By Simon Reynolds

Gemma Arterton has voiced her admiration for the latest James Bond movie Skyfall.

The Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters star – who played MI6 agent Fields in Quantum of Solace – told Digital Spy that she thought the film was “brilliant”, praising the series’ “wonderful” star Daniel Craig.

“I thought Skyfall was brilliant, actually,” she said. “I’m so pleased for all the Bond people for how successful it is.

“I saw them when they won the BAFTA for ‘Best British Film’. It’s like the Bond family. Once you’ve done one you’re still in the family. I’m always thrilled for them, and Daniel as well because he’s so wonderful.”

Arterton and GoldenEye‘s Famke Janssen face off in fantasy horror Hansel & Gretel, but the British actress confessed that the pair didn’t share stories about working on the long-running spy series.

Skyfall picked up two Academy Awards – ‘Best Original Song’ and ‘Best Sound Editing’ – at the Oscars yesterday (February 24).

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters opens in UK cinemas on February 27.

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GALLERY LINKS:
- Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) > Related Clippings > Air Le Mag (France) – February 2013, thanks to Helene and www.jeremyleerenner.com.
- Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) > Related Clippings > Acción (Spain) – February 2013, thanks to Francisco and www.jeremyleerenner.com.
- Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) > Related Clippings > SFX (UK) – April 2013, thanks to Chuckie.
- Scans from 2013 > Mail On Sunday: Live (UK) – February 3, 2013, thanks to Chuckie.

Gemma Arterton

Her forthcoming films include Song for Marion and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

‘I was, dare I say it, nonplussed when I became a Bond girl. I was thrilled, obviously, but there have been other jobs that have got me quietly screaming “Oh my God!” Later I remember being in total shock, and thinking, “Actually, this is going to change my life.”

‘I’ve written a list of directors, actors and producers I want to work with, because I think writing it down might help to make it come true. Director Andrea Arnold is one. She’s from the same part of Kent as me and makes the kind of films I’d like to do myself if I were to direct.

‘The hardest scene I’ve ever shot was bathing in a waterfall of blood. It was for a film that hasn’t been released yet, Byzantium. It was freezing and I was in this flimsy dress – I could only be under the waterfall for seven seconds before I went into shock. They had dyed the waterfall red and it was pouring down on my head. I thought, “I’m going to freeze to death.”

‘When I was nominated for a Bafta all my mates asked me, “What will you do if you don’t get it?”

‘I said, “I’ll do this – look straight at the camera and just mouth F***!” I’d love it if somebody did do that. You’re so nervous when they announce the result, and the camera is on you and you’re smiling in anticipation, and then you don’t get it – and you have to keep your smile going for ages.’

BEST FILM ‘Silver Linings Playbook (three nominations) and Amour (four nominations). Amour was beautiful, while SLP was a perfect film; all the elements worked for me.’

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Gemma Arterton is poised for a career milestone: a top-of-the-marquee role as one-half of the titular storybook siblings in the big budget 3D action flick “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” opening Friday.

The high-concept movie picks up where the famous Brothers Grimm fairy tale left off, with Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Arterton) having turned their childhood victory over the witch who tried to eat them into a full time vocation.

Fifteen years later, they’re bounty hunters specializing in eradicating child-abducting sorceresses. Their winning streak, though, is jeopardized when they go up against the most evil and powerful witch of all.

Getting the chance to do some butt-kicking has been a fairy tale come true, so to speak, for Arterton, whose action resume to date has been a murdered Bond Girl in 2008’s “Quantum of Solace,” a brooding princess in 2010’s “Prince of Persia” and divine eye candy in the 2010 remake of “Clash of the Titans.”

“Usually you are the girlfriend or the love interest or the damsel in distress or whatever, which is fine,” says Arterton. “But being part of a bother-sister dynamic (in “Hansel and Gretel”) meant we were both the heroes, and I didn’t have to do any of that shmooshy stuff, like crying or going, ‘Help me, help me!’”

Though Arterton didn’t have an action-packed pedigree that Renner boasts, director Tommy Wirkola says he knew exactly whom he wanted to play Gretel when he watched her in the 2009 thriller “The Disappearance of Alice Creed.”

“I knew straight away that she was the one,” Wirkola states. “Gemma shares what some might call my sick sense of humor, so we got along great. She gave Gretel the edge and the toughness that the character needed.”

But the English actress nearly missed her chance to break into the business.

On the most important day of her first 17 years — her third and final audition for London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art — Arterton came down with food poisoning.

For the daughter of a welder and a housecleaner from the unglamorous British town of Gravesend, acting already seemed like a longshot. Arterton had worked hard on practicing for her audition piece, a soliloquy as Hermione from Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale.”

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Thanks to Chuckie for the two most recent ones.

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans From 2012: Clippings From 2012

Gemma Arterton has said she would be happy to be called a Bond girl for the rest of her life.

The 26-year-old actress looked sultry on the red carpet in a daring, black Prada jacket, worn as a dress, at the gala screening of her new film Song For Marion at the London Film Festival in Leicester Square.

Arterton played Bond girl Strawberry Fields opposite Daniel Craig in the last film Quantum Of Solace.

