Bond Girl’s Many Roles

By Nathan Burstein October 30, 2008

Watch your step, 007: The latest Bond girl has an alternate identity, as a gunslinger in Tel Aviv.

Actress Olga Kurylenko, cast as James Bond’s love interest in the spy series’s 22nd installment, November’s “Quantum of Solace,” already has another film in the can: an Israeli thriller set for release next year. “Walls,” an action flick shot in Tel Aviv, features the 28-year-old former model opposite Ninet Tayeb, an Israeli pop star and TV performer making her movie debut.

Cast in the Israeli film before she auditioned for “Quantum of Solace,” the Ukrainian Kurylenko shot her “Walls” scenes in Tel Aviv over the summer, after Israeli producers pushed back filming to accommodate her participation in the Bond movie. Her roles in both films have been kept carefully under wraps, though it’s safe to say that each involves a form-fitting wardrobe and lots of gunplay.

Kurylenko’s Bond-to-Israel career path isn’t as unusual as it might seem. Rosamund Pike, an English actress overshadowed by Halle Berry in 2002’s “Die Another Day,” traveled to Tel Aviv in 2004 to shoot “Promised Land,” a drama by Israeli director Amos Gitai about human trafficking.

Meanwhile, James Bond himself — alias Daniel Craig — saw his other planned release for this year pushed back to 2009. “Defiance,” in which Craig stars as one of four Polish-Jewish brothers during World War II, will receive its wide release in January, rather than as previously planned in December. Paramount will give the film a limited release December 31 so that it meets eligibility requirements for February’s Academy Awards.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO