In the latest episode of the Disney+ series Hawkeye, we got to meet a new member of the Lesbian Cop Club, Wendy Conrad. While she may be the latest queer character to be introduced into the MCU, she shares a long legacy with other lesbian cops in TV and movies. Sitting in meetings with her at the prominent literary agency where we both worked left me feeling weak. Usually never short of things to say, in her presence, I’d marvel at her ability to drain all quips from my mind, leaving my mouth bone-dry. But I knew the cliché and I refused to succumb to the stereotype of being the young, ambitious 25-year-old who screws the boss. Tilly: [The rating board] said, "It looks like they're really doing it." And the [Wachowskis] go, "Let me get this straight. If the girls weren't such good actresses, you wouldn't have a problem?" They were embarrassed, and they said, "Yes." Gershon: [The Wachowskis] knew every angle, every cut. They came from doing graphic novels so they really had it in their heads.

Ever since Director Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience premiered at TIFF in 2017, it's been the talk of the town among the five queer women who care about this kind of stuff. The film tells story of Orthodox Jewish lesbians in London: Esti (Rachel McAdams) caught in a loveless relationship with a Rabbi, and Ronit (Rachel Weisz) trapped in a series of meaningless heterosexual hookups. Mercifully, Lynch emerged from filming relatively unscathed, unlike Craig, who has lost teeth, broken his leg and had the tip of a finger sliced off doing Bond. “The stunt team were like, ‘Who are you? An alien?’” says Lynch. “Everyone who does stunts always has some kind of injury.” Gershon: As soon as I met Jen, I thought, "Oh my God, all I have to do is watch her." She was so amusing and so fun. It's just so easy to watch her, like her butt and her legs. It made my job easy to kind of objectify her. We liked each other as soon as we met. In between these roles, Lynch hopped from job to job: temping at a courtesy-car company and behind the reception of a doctors’ surgery in central London. “When I did Still Star-Crossed, I was working for the NHS again,” she says. “I remember when I went away, I didn’t have any money; I literally had about 2p in my bank. And when you work you don’t get paid straight away, so I’m the lead in this show, but still can’t afford my rent. And that was my last hurrah of, quote-unquote, normal work.” As a Jamaican woman you know how to stand up for yourself The stunt team have now trained me for life. I’m very happy’: Lashana Lynch wears trench coat by acnestudios.com. Photograph: Gustavo Papaleo/The Observer

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I also love the way Sebastián chose to shoot it. It was storyboarded. All the wetness, the spitting in the mouth, the pubic hair, the vaginas, but also leaving some of it to the audience to imagine. Where is the other woman’s mouth, where are her fingers? It was important for him to focus on our faces to really capture that desire. There’s something very spiritual about their sex. I’m really proud of it." Of course, if we’ve learned one thing about Bond, since the British secret agent made his film debut in Dr No in 1962, it’s that you don’t bet against him. Craig’s farewell will see him square off against the anarchist arch-villain Safin, played by Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar-winner Rami Malek. He’ll have some help from two Bond women – Bond “girls” being a thing of the past – in Ana de Armas and Lynch. Tilly: It was a classic film noir, except instead of the lead being a male, it was Corky. A studio offered the [Wachowskis] a lot more money to make the movie, but they said that they had to make Corky a man.

As am I. Representation always matters, whether it's in the Halls of Congress or at your local independent theater. Queer women deserve to have their queer female sex represented on screen, without it devolving into typical pornographic tropes: shaved vaginas, sorority sisters, giant jiggly boobs, foot-long dildos, scissoring, a well-hung neighbor guy who just "pops in" for a threesome, etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of these erotic ingredients, per se, but it's formulaic and not particularly representational of most queer sex. Tilly: They didn't want it to be a man's version. There's a male version of what lesbians are, and you see it in the soft-core porn movies all the time. They really wanted to get it right. They wanted to be very respectful of the lesbian community. They wanted it to be very, very authentic and raw, not pornographic. Although it was pornographic because we're hot. [ Laughs]

Throughout TV and movie history, lesbians and cops are like peanut butter and jelly, and it seems like half of the time a TV show or movie (that isn't about lesbians) has an adult lesbian character, she's a cop. It's also interesting to note how many of these lesbian cops are women of color. Again, queer women of color are more easily accepted by "average Americans" if they're helping to uphold the systems that oppress them.

