Minnie Driver feared Bond girl role would be career 'kiss of death'

Minnie Driver has her agent to thank for her Bond girl role in GoldenEye, revealing she thought it would be the "kiss of death" for her fledgling career.

The actress, who had previously appeared in a few TV shows in her native Britain, was "broke" and "living on the beach in Uruguay" when she was offered a small role in the 1995 blockbuster, but she almost rejected the gig.

"I got a call at the post office from my agent, going, 'They (casting directors) want you to be in a Bond film,'" Driver recalled on breakfast show Today.

"I literally had five bucks to my name and I'm in the bikini that I'd lived in for the last three months, and I go, 'I'm not sure it's such a good idea to do a Bond movie. I feel like it's kind of the kiss of death, I don't know if I should do that! What really happens to Bond girls?', and she (her agent) is like, 'Are you crazy? Get on a plane...!' It was very funny."

Driver ended up portraying Russian country singer Irina, opposite Pierce Brosnan as superspy 007, and she still gets a thrill by the very thought of having her image featured on the GoldenEye pinball machine in Las Vegas.

"It's one of my biggest claims to fame!" she laughed.

The job led Driver to land bigger roles in films like 1996's Sleepers and the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting in 1997.

She has continued to work steadily ever since, and recently got the chance to reunite with Brosnan onscreen in their new psychological thriller Spinning Man, in which she plays the wife of a college professor at the centre of the hunt for a missing student. Brosnan stars as the investigating detective.