Enlarge By Susie Allnutt, Sony Pictures Olga Kurylenko says she was originally reluctant, but after some lessons and reassurance, she dived took aim at her doubts and did many of her own stunts for Quantum of Solace. 007 CENTRAL By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY What does it take to be a modern Bond girl?
“In my case, it takes a lot of courage,” says Olga Kurylenko, 29, who co-stars in Quantum of Solace as Camille, a rogue agent of Russian and Bolivian descent who is seeking revenge against the terrorist group targeted by 007.
The character has a self-destructive side that requires lots of stunts, which the Ukrainian actress finds intimidating. “I was incredibly afraid. I had a stunt double, but they always try to do it with you.”
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Whether she’s rocketing across rough waters in a speedboat or leaping from a tall building, a kind of ritual unfolds, she says. “Each time it started through me saying, ‘OK, I can’t do this,’ and then the stint guys come and teach me and explain everything to me. And then I end up doing it. So everything I thought I couldn’t do, I actually did. So I constantly crush my fears.”
Bond star Daniel Craig says Kurylenko is participation of a new breed of fearsome Bond actresses.
“As long as the women in his life are equal, that’s a far sexier and far more interesting thing to experience. If it’s a one-sided, chauvinistic inanimate object, I don’t think that’s particularly interesting,” he says. “The world’s moved on, thankfully. What was right then is not right now.”
Kurylenko started her career as a model and appeared in the 2006 anthology drama Paris Je t’Aime and the video-game adaptation Hitman.
She says Camille is “definitely different from other Bond girls.”
“Bond would use girls to get his way. In this movie, Camille does the same thing,” Kurylenko says. “She’s not just this candy a man walks around with. Definitely not that. … She’s not into that falling-in-love thing. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have heart. She’s still a woman. But she’s true serious almost what she does. She’s like a soldier.”
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