Julia Stiles: I'm no Bond girl

Julia Stiles could never see herself as a Bond Girl.

The 33-year-old actress appeared alongside Matt Damon in the Bourne movies, but sees her character Nicky as very different to the sexy women who litter the 007 franchise. For Julia, it’s important that her character adds something of substance to a plot.

“I could never be a Bond girl,” she told British newspaper The Independent. “I’ll only accept a part if there’s something I can contribute to a character.”

In her latest outing, Julia stars as the prostitute title character in TV show Blue. It started life as a web series but has now been picked up and is about Blue’s struggle to keep her night job – by day she works for accountants – hidden from her son.

To help her with the premise Julia talked to women who do the job for real, focusing on the practical areas as she didn’t want to “delve” into their emotional lives. Nonetheless she occasionally got a glimpse of them.

“I was surprised that sometimes sex didn’t occur, they were just paid for their time. They were all really young; the oldest woman I spoke to was my age, in her early thirties, and she had already started transitioning into being a madam because it’s sort of retirement age in your early thirties,” she explained.

“Blue keeps her work secret and funnily enough one of the women was driven to our meeting by a man and she said ‘Oh, this is my fiancé...’ He went away to get a coffee and waited outside and she said, ‘By the way, he doesn’t know I do this.’”

Julia’s breakout role was in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You and she went on to start in many other flicks. Those included Mona Lisa Smile with Julia Roberts, who the star credits with showing her how to behave on set.

“Julia [Roberts] doesn’t adopt an intimidating attitude,” she said. “I learned so much from her about being in the public eye and keeping your integrity.”