And the script, co-written by Fukunaga, features extensive punch-ups from none other than three-time Emmy/two-time Golden Globe winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator of such complex dramas from the modern female perspective as Fleabag and Killing Eve. Waller-Bridge has refuted claims that she was brought on for the express purpose of adding depth to the female characters and sanding down any misogynist overtones, telling the BBC Broccoli, Wilson and Fukunaga were “already doing that themselves” by the time she came aboard.

“There's a shift going on,” de Armas says, “and our producers understand what needs to be changed and they're always thinking ahead. There are these changes happening and there is [more] representation of black women or Latina women in these movies. When I got the phone call, this character didn't exist. They were thinking about it and they wrote it for me and I was like, ‘excuse me, what?” de Armas recalls, with Broccoli adding that Craig recommended her after working alongside her on Knives Out. “And then on top of that, you have writers like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is on fire right now and is so brilliant, who actually wrote my scenes.”

“She has a British wit that is hard to master,” Lynch says of Waller-Bridge. “She mastered it a very long time ago and with these being British characters and some characters from around the world in Britain, there's a very front-footed sarcasm or awkwardness that comes with her work.” But for those fearing that Phoebe’s style and that of Bond's are both too dominant to mesh without one overtaking the other, don’t. Lynch assures the dialog is very much typical Bond, just with an added twist. “The characters are very much like many Bond characters, very straightforward. But [then they’ll have lines like] 'did they actually say that?' Everyone has a moment where you think, 'gosh, their character’s a little bit off-key in this moment' or they're under-energized, or not so confident when you would think that in a world like this, everyone's clean cut. But she brings characters that make you feel excited that they're representing the actual real world.” de Armas gushes that through Phoebe’s writing, we’re about to see the most relatable Bond Girls in maybe ever. “I never thought that I would be a Bond Girl. It was something hard to imagine—it wasn't reachable, that level of perfection, they're all so cold, glamorous. But then when I read it on the page, you could easily tell it was Phoebe that wrote that because she was so not perfect. I was like, this mess going on here, I can do that. If that's a Bond Girl, I've been a Bond Girl for life.”

On the subject of Bond Girls, de Armas’ Paloma is shrouded in mystery, but Lynch’s 00 agent Nomi is being billed as a full-on peer—or as key figures on set referred to her, Bond’s equal, a feminine parallel. That status is reflected in everything from her wardrobe and its assertive silhouettes to having her own DBS, the new Superleggera at that. It’s enough to seemingly lend credence to the Daily Mail-reported rumor that No Time will end with Lynch assuming the 007 mantle.