By Rob Scheer in New York
Olga Kurylenko was modeling since she was in her early teens, and not long after gracing the cover of Vogue magazine, she made her screen debut in 2005 in the French film “L’Annulaire.” A mere two years later, she starred in back-to-back videogame adaptations – “Max Payne” and “Hitman” – and was subsequently cast in the new James Bond film, “Quantum of Solace” as one of the most iconic staple roles in film history, the Bond girl. As if that wasn’t enough, she plays one of, if not the only, Bond girl that doesn’t sleep with James, and isn’t just eye candy, but given equal footing (and a parallel agenda) with 007. Born and raised in Ukraine, and living in France for over a decade now, Kurylenko had to master a Spanish accent to play Camille in “Quantum of Solace,” opening this Friday (Kurylenko’s birthday).
Q: What’d you do to prepare for the Spanish dialect?
OLGA: First of all, I worked with a dialect coach, and I also, luckily, have a lot of hispanic friends, from Latin America and Spain, and it’s an accent I’ve always heard, because I speak with them. Although, some, because I live in France, they always speak French and in French, it sounds different, but some spoke I spoke in Enlglih and I know what what a Spanish accent sounds like in English. So I just met up with a few of them and recorded them, and made them read poems in English and some Spanish, and just listened to it all the time in my iPod. It’s about listening and just taking it in, and trying to realize what it is that makes them have the accent.
Q: Were you happy or really disappointed that Camille was the first Bond girl that doesn’t have any love action with 007?
OLGA: I was happy. I think it’s totally logical in this particular film, knowing what James Bond just came out of, he just lost this woman he loved. I don’t think he’s really ready to fall in love with a woman, and she is also unavailable because she’s just focused on to get back at that person who caused the death of her family, and she’s just concentrated on that. She can’t break it now, going into some romance with a guy.
Q: Was there something that attracted you to Camille?
OLGA: Yeah, that she was a character with her own mission, that she her own story, that she’s strong, independent, and also at the same time, she’s vulnerable and has this internal scar – and external, too.
Q: What was it exactly about the character or the film that made you know you wanted to play it?
OLGA: Well, first of all, when they said just “oh, we’re casting for the new Bond girl,” I remembered how great the last one was and I thought the Bond woman character has changed and became more interesting and [equipped] with a real personality. I thought they just started a new era of Bond and that really inspired me to go. I thought it must be more interesting to play a Bond girl now than it was before. And after the second audition, they sent me the script, and of course when I read the script, I knew who the character was.
Q: Have you seen a lot of the Bond films?
OLGA: Yeah. I haven’t seen all of them, but I’d seen the last ones, the new ones that were coming out with Pierce Brosnan and the last one, “Casino Royale,” but of course, the ones that were done before I was born I haven’t seen. So I got the boxed set of DVDs, and I looked through some old ones, just to see how they were, and what they’re about. They’re so different.
Q: Did you have a favorite Bond girl prior to Camille?
OLGA: As I said, because the last one was so interesting, because it was a new type, I prefer [Eva Green in] the last one.
Q: Was “Hitman” a good preparation for doing this character?
OLGA: No, it was a very different character, because in “Hitman,” I’m not involved in any action, and the girl is not a fighter in terms of physicality. So, no, I think these two characters have nothing to do with each other.
Q: Tell us about the physicality of this role, did your training as a dancer help you at all?
OLGA: Yes, I think it gives me a good base, because of course, I’m very moveable… flexible… and also, I can move pretty fast, and I think they tested me for that ability before, because after the screen test with Daniel, we went in a separate room with two stunt people and they tested me. I guess they tested every girl for the physical stuff, because they made me run and jump up and down and stop abruptly. Basically, they wanted to see the energy I was able to have. So yeah, definitely it helped me, but I had to train for fighting because in ballet, everything is smooth and delicate, and here, everything abrupt and rough.
Q: So what was the training you had to do, how long was that?
OLGA: In the beginning, they brought me a month before I started shooting just for training, so for one month, every day – not counting the weekends – I was doing 4 hours of fight training every day, It was two before lunch, two after lunch. And then I would go and have training with guns, which was two hours, so it was basically full, 6-8 hour days. Some days I would also have skydiving, so it was really just training, training, training, every day.
