The Hundreds of girls auditioned to be the next Bond girl but when virtually unknown model and actress Olga Kurylenko turned up for her try-out she hadn’t rehearsed for the role.
“I didn’t get the scenes to learn beforehand,’’ the 29-year-old says.
“They didn’t arrive so I was totally unprepared.
“So I sat there for 20 minutes trying to memorise them, but the audition ended up more like an improvisation.
“I thought, `Well I’ve got nothing to lose; I probably won’t get it, so I’m just going to have fun.’’’
Her attitude worked: Kurylenko was cast as feisty femme fatale Camille opposite Daniel Craig in the 22nd Bond film, Quantum Of Solace, earning her place in celluloid history as a sexy Bond girl.
And, as just announced, Kurylenko and Craig will visit Australia for the film’s premiere in Sydney next month.
The starlet won’t reveal exactly what happens in 007’s next adventure epic but tells of scenes involving a complicated yet sizzling romantic moment between Camille and Craig’s suave secret agent.
“It’s an interesting relationship,’’ she adds mysteriously.
Ironically, Kurylenko, who grew up in the Soviet Union, knew little about James Bond, as the films were banned under communism.
After landing the role, she watched almost 20 Bond films back to back.
Not surprisingly, Craig is her favourite Bond.
“He really cares about the character and the film,’’ she says. “It’s funny, but you can really feel that he becomes James Bond.
Kurylenko still can’t believe her luck, having grown up in poverty in an isolated Ukraine peninsula town with her struggling art-teacher mother. They were so poor Kurylenko wore rags to school.
“From where I came from, everything that’s happened to me seems like a dream,’’ she says. “We had nothing.”
Her luck changed when a modelling agent spotted the then 15-year-old while she was on a trip to Moscow.
A year later, Kurylenko relocated to Paris, where she still lives.
Within six months the “geeky teen misfit’’ had learnt French and she went on to land covers of Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Glamour magazines and become the face of Clarins and Helena Rubinstein cosmetics.
Now, on the cusp of world-wide fame, her oppressive life behind the Iron Curtain is a distant memory.
“She’s not like all the other Bond girls that she’s this poor thing he has to protect. She jumps and fights and fires guns right alongside Bond … she’s a pretty tough girl.’’ Kurylenko received her best Christmas present ever when her agent called last Christmas Eve with the news that she had won the role.
Leave a Reply