Casino Royale Bond Girls And Crew Interviewed
A brand new interview with the stars and crew members of Casino Royale has appeared online at Coming Soon / SuperHeroHype.
Bond girls Eva Green, (Vesper Lynd) Caterina Murino, (Solange) and Ivana Milicevic (Valenka) were interviewed along with long-time James Bond film producer Michael G. Wilson and casting producer Debbie McWilliams. Excerpts from the interview follow:
ComingSoon.net: Why did it take so long to find an actress to play Vesper, before you finally ended up casting Eva?
Michael G. Wilson: We did look far and wide, and we tested many women. Eva was considered very early on, but she was committed to another project. It wasn’t until about four or five weeks ago that she got free from that project so we could actually give her the script, she could read it, come in and do a test for us and we could hire her.
CS: So how do you know when you’ve found just the right actor for a role like that?
Debbie McWilliams: You know immediately. It quite often takes that long to find someone that you really like for the part, which is why and initially, Eva wasn’t available although she was on the first list I ever made. It wasn’t until we searched all over the world and then spent a few weeks in America looking at people there, then we said, well let’s just go back and ask her again. For an actress, to be presented with a Bond script, it’s a very hard decision to make, because they’ll always forever be known as the girl who was in the Bond film, which perhaps may have slightly worried Eva to begin with. Once she read the script, she realized what a fabulous part it was. There’s never been a role as wonderful for a woman as this part, and she’ll be fantastic in it.
CS: Is that true, Eva? Why did you decide finally to be a Bond Girl?
Eva Green: I think this is one of the best scripts I’ve read for a long time, and it’s not like a cliché movie or anything like that. It’s a very deep, profound movie with a lot of twists and turns. The love story moved me, and it’s not like an action movie. That’s why I’m doing this movie, and this character is a gift for an actor, so you can’t say no. You’d be quite a moron.
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CS: How have each of you been preparing to play your respective roles?
Eva: Actually, I got the part about two weeks ago, but I’m working on the script. I’m quite cerebral, so I’m imagining each scene and working on the character. I haven’t read the novel and I’m reading it at the moment. I’m a bad student, but I’m about to read it. In a way, I just imagined this movie as an old-fashioned movie in a very good way, because [Vesper] is quite sassy and sharp, and the relationship is kind of unusual and very funny, but you’ll just have to wait and see. I’m working at the moment.
Caterina: Everybody told me that I was preparing [to play a] Bond Girl. No way. I’m preparing a role, and that role is Solange. She’s not at all the classical Bond Girl that you know before. She’s somebody that’s very modern, but she’s married to a very bad man. The man is very bad with James Bond, and he’s very bad with me. She doesn’t have a very quiet life. I had to prepare my English and physically, I prepared because Solange loves to ride horses, so I rode a horse every day for a month. I had one of the best stuntmen in England for the horse.
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CS: That brings us to the most American of the new Bond girls. Ivana, can you tell us a bit about who you play in the movie?
Ivana Milicevic: Well, I’m bad. I’m Le Chiffre’s girlfriend and I guess henchman, you could say his bodyguard. Usually, bad girls aren’t blonde, but look at me, I look angelic, and yet I’m not. We kind of were into that. I’m just always with Le Chiffre, taking care of him. I figure he saved me from post-war Croatia or maybe I saved him, I don’t know.
McWilliams: In the story, it says “Valenka, Croatian beauty”, so here we have her. I just happened to find her in L.A.
CS: And how does it feel to be playing a Bond Girl?
Ivana: Do I count as one, ’cause I’m bad? Then I guess I am. It’s really exciting to most girls. My dad is really excited about it, and I’m not saying I’m not, but it hasn’t completely sunk in yet because it’s been go, go, go…
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CS: For many months, there were rumors about different actresses that might be co-starring opposite Daniel Craig. Were any of those rumors true?
McWiliams: The two who were very strongly considered were Angelina [Jolie] and Charlize Theron, but thereafter, anybody else who you’ve heard is not true.
CS: So there was a desire to bring in another superstar actress after having Halle Berry in “Die Another Day”?
McWilliams: The Halle Berry thing was quite odd in itself when it happened, because we hadn’t ever really gone that way before, but everybody thinks there was a precedent set by that. If you look back through the films, you’ll see that most of the girls we have chosen haven’t been well known at all, and they have subsequently become well known. So historically speaking, we normally have gone for someone who is not well known.
Click here to read the full interview at Coming Soon / SuperHeroHype.
Stay tuned to CBn for all the latest news on Casino Royale and all things James Bond 007.
Casino Royale is the 21st James Bond 007 film produced by franchise holders Eon Productions. The MGM/Columbia Pictures production began shooting in January and is due for release worldwide on 17 November 2006. Starring Daniel Craig as James Bond, it is currently being filmed in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy and the UK.
The film co-stars Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Simon Abkarian, Tobias Menzies, Ivana Milicevic, Clemens Schick, Ludger Pistor, Claudio Santamaria, and Isaach De Bankole.