Interview with Olga Kurylenko promoting `Quantum of Solace` DVD release

From the first Bond film to the 22nd, it's always been a tradition that at least one Bond girl has to die - reports the Daily Mirror.

Now the tables are being turned, and it's beautiful Olga Kurylenko - who plays Camille in Quantum Of Solace - who's handing out the stick.

I've just asked Olga to show me her best Bond girl moves for a photo pose. "No," she replies flatly, before flashing me an assassin's smile. "It's silly."

My mission is to learn all I can about what it takes to become a Bond girl. And who better than Olga to show me the ropes, at a location near Bedford?

Secret agent skills such as skydiving and handling an Aston Martin at speed are on the agenda, but is Olga a naturally daring person herself?

"To be a Bond girl you need courage, charm, determination and feistiness," explains the 29-year-old Ukrainian, who drives a Mini in real life.

"Outside of work, I've done nothing daring, though. I don't even go on rollercoasters. In character, you have to work through the fear and the nausea."

With Olga's advice in mind, first up is a simulated skydive, using the same training facility as Olga and Daniel Craig in Quantum Of Solace for the scenes where they freefall out of a disintegrating plane.

It's some comfort to know that they too had to squeeze into a bodysuit that could have come from the costume department of TV's Battlestar Galactica, and step into a wind tunnel that plays havoc with your hairdo.

"It made me hurt in places I didn't even know I had muscles," recalls Olga of the tunnel. "But then I was doing it three times a week. By the end I was flying on my back and could do flips."

However, the simulator just made me feel sick, and while I won't be confident about jumping out of a plane any time soon, it did give my hair the kind of just-got-out-of-bed look that you'd have after a night of passion with James Bond.

But sleeping with 007 isn't so much of a necessity for today's Bond girl, which is something that Olga, at least, is very happy about. "I'm a different Bond girl for two reasons," she explains. "I don't die, and I don't sleep with James. It is cool."

Next I decide I need a code name. In honour of my civilian name, I settle on Jenga.

Olga didn't have a code name in Quantum Of Solace, but Brit star Gemma Arterton did (Agent Strawberry Fields) and she died on screen. Maybe Olga was right not to.

No sooner have I chosen my code name than it's time for my second assignment, which puts me behind the wheel of an Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

I feel confident about treating these dream wheels better than James Bond does. In the opening car chase, 007 savages his DBS, leaving it with the doors blown off and riddled with bullet holes.

Aston Martin say that only one car was damaged in the making of the film. But never mind the cool kit - one rule of the Bond movies is that no innocent bystanders are killed.

Fortunately, I'm on an isolated racetrack, so even though I'm driving an Aston - capable of 180mph and yours on the road for around £90,000 - bystanders should be OK.

As I rocket up to 140mph, I feel the adrenalin kick in and the nausea subside. As Olga told me earlier, "It's about taking a deep breath and just getting going." You can say that again!

Olga remembers her own euphoria at doing the big stunts.

"I'd never do it in my own life, so I just think, 'Hey, this is your chance, do it now'," she says. "Every night Daniel Craig was in the gym and I was amazed by his hard work.

So I thought, 'OK, I'm going to do more. I'm just going kill myself in the gym'. By the end of the film I was ripped."

Despite the hard work, Olga was thrilled to win a glam role in the biggest film of last year.

So does she fancy going through it all again in the 23rd Bond film?

"It won't be for me to decide," she smiles, "but I'd go for it because last year was so much fun. Why would I refuse the fun again?"

Why not indeed? After all, you only live twice.

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