'No Time to Die' star Ana de Armas says 'there's no need' for a female James Bond, but wants more substantial roles for women in the franchise

• The "No Time to Die" star believes a man should play James Bond.
• "There's no need for a female Bond," de Armas told The Sun.

Ana de Armas doesn't know who should take over the role of 007 — but she says it should be a man.

"There's no need for a female Bond," de Armas told The Sun recently. "There shouldn't be any need to steal someone else's character, you know, to take over. This is a novel, and it leads into this James Bond world and this fantasy of that universe where he's at."

With "No Time to Die" marking the final time Daniel Craig would play Bond, there's been much discussion since its release of who should get the prized role, and if a woman should be considered.

However, de Armas, who played the scene-stealing spy Paloma in the latest James Bond movie, believes the discussion on the franchise should be focused on something else.

"What I would like is that the female roles in the Bond films, even though Bond will continue to be a man, are brought to life in a different way," she said. "That they're given a more substantial part and recognition. That's what I think is more interesting than flipping things."

Late last year, the long-time producer of the Bond franchise, Barbara Broccoli, said that whoever will be the next Bond will be a man. And British.

"It will be a man because I don't think a woman should play James Bond," she told The Hollywood Reporter.

But a decision of who that will be seems to be far off.

Last month Broccoli told Deadline that currently "nobody's in the running" for the role and that filming of another Bond movie is "at least" two years away.

"We're reinventing who he is and that takes time," she said.

De Armas is showing off her action skills again in "The Gray Man," opposite Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans. The movie is available on Netflix beginning Friday.