Having convincingly cut up rough in Quantum Of Solace – and earned herself a Jameson Empire Awards Best Actress nomination – Olga Kurylenko is playing another vengeance-fuelled femme fatale, this time in Neil Marshall’s Centurion.
According to the script her character, Etain, is “a savage-looking Pict warrior woman” and you can judge the accuracy of the description yourself, by taking a gander at Empire’s exclusive picture of the erstwhile Bond girl in action.
Marshall dealt with military mayhem in Dog Soldiers, women forced to violence in The Descent and Scotland-set carnage in **Doomsday **and is combining all three in his fourth feature, a relentless action-adventure set in AD 117 (63 years before the events of Gladiator).
“Etain is kind of revenge incarnate,” says the writer/director, speaking to Empire exclusively on set. “Her family were butchered by the Romans, she had her tongue cut out by the Romans, she’s had a hell of a time and she’s out for Roman blood.”
“She’s quite furious,” agrees Kurylenko. “Because one sense is not there – she can’t speak – all the others are more developed. She sees very well and hears very well: she is an animal!”
Kurylenko stars alongside Hunger’s Michael Fassbender, who plays the title character, stranded behind enemy lines, and a superb roster of established and up’n’coming talent, including Dominic West, Noel Clarke, David Morrisey, JJ Feild and Riz Ahmed (soon to be seen in the rather excellent Brit-grit thriller Shifty, out April 24).
Centurion is being produced by Slumdog Millionaire Oscar-snaffler Christian Colson and Robert Jones (Run Fatboy Run) and Empire has visited its sets in both Scotland and Surrey and witnessed the action and intensity up close, so expect regular updates online and in the magazine, in the build up to its release (likely to be later this year).