Casting New Female "Bond" Counterpart Becoming More Difficult

As the character of James Bond changes over the years in various film incarnations over the original that Ian Fleming created, so too do the women that work with him. Although flagrantly sexist and objectified characters like "Pussy Galore" and "Holly Goodhead" were once the norm, this is changing - as not only are "Bond girls" no longer a connotation used publicly, but they're also a character concept from which film producers are trying to move away. Due to this, the casting of the female counterparts to James Bond has become difficult, as they are no longer just merely eye candy - according to Daniel Craig, who will be playing James Bond in the upcoming Quantum of Solace, "Her character is someone Bond sees as a version of himself, someone bent on revenge."

Barbara Broccoli, the daughter of Albert "Chubby" Broccoli, inherited the Bond license from her father, and was responsible for the selection of the new "Bond girl," and chose the exotic yet intelligent Olga Kurylenko of Max Payne and Hitman to play Strawberry Fields. Although not quite as bad as "Pussy Galore," it was seen as a step in the right direction.

"I thought," said Kurylenko to the Boston Herald, "'This is a new era, and they won't be going back.' So I talked to them about the part. If she was anything like Vesper (the female lead in the last Bond movie, Casino Royale), I'd want to play her. She's strong. She's not looking for Bond's help. She's feisty."

Kurylenko, growing up in the Ukraine, didn't "grow up on Bond. I saw those films with Soviet villains, Russian and Ukranian villains, much later. Watching them now, it doesn't have the same impact I am sure it would have had I seen them in the Ukraine."

When asked what the lesson of playing the lead woman in the previous 22 Bond films was, she had one thing to say: "If you sleep with Bond, you die. If you don't . . ."

Quantum of Solace will be in theaters on November 14.