She said: “As long as I’m a girl when I’m 78 as well, I’ll be very chuffed about that. I’ve always seen it as such an honour.

“There’s not many people in the world who can say they are, or have been, a Bond girl, so especially this year [the 50th anniversary of the Bond films], you realise what an amazing thing it is, and worldwide. You don’t think many countries know about Bond but they do.

“It’s huge and it’s great to part of something like that.”

Arterton plays a choir master in Song For Marion, the new film from London to Brighton‘s Paul Andrew Williams, about a grumpy old man, played by Terence Stamp who joins his local choir after his wife (Vanessa Redgrave) is stricken with cancer.

Arterton was in her element in the role.

She explained: “I’m a trained singer. That was what I started doing, and then I got into acting by accident. So for me anything to do with music is always going to interest me more than anything else.

“I don’t do as much singing as you’d think in this film, I’m conducting a lot. But it’s great because it was just music all the time, and all these great songs, and it was just such a fun shoot for those reasons.”

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Former Bond girl Gemma Arterton gives ITN her top tips to making it as a lady with James Bond.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of James Bond and the 23rd movie Skyfall, Aston Martin Kuwait is bringing Gemma Arterton to the VIP movie avant premiere set on 26 / 10 /2012.

Gemma has already appeared in the Bond movie Quantum of Solace back in 2008, but is best known for her roles in Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia – despite her smashing beauty, Gemma was born with extra fingers and had surgery to correct this condition, known as polydactyly.

The event and exhibition will open to the public on the 27th of October till the 3rd of November – Aston Martin’s Bond cars will be exhibited at the oum Kalthoum Hall.

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Bond Bosses Regret Killing Gemma Arterton’s Strawberry Fields

Bond movie producer Barbara Broccoli regrets killing off Gemma Arterton in Quantum Of Solace – because she would have liked to have seen the young Brit in 007′s arms again.

Arterton was 21 when she was picked to play Strawberry Fields in Daniel Craig’s second outing as the superspy and admits she was too young and inexperienced to really soak up what it meant to be a Bond girl, so she was thrilled to meet up with Broccoli at Pinewood Studios in England on Global Bond Day (05Oct12) and discover the filmmakers regretted her oily death in the 2008 movie.

She tells the Bbc, “I just met Barbara Broccoli in the corridor and she said, ‘I wish we hadn’t killed you off’. It would have been so good to come back.”

Arterton admits the time she spent on the Bond set was a lot of fun, but she was too “naive” to really get into the movie.

She adds, “It was my second movie and I just remember feeling it was a dream… There was a really good vibe on set and it was a great time.”

And joking about her “awful” sex scene with Craig, she reveals, “It was my first scene, my first day on the set… and I remember not really knowing what was gonna happen, and then Daniel Craig just started kissing my back and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ but then had to pretend that I was cool about it… He’s (Craig) a lovely guy, so he made it very easy.”

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Former Bond girl Gemma Arterton has described her experience filming a love scene with Daniel Craig.

The actress, who starred with Craig in 2008′s Quantum of Solace, said the scene was shot on her first day on set. She told the BBC’s Lizo Mzimba that she struggled to “pretend that [she] was cool with it.”

The James Bond series is celebrating its 50th birthday, the anniversary of the release of the first Bond film, Dr No.

Watch video over HERE

10 minutes with Gemma Arterton — The face of G Star Raw on toughening up for a fairy tale.

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: ES Magazine (UK) – September 16, 2011, thanks to Lorna

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

The Art of Gemma — I’ve finally scanned and added to our gallery an Australian magazine that I’ve had for awhile.

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: OK!USA (Australia) – May 3, 2010

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

Gemma Arterton wishes her character hadn’t been killed off in ‘Quantum of Solace‘ because she would love to make another James Bond movie.

The British actress played Agent Strawberry Fields, who died after saving the suave spy, and Gemma had such a great experience making the movie she wishes she could work on the new film – which will be directed by Sam Mendes.
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You can buy your own copy of the ‘Bond Girls Special’ issue of MI6 Confidential magazine, now shipping worldwide from mi6confidential.com.

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: MI6 Confidential – Issue 9 – Bond Girls Special

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

Few knew her name when she was cast as James Bond’s latest female foil in the 2008 film “Quantum of Solace”, but the role of Strawberry Fields was about to launch Gemma Arterton’s career in to the stratosphere.

A graduate of RADA and a regular with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gemma had only just made her first big screen appearance in “St. Trinian’s” when she was beckoned by director Marc Forster for a screen test. The rest, as they say, is history. After bedding Bond and coming to a sticky end, Gemma’s character won the hearts of fans as a throw-back to the classic style of Ian Fleming’s heroines.

In an interview published by MI6 Confidential magazine, Gemma explained how she wanted to bring a bit of edge to her character. “We wanted to make her really retro and a bit of a throwback. It’s typically Fleming and a little bit tongue in cheek,” she said. “She wore a typical raincoat and yet in one scene she didn’t have anything on underneath. We tried to make her straight laced but with a real naughty edge to her.”
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