Leaving James Bond behind, the actress takes on comedy as a kidnapped supermodel wife of an aging rock star.
Former Bond girl (Quantum of Solace) and Terence Malick muse (To the Wonder) Olga Kurylenko turns on the laughs alongside Antonio Banderas in Simon West’s comedy Salty, about an aging rock star whose supermodel wife is kidnapped by shipless pirates. Carnaby is screening the film to buyers at the EFM.
Is this your first comedy role?
I’ve been part of other comedies before, but the roles were never that big. I think this is the biggest and also the first time I really got the taste of comedy. It’s so much fun.
How funny is Antonio Banderas?
He’s hilarious. He’s very natural. He’s Spanish, so has this fire in him. He was going pretty far with the characters.
He wasn’t just doing his Puss in Boots voice all the time?
No, although I love that! What a shame he wasn’t doing it.
Could you be the pampered wife of an aging rock god, like your character?
If I could, I would have done it already! Believe me, I had many opportunities. I was a model, and it’s quite easy to end up surrounded by people who look for those kinds of wives. So if you wanted it, you just grabbed the opportunity. But you have to want it, and I did not. I think I’d die of boredom. But never say never!
You’re also in The Death of Stalin. Is this a different sort of comedy?
It’s a satire, so it’s not that first-degree comedy. But Armando Iannucci is an amazing writer – everything he writes is brilliant. But my role there was not very funny.
Who do you play?
I play Maria Yudina, who was Stalin’s favorite pianist. She was very insolent and hated him. And despite of this, he still admired her work. She was quite a strong woman and didn’t care about the regime and didn’t want to obey.
How are your piano skills?
I had to learn lots of big pieces – Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 23” and Chopin’s preludes … so basically I’m playing a lot of piano! But I did seven years of music school when I was a kid so I know how to play and read music.
Who should play the next James Bond?
There are so many guys. We have an actor in Salty, Ben Cura, who could be a good James Bond, but maybe he’s too young. He’s only 28.