Q: So it was harder than ballet training then?
OLGA: Oh, much, I’ve never had so much intensive training ever in my life. I’m not the sort of person who spends time in the gym, it’s impossible to get me in there, so suddenly it went from me not really working out to working all the time for six months. That was intense, changed my body.
Q: What was it like working with Mathieu [Almaric]?
OLGA: He’s just amazing, he’s so intense, and he – well, Daniel’s so intense too – but in different ways. He just looks so cute and like this sweet guy, and then he turns into Greene, this monster. His way of acting is very interesting because he’s always improvising and looking for something different, he’s always changing. I never knew what he was going to do. We would do a few takes, and every take would be different. He would be like, “I know what I’m going to do,” and I would ask “What?” and he’d say “You’ll see,” and I never knew what he was going to do. Suddenly, he’s like “Oh, I came up with this great idea, I’m going to do something totally different!” and each time he’s just surprising me, and my reaction [in the film] is just real. Suddenly he’d do crazy things, and I’d just react, and it’s real.
Q: Were you allowed to have a lot of flexibility and improvisation with your character?
OLGA: Yeah, Marc was great with that, because he said “Look, I’m open,” he likes to be surprised.
Q: To what extent were you familiar with Marc’s work before, and how much or how little did his involvement have to do with you taking the film?
OLGA: Actually I didn’t realize, somehow I didn’t really, his name wasn’t in my head, but when I found out he was going to be directing the movie, I looked and I saw that he’s done all these movies that I’ve seen and that I loved, and I was like, “Oh, that’s him?!” You know, I just didn’t really make the connection, and I thought ‘wow, this is great,’ but I didn’t know who he was or what he looked like. I just realized, ‘oh, that’s the same man who directed all these movies that I loved like “Monster’s Ball” and “Finding Neverland”,‘ and I was very excited.
Q: You said Daniel was intense in a different way than Mathieu, what was the dynamic like with you and him?
OLGA: Yeah, Daniel’s pretty intense, but intense in a good way, you know he’s just Bond when he steps on the… stage. And he’s just already in his character, and he’s prepared, and also behind-the-scenes, he trains nonstop, all the time, like 24-hour work. I don’t know when he slept. After the shooting day, he’d go back and train at the gym. And everybody’s having dinner, asking “Where’s Daniel?,” “Daniel’s at the gym, training.” Just working, working, working.That’s why he did it so well, I think, he’s very determined and responsible about what he does. That gave me inspiration; when you see someone working so hard, you have to work too just to keep up. It’s good to be with strong actors to pull you higher, because you have to, that’s how you learn.
Q: After “Max Payne” and “Quantum of Solace,” are you looking to do more American-made films?
OLGA: Why not, if the parts are interesting. I’m looking for interesting parts, not just the nationality of them, I would love to do any kind of movie, Spanish, French, I did one in Israel after Bond called “Kirot.”
Q: Are you surprised “Max Payne’s” number one at the box office? Did you expect that?
OLGA: No, I didn’t know… I mean, I didn’t really have expectations. I mean, I knew it was a movie based on a videogame and obviously, oriented commercially, and usually movies based on videogames are making very high numbers. I guess that’s why they’re making them, because so many people play and so many people are addicted to videogames, so they know all the big fans will go see the movies.
Q: What was it like to be a part of this incredibly huge franchise, and was there any big pressure being the latest Bond girl? Did Daniel give you any advice on how to cope with the onslaught?
OLGA: Well, I feel it’s just very exciting and a lot of work. Before being on the set and working, and now that it’s done just promoting it, it’s a lot of work, and Daniel, yeah, again, was an inspiration. I mean, you just look at him and he deals with it so well. And obviously, he is the star of the movie, and he’s done it the last time, and he just gives his all and said “We should just enjoy it.” For me, it happens only once, but he’s going to be Bond in other films; you know, the Bond girls, they never come back. He’s right, it’s the biggest thing that can happen, so just enjoy it, because one day, everything ends.
Q: Your character could be in it again though, you could come back in the next film.
OLGA: [Laughs] Yeah, right.
"Quantum of Solace" opens in theaters November 14.