant about it. I think it needs to be reinvented completely. But it's not for me to say.'
Amazon MGM Studios now runs the series and has not yet confirmed who will play 007. Denis Villeneuve is directing the untitled film, Steven Knight is writing the screenplay, and Amy Pascal and David Heyman are producing.
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Critics say the film did very little with it. No Time to Die runs for 163 minutes, yet Q's personal life gets a single, fleeting scene the story never returns to. Whishaw, who is gay himself, told The Guardian in 2022 that he found it unsatisfying. He said he did not pick it apart with anybody on the film, adding that it was 'a very big machine', and that he thought about questioning it before accepting that this was what had been written.
Reaction has been divided. Whishaw has said Russell T Davies, the creator of Queer as Folk, messaged him to say it was cool that Q had a boyfriend, and some viewers took the view that any acknowledgement was better than none. Critics argued that the film told audiences about Q instead of showing him, with one writer asking what it would have cost to let a date actually walk through the door.
What Whishaw's Exit Means for the Next Q
Whishaw's exit leaves more than a vacant role. His call for the franchise to be reinvented completely comes from an actor who spent nine years in the series and has said one of its most visible attempts at inclusion left him wanting more. A single line dropped into a script can earn easy credit for progress, but it delivers nothing of substance to the character or the audience.
That fleeting dinner date in No Time to Die now stands as a warning rather than a milestone. Whoever steps into Q's cardigan next will inherit more than a lab desk and gadget duty—they will take on a character whose depth will be measured against the exact compromise Whishaw refused to defend.
