There’s not really such a thing as an official James Bond timeline or any sort of unavoidable canon, so it can’t be ruled out that at least a couple of cast members from the Daniel Craig era might end up sticking around after No Time to Die, with the leading man the only person to have definitively ruled themselves out.
We’ve seen it happen plenty of times before in the past, with Judi Dench being kept on from the Pierce Brosnan era to reprise her role as M in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, while Bernard Lee’s initial iteration of the MI6 head honcho made eleven appearances from Sean Connery’s Dr. No to Roger Moore’s Moonraker.
Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny was part of the franchise from the first installment right through to the fourteenth, while Desmond Llewellyn’s Q shared the screen with Connery, Moore, Brosnan, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton, so the precedent was set decades ago.
In a new interview with ComicBook, freshly-minted 00 agent Lashana Lynch addressed whether she’d be keen to stick around as Nomi once the title hero is recast and rebooted once more.
“I’m so attached to Nomi, obviously, as you can imagine, but I would love to reacquaint myself with her again. I think for a character like that, it would be worth exploring, obviously. I do think, though, that if we never see her again, her introduction to the franchise and the way that she goes out is just so stylish and makes complete sense to the franchise and also nips things quite well in terms of what I’ve created for the world.”
It isn’t impossible for characters like Nomi, Ralph Fiennes’ M, Ben Whishaw’s Q or Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny to remain part of the James Bond saga for the next go-round, but it all depends on whether producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson want to retain some sense of continuity, or wipe the slate entirely clean and start from scratch.
