Not Just Another Bond Girl

August 2007

FHM has been offered a photo shoot with a little-known actress from a random French art-house movie. Truth be told, we get this a lot. She has a name we struggle to say, let alone spell. And the film, a psychological thriller called The Serpent isn't really our bag either: lots of moody/weird camera angles, some plinky-plonky piano and a bewildering plot involving a photographer being pestered by a vengeful childhood friend. But Olga Kurylenko, the girl playing a doomed model, is distractingly hot. In fact, she steals the show with a naked bondage session. Intrigued, we do our usual diligent research; God bless Google Images. Although she's clearly beautiful, she is just another East European-ish model-turned-actress. But a swift game of paper -scissors-stone decides it: the following week, she flies over from her home in Paris.

The initial signs aren't good. Wrapped in a thick jumper and gulping Lemsip, her nose is a running river of snot and her sentences are punctuated by a hacking cough. And yet... and yet there's something unmistakably sexy going on. The moment we open the lingerie drawer, she turns it on: an ex-lingerie model, perfectly comfortable with her body, nonchalantly striding around in killer heels and floss-like smalls. Better still, our location house has some circular rods holding up the ceiling - a perfect opportunity, it turns out, for her to try out the pole-dancing skills she learnt for another role, in French TV flick Le Porte-bonheur. She wraps one leg gracefully around the pole and spins to the ground. FHM tries, and heroically fails, not to stare. In heavily accented English, she talks about her career. A few months will see the release of Hitman, the video-game-turned-action-film, where she plays a tattooed strumpet on the run with the slap-headed assassin. The early word is it's a bit of a car crash, but we diplomatically avoid mentioning it.

"In Hitman, they wanted to use a body double for me for the naked scenes," she cries. "But I was like, 'Absolutely not!' I've always been very comfortable in my skin. So, I just took my clothes off. I just knew my body was going to be better than hers."

Which we're not doubting. She then mentions some upcoming auditions that she can't talk about, though assures us are pretty exciting. But everyone has 'exciting auditions' these days - and as FHM waves her off, we presume we won't see or hear from her again.

We will be very wrong.

November 2007

Hitman is released. One critic describes it as "a misfire." Others aren't so kind. FHM returns to surfing Google Images.

January 2008

Out of the blue, Eon Productions make an announcement: Olga Kurylenko has a role in the 22nd Bond movie, bafflingly entitled Quantum Of Solace. And not just a swiftly-offed extra: the lead girl, no less. The press release reads: "Olga Kurylenko will play the dangerously alluring Camille, who challenges Bond and helps him come to terms with the emotional consequences of Vesper's betrayal." FHM pens its own press release: "FHM would like to thank the Bond producers for casting not only an incredibly hot actress, but one who's a fan of FHM." We break out the champagne. And then desperately try to remember what we did with her phone number.

May 2008

Day 81 of filming on Quantum Of Solace, and FHM has been invited onto the set in Bregenz, Austria. Shooting is taking place at the town's Opera House at the edge of Lake Constance. A floating stage, dominated by a 30ft eye, is being used as a backdrop for the Puccini opera Tosca.

In a pristine tuxedo, Daniel Craig is filming a scene where he finally meets bad guy Dominic Greene, played by Mathieu Amalric, face to face. Of course, things don't go to plan-so while 300 smartly dressed extras mill around. Craig races through the Opera House's restaurant, sends a waiter flying, turns and fires at the pursuing bad guys before rolling over a serving counter and escaping through the kitchen door. It's exciting stuff, although in a let's ruin the magic of cinema moment, instead of gunshots the actors actually shout "bang bang," like children playing cowboys and Indians. Kurylenko, again recovering from a cold, isn't filming scenes today, but arrives to lend support. FHM gets the feeling the Bond set is like one big happy family. And in between shots, 007 himself is quick to praise his new co-star.

"She's doing fantastically well. She realised pretty quickly she was in a Bond movie when we started doing the action scenes. There's been an equal amount of punching and kissing between us. It gets physical at first as Olga's playing an agent and she's on her own mission, so we kind of clash-and physically clash," says Daniel Craig, with a cheeky smirk that Roger Moore would be proud of.

"In the nicest possible way, of course."

Marc Forster the softly spoken Swiss director (Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction) had the demanding job of auditioning more than 300 actresses for the role.

"Beautiful women always fight with their looks," he says. "People say 'Oh, you're too beautiful, you can't do something dramatic or deep! But when Olga came in the room I thought, 'Oh my God. She's deep. She's beautiful and she can really go much further than a lot of other actresses.'"

FHM rolls its eyes and pulls the "deep" leading lady to one side. In fact, Olga tells us, it took three exhausting auditions to get the part. The first a general casting in Paris, the next in London with the director and producers, and the final one with Craig. In full costume, on the actual set.

"I thought I'd blown it-they were seeing three girls for the final audition," she says. "They kept us all separate, so we wouldn't know who we were up against."

She dabs her nose with a hanky. "I kept telling myself, 'I have to keep myself together.' After that I just waited. And then I got a call on Christmas Eve to tell me I had got it. Even then I was sure they were going to change their minds the next day."

