Details of Rachel Grant`s character have been revealed

23-Jun-2002 • Die Another Day

This Is London have reported on the much rumoured involvement of Rachel Grant in Die Another Day: Steady on, 007, this is taking On Her Majesty`s Secret Service a little too far. MI6`s seductive superspy is set to unleash his famous charms on a relative of the Queen.

Rachel Louise Grant de Longeuil, a 25-year-old cousin of Princes William and Harry, has landed a part as a deadly secret agent who is - typically - undone by James Bond in the new 007 film, Die Another Day.

"My role is relatively small but this is more than I could have ever hoped for," she said. Known as plain Rachel Grant, her full name betrays her blue-blooded background. Her great-grandmother, Ernestine Maude Bowes-Lyon, was first cousin of the Queen Mother.

Grant spent three years as an usherette at the Coronet cinema in Notting Hill, dreaming that one day she would leave the foyer and become a movie star. Since then she has become a presenter on the Science Fiction Channel, starred in a shampoo advert and danced on Top Of The Pops. Now her career has taken a leap forward. Grant, whose first foray into feature films was as a body double for Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, was auditioned for a background part in Die Another Day. She ended up bagging a far meatier role.

"After auditioning I was at Pinewood shooting the scene," she said. "It was terrifying, especially when Lee Tamahori, the director, and the writers came to look me up and down."