THE WOMEN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
IT’S HAPPENED to Doctor Who and the Ghostbusters - but the biggest screen gender swap might have already been done in an undercover operation.
A new generation of female all-action, Bond-style secret agents have infiltrated Hollywood – with Jennifer Lawrence the latest spy girl to hit the big screen.
She stars in thriller Red Sparrow, out this weekend, following the success of Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde, Rebecca Ferguson in Mission: Impossible, Naomi Watts’s real life drama Fair Game and Scarlett Johansson’s outings as super spy Black Widow in the Marvel movies.
Here are some of the best secret agent ladies on screen. WHILE the 60s was the era of the suave spy with Sean Connery’s Bond setting the tone, Diana Rigg was the pioneer for secret agent women.
She played all-action Avengers spy girl Emma Peel – famous for her martial arts fighting skills, quick wits and iconic leathers – in the TV show from 1965 to 1968. THE Mad Max star impressed as MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton in the 2017 Cold War thriller.
She played an operative hunting for a file of names of undercover agents from both sides of the iron curtain in the movie, which also starred James McAvoy and Eddie Marsan.
The film, based on a 2012 graphic novel, was well received but didn’t set the box office alight.