Season two of STARZ’s original series “Magic City” is underway and Vera is about to take the stage in tonight’s episode.
We sat down with Vera’s portrayer, Olga Kurylenko to discuss her role as the wife of Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and now we’re getting to see all the fruits of her labor. During our interview, Kurylenko offered her thoughts on the Evans’ marriage and spoke about her dance training. I also asked her a few 007 questions, because I am a Quantum of Solace defender.
CraveOnline: Is Vera playing a much bigger part in Ike’s business this season?
Olga Kurylenko: In this season, I really enjoyed doing it because I think there was more for me to do. First of all, I get to dance, so I was training for a month, preparing my performance. That was great, to perform on stage in front of all this audience. A lot of similar themes are going through the second season, like Vera is still trying to stay very close to her family and create her own family. She’s still on the road to trying to have a baby, but in this season new opportunities open up. A bit odd opportunities, but it is a way for her to have a baby but I can’t give it away.
So she’s very much exploring those possibilities. It’s more dangerous. She’s under risk of maybe losing her husband, let’s say that, because Meg Bannock is so on him. Meg Bannock is basically trying to get a grip on Ike and she’s doing everything she can. Vera very much understands what she’s doing, but Ike is oblivious to it. He’s completely unaware, like very often men are. They’re unaware. Women, we see what women have a background agenda. Men seem not to see that.
If I were in the situation, I might be unaware because I’m not interested in a woman like Meg and I would be devoted my lovely wife Vera.
Okay, then maybe that might be a reason too, but that’s not the reason not to see that somebody from the outside is trying to get into the family. I think especially if a man loves his wife, he should pick up on that and protect his family.
I agree with that.
But if he isn’t aware, he leaves a lot of opportunities for the intruders to come and break everything that they built. So those are very interesting moments and there are a lot of very dramatic moments where Vera is going through crisis and fear of what’s going to happen. There are very interesting scenes with Meg where they’re pretending everything’s okay but both of them know exactly what they’re doing.
I’m glad to hear you’re involved more because even if you were in the background last season, it seems Vera comes through when it really matters. That was her role, right?
Yes, she does. But the first season was the introduction of our show, of the story, of every character so I guess it’s always slower when you’re just trying to introduce. We were just getting everybody acquainted with who we all were. This season, now you guys all know who we are and this season we get to go further into drama and action. There’s a lot of action. This season it all unrolls. A lot of things are exploding.
Like literally explosions?
Literally too. Literally too.
Tell us about the dance.
Well, she’s a former Tropicana dancer so it’s Latin but showgirl also. And she’s from Cuba, but the performance that I do, it’s this show that existed where it’s a simple tourist walking around the city, and she meets a group of shaman and voodoo people. They basically do rituals on her and she becomes possessed. So the second part of the show is her being completely possessed, dancing, doing this tribal dance and trying to basically show her animalistic side. It was a fun dance because I started it dressed as a secretary and I end up completely in feathers with my hair completely wild, dressed in a tiny bikini and barefoot, so very wild.
You sure know how to sell it because that sounds awesome.
And the guy playing drums, I kind of run around the stage going completely mad, with the dance moves of course. It was so much fun. It was so much fun training for it too because it gave me a reason to move, to exercise a bit because otherwise I don’t do it. We have a great choreographer, Richard Amaro, who was amazing. He’s worked with the most famous stars from those years, that are older now, but he still dances with them. He knows all these amazing people and he’s such a great dancer.
When Skyfall came out I rewatched the previous ones, and I really love Quantum of Solace.
You do?
I love it more each time I revisit it.
Oh, thanks. I still haven’t seen Skyfall. I have to see it.
Do you feel your film was underrated?
Thw thing is, the opinions were split in half, so I’ve met people that said, “Oh, this is my favorite Bond movie” as I met people that said, “Oh, I didn’t like it that much.” So I think the opinions were split and it depends on the people. I think people that were into the old style Bond with more glamour and more comedy, because they were funnier movies, they didn’t like Quantum of Solace, but people who are more into action and darker movies and more violence, they loved it. A lot of people that were fans of the old Bond reproached our movie because it was violent, they said it was too dark, too violent, too whatever.
But it was a sequel to Casino Royale which also was the new gritty Bond. Everyone loved that.
I know, but somehow it was not as dark I guess, right? I think Quantum of Solace is somewhat even more action oriented, so again as I said you either love it. You’re like, “Oh my God, yeah, I love action, this is my favorite film” or you’re like, “That’s too much.” It depends on the people, so yeah, I think the opinions differed. What can I say? We can’t all have the same taste. Some people will love it. Some people won’t.
I think some of it was misread though, because there is a sense of humor in it. It just has consequences. He goes on that romp with Gemma Arterton, but it ends tragically.
Yeah, yeah. But hey, I still remember it as a great experience. That was fun. We traveled around the world. I learned so much. All this training, it’s so funny, because I did ADR on Oblivion, and the editor said, there’s a moment where I shoot a machine gun, and he said, “How is it possible that you shoot the machine gun without blinking once?” And I watched the footage, literally I shoot the machine gun [wide eyed]. He said, “Every actor blinks. How is it possible?”
And I said I actually have an answer to that. It’s the Bond training because I said, “You think I started a gun like this, my eyes were shut, the hand was far away, I couldn’t even look. I was freaked out. But six months, every day, they were literally training me like in an army. When you shoot, you can’t blink, when you shoot, you can’t blink. You’re an agent, you can’t blink.” So all the attention was put on not blinking when you shoot. Today, here are the results. I’m prepared for all the other movies and whenever I have to shoot a gun, maybe it depends. Of course there will be moments where I will blink, but I was so worked into not blinking when you shoot, but it’s something you keep for life I guess.
