Bond's leading ladies

For 50 years, the leading ladies of the James Bond movies have been impactful. From the unforgettable scene with Ursula Andress emerging from the blue Caribbean waters in Doctor No or Halle Berry in Die Another Day or Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die, the women of Bond have added their own spark to every scene. Skyfall features Bérénice Marlohe and Naomie Harris. Bérénice stars as a mysterious femme fatale and Naomie as a gun-toting MI6 agent.

Prior to getting this part, Bérénice was a struggling actress in France. Through perseverance, she made the auditions for the new James Bond movie and managed to impress the director Sam Mendes. Bérénice says the role was wonderful to play and she enjoyed every minute of the filming. She is quick to admit that she has remained grounded.

"This has been a long journey of many years," Bérénice said. "I foresee working and moving forward in my life and as an actress and in my work. I didn't come here suddenly or by accident."

Bérénice admits that her character is quite modern and unique rather than being influenced by earlier Bond girls.

"I worked on this character to create something suspenseful and charismatic on screen, more than what a Bond girl before can be referred to, just a woman to be saved," Berenice commented.

Born May 1979, she is one of the oldest Bond girls, but has such a presence on screen that she easily pulls it off as an exotic Bond girl.

Naomie, 36, has performed in so many accents - as a gypsy queen in the Pirates of the Caribbean films and the Jamaican immigrant, Hortense, in the BBC adaptation of Small Island - that she has shown her range and ability on screen.

She divulges that her part in Skyfall allowed her to show a different side to her.

"I have to say that I much prefer regular acting to all this action stuff," she says, "normally, I'd do a scene in a room talking - rather than this, which is me smashing through a window, firing a shot, the scenery collapsing."

Harris has been acting for 25 years. She first appeared on television when she was nine years old.

"We wanted someone who could really match up to Bond - and she's got it," Barbara Broccoli, the long-time producer of the Bond films, quickly declares.

Naomie has Jamaican parentage, her mother, Carmen, is Jamaican and was just 18 when she became pregnant. Her Trinidadian father left before Naomie was born. But Carmen went on to pursue a degree in sociology and became a successful screenwriter.

Naomie's mom would always tell her, "You can achieve anything you want." She went on to get a place at Cambridge and she is so grateful she went.

As a child, Naomie would do short plays, as entertainment, for her mothers friends. As a teenager, she enrolled in theatre classes. She was so good she ended up spending all her school holidays filming episodes of ITV's Runaway Bay and Simon and the Witch for the BBC, "while my friends were sneaking out to meet boys".

Her appearance in Small Island was an eye-opener, though. The story centres on Gilbert Joseph, one of the many thousands of Commonwealth soldiers who fought for Britain during the Second World War. Arriving in England to help with the post-war rebuilding effort, he doesn't get quite the hero's welcome he had envisaged.

"It really made me think about my grandparents' experience," says Harris. "They both died when I was quite young, so I never spoke to them about coming to England. I felt like I was retracing their footsteps, learning about what it must have been like for them. I had no idea about the level of racism people suffered when they came over to this country."

Last year, she appeared onstage Danny Boyle's acclaimed Frankenstein. The movie, 28 Days Later, was a huge hit in America and transformed her career.

She is currently working her next project, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, in which she plays Winnie Mandela from the age of 19 through to her 70s (Idris Elba plays the man himself).

Skyfall was filmed in London, South China Sea, Turkey and Scotland. It was produced by Eon Productions studios for distributors MGM, Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment. It features Daniel Craig's third performance as James Bond.