• Kate Winslet on the verge of 50: "I think I can no longer afford to eat badly or drink too much wine"

  • Emma Thompson: "Everything around us reminds us women how imperfect we are"

  • Andie MacDowell: "I can be older and be seen as vital, pretty and sexy"

Ordinary mortals discovered

Olga Kurylenko

(Berdyansk, Ukraine, 1979) as a Bond girl in

'Quantum of Solace'

(Marc Forster, 2008), but not so the French director

Xavier Giannoli,

who noticed her in 'To the Wonder ' (Terrence Malick, 2002), a rarity in his filmography where he gives life to one of the vertices of

a love triangle.

The award-winning director, who swept the Cesar Awards in 2022 with seven awards for 'The Lost Illusions', was preparing his first series,

'Blood and Money',

based on a multi-million dollar carbon tax fraud.

For his second season, which arrives on Filmin on March 26, he needed an actress to give life

to a sensual and reckless hustler.

"On the surface, she is a beautiful woman, who has lived many lives, but ultimately she is a tragic character," Giannoli describes.

Olga Kurylenko, the Dickensian childhood actress

The role fit, both physically and experientially, the profile of Kurylenko, an artist with

a Dickensian biography.

The Ukrainian was born in a small port city next to the Sea of ​​Azov during the death throes of the Soviet Union.

He grew up in an apartment with his grandmother, his mother and

a motley group of relatives.

From that busy childhood, she remembers darning her clothes and

the rush of getting to class with broken shoes.

At the age of 13, a talent scout noticed her in a subway station during a vacation in Moscow.

Three years later she flew to Paris and began a career as a model.

Over time she made a place for herself in the cinema.

Now, at 44 years old, she already has

67 films on her resume.

Xavier Giannoli says that his role is similar to his own life.

Do you think so too? When I arrived in France from Ukraine, I lived a moment of survival.

My thought at that time was that I was not going to return to my country in any way.

He worked and worked.

Like the rest of my friends, I received offers of marriage, which is an option, but my obsession was to be independent.

Maybe it's something I learned from my mother, who I always saw getting ahead on her own.

So I identify with those humble origins, but I know people like my character in real life.

During my modeling career I saw many colleagues who longed for that life full of dangers, playing with fire.

Luckily, I got out of there. Your character likes being watched and photographed. Do you enjoy media attention? When I started my career, social networks didn't exist.

Now everything has changed a lot.

We live in selfie culture, everything is appearance.

It's gotten out of hand.

And I find it sad, because I feel like the more we obsess over physical appearance, the more we lose substance.

It seems that success is based on pouting in front of the camera and getting a million followers.

It's all very superficial.

Nobody cares what you read or what you like. Let's go against them.

What do you like to read? There is a woman who became my reference when I arrived in Paris: Simone de Beauvoir.

I discovered her when I started learning French, because she wanted to perfect the language.

I read Memoirs of a Formal Young Woman.

Then, The Second Sex.

Then, old age...she became my idol.

She had a huge impact on me.

I wanted to be her friend, to become her... I know it's bizarre, a lot of people will read this and say, but what is she saying?

But her words correspond to my vision of the world.

Her thoughts, beliefs and feelings are similar to mine. Her career as an actress is deeply founded, but has she ever considered writing as an alternative? I know my abilities and I know it wouldn't be my thing.

If I wanted to do something other than acting, I would opt for medicine, therapy or psychology.

I am fascinated by the human mind, especially people who go off the rails, who become obsessed or lose their reason.

I see myself working face to face with other people. We imagine that in the distant future, because right now I have partners, between series and films, up to 10 projects. Well, I assure you that I want to slow down.

Now I want to be a housewife.

It's not very glamorous, but I'm doing the opposite of my friends.

When we were young, they only thought about getting married and having a family, while I wanted a career, and now, they want to work and I want to stay at home. Where do you live now? In France.

It's a shame, but since London separated from the European Union a lot has changed.

Many people have also left.

Also, I don't like the gender division that exists in the English aristocracy at all.

And that? I was recently at a dinner and when it was over, the men went upstairs to drink their whiskey and the women stayed at the table.

I told myself, but how is it possible?

I wanted to go up and talk to the boys too.

I like talking to women, of course, but at that moment the topic of conversation was boring: commenting on a dress, the bag that I don't know who had bought... It's exactly the opposite of what Simone de Beauvoir postulated, we must walk together, discuss problems, share our lives.

Imagine marrying one of those guys, who don't want you to speak to them.