10 Actresses Who Could Be The Next Bond Girl

1. Malin Akerman

Who? Swedish-Canadian actress/model/singer. Last seen wearing lurid latex and hitting people in slow-motion in Zack Snyder's Watchmen.

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Who? Golden Globe-winning Brit with a Tory MP uncle and gloriously strange, stage hypnotist-type eyes. (Although in this pic she looks more like Kate Winslet after rolling in some raspberries).

Why? Because she's the female Daniel Craig - that type of posh who can be perfectly charming at Ascot but could also out-booze the regulars at a Dublin lock-in.

And, after all the faffing about with the Iron Man 2 casting, she deserves a shot at a mainstream hit.

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3. Sarah Shahi

Who? Spanish-Iranian actress/model. Ex-NFL cheerleader.

Why? She has the two key Bond girl assets - mystery and the kind of heady exoticism that checks even Bond's swagger.

On US cop show Life, Shahi plays a recovering alcoholic, so she can happily tackle the hidden-depths/inner-demon thing ("I like the fact that she has a dark side").

And she'd become the instant favourite if it were revealed that Bond 23 was to be based on Sebastian Faulks' Middle East-set novel Devil May Care...

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4. Ziyi Zhang

Who? Chinese star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House Of Flying Daggers .

Why? Hardly a newcomer, but - at 30 - she's due a major Hollywood breakout.

Her Crouching Tiger co-star Michelle Yeoh has already given good high-kick in the otherwise rubbish Tomorrow Never Dies , so the Bond producers would need to do a bit more than make her just another catsuit-clad chop-socky queen.

"I want to go deeper," she says. "To show the world that I can play all kinds of characters - not just action, kick-ass parts..."

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5. Sarah Wynter

Who? Australian-born US TV actress. When Jack Bauer was grieving for his missus Teri in Season 2 of 24, he rebounded into Wynter's arms. (Kate Warner - remember?)

Why? As far as we can remember, Bond has never been to Australia - so the producers need to cook up some kind of story involving an Aussie bad guy with a secret cave underneath Uluru/Ayer's Rock or something...

Perhaps he could be an embittered Aboriginal political leader hell-bound on punishing white Australians for what he perceives as stealth ethnic-cleansing. The topical plot would blur the boundaries between terrorism and 'freedom-fighting'.

Look, just get Sarah Wynter in it, okay?

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6. Leana Headey

Who? Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (hence the vest). Queen Gorgo in 300 ...

Why? She's older, wiser and could pose an intellectual - as well as seductive - challenge to Mr Bond. It'd be a pleasant change to get a Bond girl who can match 007 for brainpower.

Plus, she's English. The Quantum Of Solace script didn't really give poor Gemma Arterton a chance. So it'd be a redemption for the next chapter in our most bankable franchise to feature a Brit girl with beauty and balls.

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7. Rose Byrne

Who? Scotch-Aussie who's popped up in plenty of big-ish movies without ever quite breaking onto the A-list (Her first role was as Natalie Portman's handmaiden in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones ).

Why? She's tackled zombies ( 28 Weeks Later ), epic battles ( Troy ) and having to act alongside Josh Hartnett ( Wicker Park ).

Bond should be a snap. And, after Eva Green, Craig would surely warm to another sidekick with that classical, porcelain elegance.

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8. Odette Yustman

Who? Cuban-Italian American star of Cloverfield (she was the doomed girlfriend Beth) and The Unborn .

Why? The producers realised The Unborn was rubbish and re-focused the whole marketing campaign away from the Omen-style monster-kid and onto the fact that Odette Yustman Has A Really Nice Arse. (See below).

But she can act, and, at 24, she'd be ideal as the kind of character Bond initially underestimates as an upstart but who proves her worth in a breathtaking action sequence where she has to psych out a potential assailant by staring at him in a mirror for ages.

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9. Amber Heard

Who? The infamous, mostly naked, ex-Catholic School girl star of All The Boys Love Mandy Lane , Pineapple Express and The Informers.

Why? One word: sex. Now Bond has been rebooted, he's in dire need of a boot up the arse to bring in some of the unreconstructed bad behaviour that made him so much fun in the first place.

Ditch the fragile flowers (Eva Green) and foreign agents with troubled pasts (Olga Kurylenko) and bring in someone like Heard to ramp up the raunch factor.

We'd love to see how Bond - and Craig - reacts to a woman who isn't in the slightest bit shy about going unclothed (Heard beat Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley for the role of Johnny Depp's girlfriend in The Rum Diary for that reason).

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10. Yvonne Strahovski

Who? Polish-Australian. She's savvy CIA officer Sarah Walker in US TV comedy-drama Chuck.

Why? Pretty much a total unknown. One of the big pleasures of Bond girl casting is the fantasy breakout factor - the actress who gets a nitro career-boost by excelling as a Bond girl before she's even banked a minor - let alone major - film role elsewhere.

We're sure Freida Pinto would be terrific, but after Slumdog Millionaire 's success, she'd just be Latika Off Of Slumdog.

Strahovski would bring back that Olga Kurylenko factor - a dash of on/off-screen mystique.

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