FEMALE ACTION HERO

ACTOR ABLE TO SHED THE TOUGHNESS THAT MADE HER AN ACTION STAR

Olga Kurylenko has become one of the hardest working female action heroes on the screen.

The chase for good and bad began in earnest with the role of a lifetime cast in a substantial costar role as Camile in the James Bond film, Quantum of Solace (2008).

The film’s main thread is that a climate friendly foundation is actually a rogue global corporation.

Kurylenko plays an operative more interested in avenging her father’s death than helping Daniel Craig’s Bond stop the money laundering and criminal enterprise of Green Planet.

Mathieu Amalric plays the villain, Dominic Green.

Kurylenko lays a foundation for a career as one of the toughest hardest working female action heroes in the business by showing a lot of hate and anger but also the softer fallible feminine side developed from being a victim of some sort of brutality and injustice.

A year earlier, Kurylenko played a tough street prostitute eventually bonded to a professional assassin who is pursued by Interpole and the Russian military in his frantic pursuit of his targets, in Hitman (2007).

Kurylenko merges the toughness of the street prostitute with the hard work of an action hero to create an on screen persona that has reappeared in one form or another in one action film after another.

In Centurion (2010) Michael Fassbender stars with Kurylenko in a period piece about a Roman legion battling for their lives trapped behind enemy lines.

Kurylenko continues to be cast beside Hollywood leading actors after developing a supporting character that often rivals but does not dominate the film’s leading action hero role. 

In Oblivion (2013) Tom Cruise takes the action hero to a different time in this sci-fi film. Kurylenko just happens to join the narrative when the action scenes pick up.

In Sentinelle (2021) Kurylenko finds herself in the lead action actor role after her character Kyra returns from military service in Syria with post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Kurylenko also has the ability to shed the tough action hero personality for the softer, more vulnerable character, finding supporting roles with such leading actors as Pierce Brosnan and Russell Crowe.