Fashion editor Jo Jones; photographer’s assistant Joe Stone; fashion assistant Peter Bevan; makeup by Alex Babsky at Premier Hair and Makeup using Bobbi Brown Cosmetics; hair by Earl Simms at Caren; nails by Joanna Newbold represented by Arlington Talent using Morgan Taylor available from Red Carpet Beauty Historically, women had indeed counted on their charms in practicing espionage, mostly because charms were often the only kind of weapon permitted them. During the American Civil War, when a group of elite hostesses relied on their social connections to gather intelligence for both sides, Harriet Tubman was an outlier who actually ran spying efforts. But the aggression, vision, and executive capacity required to direct an operation were not considered within the female repertoire.

Lynch, as you may well have suspected, got the part. In No Time to Die, the 33-year-old from west London will play Nomi, an MI6 agent. That much we know for sure. There are persistent rumours that Nomi inherits the 007 designation from Bond, who has handed in the keys to the Aston and retired to Jamaica with the French psychologist Madeleine Swann ( Léa Seydoux). Let’s pull this plaster off: are you, Lashana Lynch, the next James Bond? “Nooo! You don’t want me!” she says, with a fit of giggles. “I’d just be like” – she feigns ditsiness – “‘Erm, right, so where do you start again?’” Tilly: Everyone's positive that they're so in love, and they're going to live happily ever after, but I really think in Violet's nature, she's a predator. I do not think it's going to end well. Violet's in love with Corky, but she's very damaged and I just don't think it's going to be like one of those, "50 years ago, we met cute," you know?

Tilly: Look at this, we're like equals. You know I'm full of s–t; I know that you know I'm full of s–t. We both know what you're here for. Tilly: You've got to really adore your costar and have a good relationship and a trusting relationship because it's a really violent scene…[Gina] sprained her wrist or finger or something like that. But you got to go for broke. You can't be precious, you know? You're doing fight scenes. You kind of have to go for it. Coming from a Jamaican family continues to be a touchstone for Lynch. “My house was strictly Jamaican,” she says. “I think spag bol was the most British we got in our house. Being Jamaican is… there’s an attitude and a swagger that comes with just being born into a Jamaican family. You know how to stand up for yourself. Pretty instantly, like out of the womb, you’re already taking charge.”

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The introduction of Lynch’s Nomi is clearly part of a strategy for keeping 007 relevant in the modern world. “I think they were just looking for someone who would be able to be a match for Bond,” says Lynch. “Who would be able to stand up and be vocal and forthright and strong and able to handle a weapon, able to handle herself and not someone who takes any crap from anybody at all. Then, as it unfolded, she became this quite complicated, free, open-minded vocal human being who brings a really nice twist to MI6.” Gershon: There was one take that all four of us were like, "That's the one." It was like a real love scene. You didn't see a boob. You didn't see anything; it was all suggested. It really played on our face more than anything. In some cases, women had their own blinkered views of female leadership to overcome. Barely 30 when she was recruited in 1940, Fourcade had lived abroad, and relished the liberated environment of 1930s Paris. Still, she was astonished when “Navarre,” the code name for Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, asked her to be his deputy. Being a woman surely ruled her out, she protested to the World War I hero, who was secretly mobilizing citizens worried by Nazi aggression in Europe. That was precisely why she would be above suspicion, he told her. “Good God—it’s a woman!” cried another recruit, who became one of her most trusted aides. After Navarre was arrested in Algiers in 1941, Fourcade became the undisputed leader of Alliance. Tilly: Somebody said, "Oh, you know, females don't have any sex organs." [Susie] goes, "Yes we do; it's called a hand." So they did do a lot of shots of hands. Gershon: I knew I had to curl [my toes] on cue. I think it could have been a little bit more connected to an orgasm or to a sexual feeling. I felt it was more a mechanical thing. [But] it was very fluid. No pun intended.