Gemma Arterton has opened up to Red about almost quitting acting, what being a Bond girl was really like, finding love when she least expected it and taking the lead in a much anticipated BBC drama, starting this weekend.

In an exclusive cover interview for our January issue (out now), Arterton said she was in a ‘terrible film…called Runner Runner’, adding: ‘To be honest, I just wanted to quit acting after that. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place.’

She said: ‘The script wasn’t good; I just did it because it was this big American film and everyone was telling me it was a good idea. It was all the things I don’t enjoy when I’m on a film set and there was a lot of animosity and tension. And now it pains me that things like that are out there.’

The actor also spoke candidly about what it was like to play Bond girl Strawberry Fields alongside Daniel Craig in the 2008 film Quantum of Solace.

‘I was like, “Oh, whatever, it’s just another role.” Then my publicist called and said, “Gemma, is there anything you need to tell me? Any skeletons in the closet? You have to tell me now because they will find out.”

‘And I remember thinking, “It’s me, who cares?” But that was also a really valuable moment in my life as it made me kind of guarded and careful. I’ve never wanted to court any

Gemma Arterton was desperate as a teenager to leave her small home town in Kent to go and live in London. She remembers, in detail, the day she finally moved, driving up with her dad and her boxes, to stake her claim at independence and adulthood.

“It was a tiny flat in west London,” she says, her voice stripped of any hint of Gravesend. “My room was like a wine cellar underneath the pavement – I could hear people walking above me – and it had mould all over it. But I was just so happy!” Her dad cried at leaving her “in this disgusting little flat”. But Arterton was thrilled. She was a grown-up, she had her own space. “I got to hang out in the pub round the corner with all the students from Lamda and…” She pauses slightly, then says: “Oh, hello?!”

Here, Arterton is saying hello to my mum, who has walked in on our video call at the precise moment one of Britain’s most recognised actors is telling her tale of adult escape. Because, of course, instead of being in my own grown-up flat in London, I am stuck between tiers and lockdowns at my parents’ house, my childhood home in Peterborough, a place I, too, grew up desperate to leave for bigger things.

You are best known for your feature films, but you got your start in Shakespeare. What is it about his work that continues to excite you?

There are two things that I enjoy, and one is how it is basic storytelling that is echoed in almost all drama. It exists in superhero movies, such as having something Shakespearean in the Marvel films. All of his stories are relatable, and it feels so pure. The other thing is the language, and how he could get under the skin and make you viscerally feel the words. Maybe, it has something with the iambic pentameter and how it follows the rhythm of the heartbeat. The more Shakespeare that I do, the more that I discover, and especially when you are doing it during a play, it becomes exciting to continue to notice things about the language.

You have won some notable awards for your theatrical work. What are some of the few things about the live stage that drives you to pursue that craft?

Theater in the UK is so important, and it really is one of our calling cards. This is something that is in our blood. So when I thought about becoming an actor, I did not think about television or movies; I thought about being in theater. I love being on stage, and I love the immediacy. You are connected with the audience. I understood this interaction better because of the lockdown. You don’t have that on screen, and that energy is something I am craving now. Theater also has stages and in the middle of a long run, you may hate it, but you can make changes in your performance, and in the end, you are in love a different way.

You have a robust resume, but what is really interesting is your voice work on Watership Down. Did you enjoy your voiceover work?

Here in the UK, it comes around every Easter. There is something so relevant to what is going on with the environment. It was an amazing experience and was just thinking the list of actors to face the characters. I love voice work because they want a piece of me to be in the character, and I am grateful for the experience.

When “Black Narcissus” was released in 1947, the film was hailed as a cinematic masterpiece for its Technicolor visuals. It was also condemned by the Catholic Church for its salacious premise involving nuns.

In 2020, saturated color in film is the norm, and what was once considered risqué now seems chaste, all things considered. And although a classic, it’s a film that most contemporary audiences are unfamiliar with — including Gemma Arterton, who stars in the miniseries remake. Introducing new audiences to the story was top of mind for the producers, as was updating dated elements of the original screen adaptation.

“Our producer is the grandson of one of the producers of the original film,” says Arterton, at home in London. “There was great admiration and love that we wanted to show, in terms of the design and certain shots.”

The remake stars Arterton as Sister Clodagh, who leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote Himalayan town, where they plan to help establish a school and hospital. A major theme of the series is renouncement of identity, and sexual repression; the original film was controversial for its depiction of desire within the religious context. The three-part miniseries doubles the length of the original movie — which was based on a novel by Rumer Godden — and the expanded format allows for more time to build on the tension between characters.

Gemma Arterton doesn’t mind being indoors. “You can just get cozy,” she joked during a call with W from her home in London. During the city’s second official pandemic lockdown, the actress has spent her time devouring books (Revolutionary Road was a recent favorite) and contemplating what she’d be like as a director (a “really anxious” one, she guesses). But she’s also been examining her participation in a project that’s been a long time coming: her starring role in Black Narcissus, a mini-series remake of the Oscar-winning epic from 1947, based on Rumer Godden’s novel of the same name.

In the three-part series, which airs its final chapter tonight on FX, Arterton plays Sister Clodagh, a self-flagellating Anglican nun tasked with leading her order to the Himalayas and bringing a divine presence to a formerly hedonistic palace. While she’s there, she finds herself reminiscing—against her own will to employ the most self-control a person could possibly exert—on her past in Ireland, before she cut off her hair, donned a wimple, and started practicing custody of the eyes (averting one’s gaze to maintain pure, chaste thoughts).

But it’s so hard to look away when in the presence of the majestic Himalayan landscape, the Sisters soon learn. The panoramic mountain view is, after all, what really secured the original film as a Technicolor masterpiece, and as actors in the remake, the cast experienced that firsthand, Arterton said. After countless flights and long drives, the cast and crew finally arrived at their filming destination in Nepal last year, to witness the natural terrain that causes the nuns in the story to somewhat lose their minds. “You understand why the nuns were so taken by the beauty of the place,” the actress told me. “Because it really is so pure. It’s so untampered with and so fresh, and because you’re so high up you can quite get quite delirious up there.”