Since then her days have resembled an SAS fast-track scheme. "It's been heavy. Everyday, it's: morning-skydiving, afternoon-weapons training, morning-skydiving, afternoon-fight training. It's been so physical, my body has never felt so sore. There's been times where I've literally hurt everywhere," she says. "But I've had worse. When I was 11, I broke two bones in my leg when I was hit by a car. There was blood everywhere, my head was scratched and my nose was bent and blood was streaming down my face. I literally bumped into the car with my face."

We sympathise: once, we badly bruised our leg after falling off a sledge. But the all-new Kurylenko is a sight to behold: she's somehow even hotter, with more defined muscles everywhere. Despite our yellow belt in karate, we get the sneaky suspicion she could easily kick our arse.

"I haven't really punched anyone before, so learning how to do it properly has been great. As a kid I really wanted to do martial arts, but my mum said, 'No it's not for girls, you should do ballet. So I did ballet. She wanted me to be girly. But I'm definitely more of a tomboy. I've learnt so much-I can strip a gun and put it back together in eight seconds."

Which is surprising we'd always vaguely believed everyone from the Eastern Bloc received weapon training as standard. Especially in the former Soviet Union-where, 28 years previously, Olga Konstantinovna Kurylenko was born in Berdyansk, Ukraine. After sharing a small run-down flat with her mother, aunt, uncle, grandparents and cousin, she was spotted aged 13 by a modelling scout at a Moscow subway station. Although initially suspicious-"lingerie model from the Ukraine" is usually a description you'll find pinned to a Soho doorway-she moved to Paris at 16.

"My mum told me, "What do you have to lose? If it doesn't work out, at least you'll have seen Paris. So I went there with two books: a phrase book and a French dictionary. I would go to castings and then in the evening teach myself the language."

After wide-ranging success-including campaigns for la-di-dah fashion labels such as Bisou Bisou, Bebe, Sisley and Just Cavalli-and a failed marriage to a photographer, Kurylenko took acting classes and faced the stigma of the 'model-turned actress.'

"I had so many castings for bimbos or pretty girls where the part would be me walking with a guy or just appearing in the background. I told my agent, 'I'm not doing that, I might as well stick to modelling.' I wouldn't even go to the audition.

Then I was given the script for The Ring Finger and I just knew I wanted it. The director wouldn't meet me because she knew I was a model. But finally she agreed and I got the part ahead of all the French actresses they'd auditioned."

And with that she heads off for dinner. On the menu: hamburgers ("I love them, I'm always looking for a good burger") and we make a date for her cover shoot when she's back in London.

We book a studio near a Gourmet Burger Kitchen, just in case.

JUNE 2008

It's official. FHM makes Olga Kurylenko sick. Despite her tanned appearance, she's suffering again, this time with the flu. And as she marches into FHM's North London studio, she's looking for a fight.

"This is your fault," she says jabbing us in the chest. 'I'm blaming FHM-every time I'm going to meet you guys I fall ill and I'm never ill."

This time, she's spent the last two days in bed-missing out on vital fight training with stunt coordinator Gary Powell. It's the last month of filming. There are still two of Kurylenko's major action scenes to be shot on the 007 stage at Pinwood in the next few days. Plot details of the movie are still sketchy, but we know that her character Camille starts off as Greene's lover before switching sides. And that there's a big plane dogfight, a high-speed car chase in the Italian mountains and a ridiculously exhilarating speedboat chase ("it was like the best rollercoaster ride even.") So most of a Bond film's prerequisite boxes are ticked, then. More impressively, Olga's done most of the complex stunts herself, rather than relying on a wussy stand-in.

"They always prefer that we do as much as possible as it looks cooler, and they don't have to keep cutting away," she says.

"There was this one jump from a roof to a balcony and I don't like heights. I couldn't even go to the edge and look down. I thought, 'There's no way I can do this.' Half an hour later I was doing it. I was so proud of myself, everyone was clapping. Afterwards I was jumping up and down going, 'I want to do more, I want to do more.'

Suddenly, we realise how far she's come-the unpronounceable Ukrainian, from ballet dancer to emboldened Bond girl. But Olga knows that for every Eva Green who goes on to bigger things, there's an Izabella Scorupco (Golden Eye) who is never heard of again.

"Today people are interested, tomorrow they aren't," she says, shrugging her shoulders.

"You can struggle for years and all that people say is, 'Oh, all she does is crap,' and then with one role those same people are going, 'Oh my God, you're a genius.' I have to keep working. I hope I can still have a private life, as people tend to want to know everything about you."

Our cue: time to mumble a polite enquiry about her, love life. Her reply-"I'm enjoying my freedom. I'm nobody's possession"-leaves us kind of thinking she's single. So, ever hopeful, FHM wonders aloud what our cover star would cook us for a romantic dinner for two.

"Some cabbage," she laughs. "People think it's disgusting, but the Ukrainian way, it's delicious. I really don't like to give away the recipe, but it basically has onions, carrots, and tomato sauce. It goes brown and it's really sweet. I'll cook this for you so you can see how amazing it is."

Which will do us just fine: an invitation to rendezvous with one of the hottest Bond girls in decades. It seems we'll definitely see Ms Olga Kurylenko again. Even if it's just to try her cabbage.