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AS rumours continue to swirl as to who will be the next James Bond, Emilia Clarke has revealed her personal ambitions to play a female 007.

"I have a lot of unrealised dreams. I would love to play Jane Bond," the Game of Thrones actress revealed to the Daily Star. "My ultimate leading man would be Leonardo DiCaprio. No doubt about it."

Not the first actress to throw her name into the hat, Gillian Anderson has taken to Twitter to show her appreciation for a fan campaign nominating her as a contender for the first female Bond. Anderson retweeted a poster created by a fan, depicting her as Jane Bond, before adding a throwback image of herself in a suit with the accompanying caption "Jane Bond potential a la 1995". * *

Meanwhile, the Bond debate heated up this weekend as Sam Mendes - the director behind the last two Bond instalments, Skyfall and Spectre - took to the stage at the Hay Festival and warned that the next casting is likely to come as a surprise.

"There's this constant debate about who's going to be the next Bond. The truth is - and here's the headline: it's not a democracy," he told the audience. "It's not the X Factor, it's not the EU referendum, it's not a public vote. Barbara Broccoli chooses who's going to be the next Bond: end of story." Broccoli is the producer behind the Bond films, who inherited the right to the final say on casting from her father, Albert Broccoli, the original producer of the franchise.

Mendes reminded the audience that Daniel Craig had not been a favourite when he was cast film's most famous spy, and that foresight was solely Brocolli's. "Without that, there would be no Daniel Craig because public support for Daniel was zero. It was her saying 'that man over there is going to change the whole thing, I'm going to cast him'."

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