French actress Lea Seydoux has joined the new Bond film (with the working title of Bond 24) in what has been reported to be a femme fatale role. Seydoux joins a long history of “Bond girls”, some of whom most recently include Eva Green (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For), Olga Kurylenko (Oblivion), and Bérénice Marlohe (Skyfall).
Interestingly enough, along with the above-mentioned actresses, Seydoux is the fourth consecutive Bond girl to be of French nationality (Kurylenko is also Ukranian). Bond 24 will start shooting in six weeks with Seydoux joining a returning cast of Daniel Craig (Skyfall), Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Ben Whishaw (The Zero Theorem), and Naomie Harris (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom).
Seydoux, known for her work in the Palme d’Or winning Blue is The Warmest Color as well as Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris, has already sparred with the likes of another famous agent – Ethan Hunt, in Brad Bird’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. She is also reuniting with co-star Ralph Fiennes, with whom she collaborated for The Grand Budapest Hotel earlier this year.
Bond girls historically have either one of two relationships with the famous agent, being either an ally or enemy to 007 (but always a love interest). They’ve also proven to deceive and manipulate the agent into an alliance, only to betray him thereafter, as Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd character did in Casino Royale. The confirmation of Seydoux as a femme fatale indicates that she will be of the latter classification.
Bond 24 is set to be released in November of 2015 and will again be directed by Skyfall’s Sam Mendes.