Monica Bellucci, who has been cast with Daniel Craig in the latest Bond film ‘Spectre,’ thought she was auditioning to replace Judi Dench.

The 50-year-old actress will become the oldest Bond girl when the 24th 007 film is released later this year, and she confessed that when she met with director Sam Mendes, she asked if she would be auditioning for the role of M.

She told him: “I’m not a girl, I’m a woman, I’m a mature woman. Do I have to replace Judi Dench?”

“Why do you call me?” she asked him. “I’m 50 years old – what am I going to do in James Bond?’”

“He said, ‘For the first time in history, James Bond is going to have a story with a mature woman. The concept is revolutionary’,” she added.

Bellucci told Mendes he would be a “hero among women” for standing up for older ladies.

Bellucci is four years senior to actor Daniel Craig, who is reprising his role as the British spy for the fourth time. Honor Blackman, who played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger at the age of 39, previously held the title for the oldest Bond Girl.

Dench, 80, played M, the head of MI6’s secret agency, in seven Bond films between 1995’s Goldeneye and 2012’s Skyfall.

DAVID FISHER / REX

The attractive actress exemplifies ‘aging gracefully.’ The fifty-year-old has refused cosmetic surgery and maintains, “We have to start to respect women getting older…’ The real you comes out, and you can see it in the face. I don’t want to be younger.’

Bellucci also advocated for older women dating younger men in a separate interview with the Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine, saying, “Many 50-year-old women feel invisible to men, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“What is the problem with a man of 30 being with a woman of 50?” she said. “It is a matter of energy and the soul, not a matter of age of the body.

“True sexiness is in the mind, the imagination, not in the age of the body.

“It doesn’t surprise me that men in their 20s and 30s are often looking for a much older woman.

“It is no surprise to me that men still find women like Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve and Charlotte Rampling very attractive.

“Men look at Judi Dench and they see so much strength, so much power that comes from inside. And that’s attractive.

“I look at those women and hope that I can have that interior richness as I get older, the kind you cannot see through the eyes.”

Spectre will be released on November 6th.