- In an interview with The Sun, Gemma Arterton said that she still receives criticism for playing
Bond girl Strawberry Fields in "Quantum of Solace." - Arterton said that she was as "poor as a church mouse" when she took on the role at 21, but has since realized there is "so much wrong with Bond women."
- Arterton said Fields should have said no in the movie rather than say yes to Bond's seduction and sleep with him. Fields was drowned in crude oil shortly after this.
Gemma Arterton said she still receives criticism for playing a Bond girl in "Quantum of Solace," and has realized how much there is wrong with Bond women in the franchise.
In an interview with The Sun about her new three-part TV series "Black Narcissus," Arterton said that she regrets playing Strawberry Fields in
"At the beginning of my career, I was poor as a church mouse and I was happy just to be able to work and earn a living. I still get criticism for accepting Quantum of Solace, but I was 21, I had a student loan, and you, know, it was a Bond film," Arterton said.
"But as I got older I realized there was so much wrong with Bond women. Strawberry should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes."
In "Quantum of Solace," which is generally seen as Craig's weakest Bond entry, Strawberry Fields is an MI6 agent in Bolivia who tries to be taken seriously by others, despite being described as just an office worker by Dame Judi Dench's M.
Fields initially fights Bond when they first meet, but is roped into helping 007 out and is soon seduced by him. Fields is eventually murdered by being drowned in crude oil.
When Arterton was first cast in the role in 2008, the actress, who was 21 at the time, told the BBC: "I felt like a giggly girl, and I felt so young and inexperienced - but I kissed
Arterton also told the BBC that her character wasn't as "frolicsome" as other Bond girls, whose characters have often been deemed as sexist.
In 2018, Arterton wrote a short story based on the character titled "Woke Bond Women," which examined the character in light of the #MeToo movement, and was part of Scarlett Curtis' book "Feminists Don't Wear Pink… and Other Lies."
In it, Arterton rewrites the role so that Fields declines Bond's invitation to his hotel room, isn't seduced by him, and therefore avoids her crude oil death.
As reported by the Evening Standard, Arterton wrote: "'No thank you,' I say. Maybe he is attractive, but he's at least 20 years older than me, we've only just met, he's a colleague. Plus this man has a reputation. Don't women who go up to his hotel room and sleep with him usually die in some horrific yet iconic way? No, no. Not me."
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, only the second-ever female Bond writer (after Johanna Harwood cowrote "Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love"), was brought on to help tweak the script for Craig's final outing as 007: "No Time to Die."
Waller-Bridge, who created "Fleabag" and "Killing Eve," told Deadline that "the important thing is that the film treats the women properly" rather than Bond himself.
In "Black Narcissus," Arterton costars with another former Bond girl, Diana Rigg, who played Tracy Bond in 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Rigg died earlier this year.
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