Roger Moore says James Bond should never be a woman or gay

Moore spoke with the Daily Mailon Sunday and said the reasoning for his controversial comments is simple, “That wasn’t was Ian Flemming wrote”.

“It wasn’t until my partner, John, came over and said: ‘Did you see who that was?”

Moore – who starred in seven Bond films between 1973 and 1985 – has revealed that the apparently steamy scenes he appeared in weren’t romantic at all. He was promoting Skyfall at the time, which had a bisexual villain.

Last week we really set the cat among the pigeons when we ranked all the James Bond actors in order of greatness.

And fellow Bond star Pierce Brosnan said ‘Sure, why not?’ when asked if the character could be gay, though he doubted producers would allow it. Moore continues: “It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist-it is simply about being true to the character”.

He’s aware that a few don’t rate him as a great technical actor – and at times he played up to that on the stage, which he shared with his biographer and interviewer on the night Gareth Owen.

Meanwhile, Anthony Horowitz, the author of the latest Bond novel Trigger Mortis, recently apologised for a previous statement in which he called Idris Elba “too street” to play Bond.

However, the director of Daniel Craig’s 2008 Bond film, Quantum of Solace, has also weighed in – echoing Moore’s stance on the issue.

Spectre, starring Craig, Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris, is due in United Kingdom cinemas on 26 October.