Gemma Arterton speaks out on 'Quantum of Solace' role: 'As I got older I realized there was so much wrong with Bond women'

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Actress Gemma Arterton found international fame as ill-fated agent Strawberry Fields opposite Daniel Craig’s James Bond in the 2008 film Quantum of Solace. But in a new interview with the Sun, the British star says she’s gotten flak for being a Bond girl — a role she admits she has her own reservations about.

Gemma Arterton (pictured at the Quantum of Solace premiere in 2008) says she's come to see that "there's so much wrong" with how the women in James Bond films are portrayed. (Photo: REUTERS/Luke Macgregor)
Gemma Arterton (pictured at the Quantum of Solace premiere in 2008) says she's come to see that "there's so much wrong" with how the women in James Bond films are portrayed. (Photo: REUTERS/Luke Macgregor)

“At the beginning of my career, I was poor as a church mouse and I was happy just to be able to work and earn a living,” Arterton, who has also starred in Their Finest and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, told the British newspaper.

“I still get criticism for accepting Quantum Of Solace, but I was 21, I had a student loan, and you, know, it was a Bond film,” the actress, now 34, added.

“But as I got older I realized there was so much wrong with Bond women. Strawberry should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes.”

The film — Craig’s second outing as 007 — sees him seducing the beautiful MI6 agent Strawberry Fields shortly after meeting her in Bolivia. The tryst is short-lived, as he returns to his hotel room to find her naked body sprawled across the bed and covered in black oil.

Arterton created an alternate ending for her character in a short story, titled Woke Bond Woman, for the 2018 collection Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies. In it, Strawberry rebuffs Bond’s advances — writing him off as a work colleague 20 years her senior — and lives to see another day, even taking out some baddies of her own.

“I decided to write a piece about what would happen post-#MeToo, post Harvey Weinstein, if my Bond girl was a woke woman,” she explained during an appearance on the Feminists Don’t Wear Pink podcast.

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