Olga Kurylenko Discusses Being a Bond Girl
Ukrainian-born actress Olga Kurylenko addressed being the latest Bond girl in Quantum of Solace when she met with Australian press.
"That’s not what an actor hopes to play", she said, referring to the many women Bond has encountered. "They’ve mostly been dull and just arm-candy."
The 29 year-old actress plays Camille, a woman also on a mission of revenge, much like Bond. Unlike her feminine predecessors, she did not manage to bed the secret agent. "Yeah, I liked [the older ones] but I especially liked Casino Royale", she says. "The Bond girl is also a lot more interesting in that one. That’s what inspired me to go and audition for this one".
Having gotten the part, she then trained for the physical work which pleased her. "It was amazing. It was the first time I’d experienced doing such action stuff", says. "I trained a lot. I trained all the time, all the time – every free moment I had. They brought me in a month before I started shooting and during that month I just trained with the stunt people. They taught me how to fight- just basic fighting with fists and kicking and punching, so not like Asian martial-arts like Michelle Yeoh [in Tomorrow Never Dies]. This was more tough military-style fighting.
"I also had to learn how to skydive – we shot it in a wind tunnel but I still needed to train for a month to know how to do it properly."
Kurylenko was also seen this fall in Max Payne and expects to find a career in American films. "They know me in France – they’ve known me since 2004 when I did The Ring Finger — but America doesn’t me. Hitman was my first English-speaking part, and my second was Bond — I only did 3 days work on Max Payne, in the middle of filming Bond, so that doesn’t really count. Hitman did get me an American agent and it did open doors to an extent but this one more so, because it’s just so big!"