Ana de Armas was worried her role in ‘No Time to Die’ would "ruin" her career.
The 31-year-old actress will play the mysterious Paloma in the upcoming James Bond movie and though she was excited to land the role, she had reservations because she’s always found the female characters in the franchise "unrelatable".
She said: "Obviously I was jumping all over the place and very excited.
"But I needed to be sure it wouldn’t jeopardise all the work I’d been putting in, that it wouldn’t ruin everything. And the Bond women have always been, for me at least, unrelatable."
But Ana is thrilled with the fact her character feels like a "real woman" thanks to writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge but she’s still a part of the "fantasy" life of a Bond movie.
She added to America’s Vanity Fair magazine: "You could also tell that Phoebe was in there. There was that humour and spikiness so specific to her.
"My character feels like a real woman. But you know, we can evolve and grow and incorporate reality, but Bond is a fantasy. In the end you can’t take things out of where they live."
And Daniel Craig – who will play 007 for the last time in the movie – admitted he hates the idea of "Bond girls".
He said: "I don’t even call them Bond girls. I’m not going to deny it to anybody else. It’s just I can’t have a sensible conversation with somebody if we’re talking about ‘Bond girls.’ "
The 51-year-old actor feels "so lucky" to have worked with Ana on both ‘No Time to Die’ and ‘Knives Out’ and was particularly impressed with how well she handled being a part of the huge franchise.
He said: "I should always be so lucky to work with a woman like that. This is a movie where there’s a lot of shit going on, a lot of big acting, myself very much included, but she shines through because she’s the real deal.
"She’s got very good comic timing and we’re not offering her a huge part. But she came in and just nailed it.
"She had very little to go on, the scripts are being rewritten, you’re changing things all the time or throwing them at her, and she’s not fazed by it."
Ana de Armas had Bond girl reservations
