Step by step, Gemma Arterton has quietly pushed her way to the front of film and television with a series of leading roles, including Tess in the recent BBC dramatisation and the ITV comedy-drama Lost in Austen. And now, of course, Bond.

Arterton, who is 22, won the role of the MI6 operative Agent Fields six months after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. “Gemma is incredibly talented and extremely witty,” says director Marc Forster, who chose Arterton from around 7000 actresses.

The daughter of a welder and a cleaner from Kent, Arterton supported herself through drama school by working at a Covent Garden beauty shop. Last year, she completed roles in St Trinian’s and Capturing Mary for the BBC, and Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, but it was while on stage at London’s Globe Theatre playing Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost that she caught the eye of the Bond casting directors. “I still don’t know why they chose me,” she says. “I don’t have huge boobs and I’m not really a hot girl’. Olga (Kurylenko) is such a hotty totty … I’m more like a Miss Moneypenny!”

In contrast to Kurylenko’s more contemporary Bond Girl, Arterton says Agent Fields (whose first name, revealed in the film, is a classic 007 double-entendre) is a deliberate homage to the 1960s. “She’s very old school, kind of funny, with some very cheeky lines.” Aterton cites Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore in Goldfinger) and Diana Rigg (Countess Teresa in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) as influences. “I love those old British Bond Girls, the ones who were a bit snooty, but were really quite a bit naughty inside.”

The making of Quantum has been exciting; she remembers her love scene with Daniel Craig. “Can you believe it happened my first day on set? I was so nervous. We had to do take after take after take, and each time I was, Goodness me, I can’t believe this is happening’.” Arterton thinks it was the right decision to get one of the toughest scenes out of the way quickly. “Doing that scene before Daniel and I got to know each other was probably best; otherwise it would’ve felt weird – like I was kissing my brother or something.”

Her next project after Solace is the romantic lead opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia. Despite these high-profile film roles though, Arterton is determined to remain anonymous. “I change my look completely and I think that’s a really good way of keeping your privacy.”

# Interview by David Giammarco

Source: The Herald