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Carole Bouquet ACTUALLY SPEAKS about being a Bond girl
Don't be too hard on her, She's commenting on how they were made in those days.
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I can see where she is coming from.
30 years.
I think she looks very good. Probably the best aged Bond girl of the lot.
She does look very good though.
And I do share her opinion about Singapore!
It was unimportant in the sense that she became reknowned for other movies, at least in the francophone world. I remember reading an interview with her and she mentioned that FYEO did nothing for her career one way or the other. it didn't hurt it, but it did not advance it either.
Ah, but that's just French arrogance. It's the way the French are. Give them something and a month later they'll have invented it themselves.. ;)
Not French arrogance, in Bouquet's case she did other movies that made her a respected, even reknown, actress. And this comes from someone who loves FYEO (maybe my favourite Moore Bond) and thinks she was great in it. But she was not taken seriously after FYEO, she was just one Bond girl.
I don't what you mean about not being taken seriously about FYEO, it was perceived as a "serious" Bond at that time as matter of fact, with the symbolic explosion of the gadget-filled Lotus car replaced by her 2CV.. I'd rather say she was never serious about being in action movies, and that she somehow thinks it may have stopped her from doing more good, serious movies in the years after (her immediate after-Bond movies were not as successful as the ones she did before IMO).
Anyway yes in France Bouquet is one of our major actress, and most of the French, I'm pretty sure, thinks that she just happened to make a Bond movie when she was young, and definitely not defines her with this role (while in the US, only FYEO was a noticable release of her). She even had her major breakthrough well before Bond actually (the Bunuel movie). FYEO was her only 3M viewers movie in France, sure, but she did in a lead role (and not "only" female led role) about ten movies that made 1/1.5/2M viewers, and none of them were action movies but rather very successful serious dramas and some comedies. She is also, believe it or not, able to laugh about her glamorous image, even making a spoof ad about dentures in one French academy award night.
In the same vein, I think most here have already forgotten Mathieu Amalric was the baddie in Quantum of Solace, even if it is also his biggest movie if you look at the dollars. Although not as popular as Bouquet by quite a large margin, he is also a major French actor (and btw Mikkelsen was/is also a major actor, IMO). And well, Amalric also gave some interviews on his Bond experience that some would consider a bit underwhelming and/or arrogant (he said he sometimes almost felt he was on a low budget French movie, because the story was made almost every day on the spot by a young writer on the set). Interestingly, he also said the producers had proposed him to have some physical deformity but he and the director did it without as we all know. Did Bardem and Mendes say "ok, but for three seconds" ?
So in the end, all her bitterness about the Bond experience may also relate to that and nothing more (+ the difference between the movies she did before Bond and the movies she could do just after, IMO)... From what one could guess about the few words she said about this incident, the stranger finally left on his own, but she made her mind about her partner.
"Not so fast, Mr Bond"
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/6cddad07b7/jean-dujardin-s-villain-auditions?rel=player
Mod edit: double post merged into one.
Just not good ones in the case of the former. Jourdan was far more entertaining and didn't bore me half to death.
Carole also had a career in film before FYEO, she was not a Lazenby and knew what she was doing to make each scene work and her character a memorable one.
:))
And as for French arrogance, I generaly find the French movies quality wise easily better than most Hollywood has to offer. My favorite movie I have seen this year is: Intouchables which is a beautifull and thoughtprovoking movie on handicapped and their care.
You see we don't know about this in the UK. You get interviews from her that we don't get so thank you for that.
Regarding the above business - I know her boyfriend at her time was hooked on heroin so I wonder if it is linked to that. Roger mentions that in his biography and he also mentions that he liked her. Whether he heard anything when she called out we don't know. I bet if he heard about the incident now it would take him by surprise.
She still remains my favourite Bond girl and her Melina Havelock remains a turning point for me in the way Bond girls were written in the eighties ie more three dimensional, abit more backstory then we got in the seventies.
As for French arrogance - well, my DVD shelf is littered with French cinema (including Carole's superb 'Lucie Aubrac') and compare that with the production line of shit produced by Hollywood - they have reason to be.
im pretty sure everyone forgot about QOS...
Almost, but that acolade goes to Jane Seymour
Actually, it might go to this lady whose got a good twenty years on Carole and Jane.
For the completist, the (French) interview in which she digs up the story is somewhere during this 1hr radio show :
http://www.europe1.fr/MediaCenter/Emissions/Faites-entrer-l-invite/Sons/Faites-entrer-l-invite-Carole-Bouquet-1327939/
As you can see it's very recent (end of November). I think we never heard about that before (and remember, she did not speak out for the sake of it, it was the MC that kept on wanting to talk about Roger and so she seemed a bit annoyed to hear for minutes how wonderful he was etc)
It is, the stranger was sent by her boyfriend because he somehow "sold" her, but she was clueless about it.
Remember that what gets released in DVD in foreign countries is probably the best of French cinema. If you compare the best of French cinema to the average Hollywood movie you've got the feeling it's a bit superior in quality, but the truth is that you have talents everywhere, the French average and bad movies just don't reach you, while Hollywood force foreign TVs and theaters to buy their bad movies if they want to have the good ones...
And well, IMO, Bouquet's most successful comedy (and her most successful box office after FYEO actually), is "Grosse Fatigue", which is the kind of movie who simply can't be understand by a foreigner IMO (it's based on in-jokes about French actors, she even plays "herself" in it).
And it's been said in the above how French actors and actresses in Bond gave us such good performances. Lonsdale, Green, Auger, Clery, Louis Jourdan, although I wasn't too impressed with Marlohe this year or Matthew Almaric from Solace, but without question they have provided us with more delights than just Bardot, flair soccer and The Statue of Liberty. Tres Bien
Bonne nuit I-)
Very interesting interview with Bouquet here. If you don't understand the french,then there is some great behind the scenes shots of filming FYEO. Especially the filming of the scene when Bond kicks the car off the cliff.