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Camille: "My father worked for the military junta. He was a very cruel man... but he was my father. When I was a small child the opposition sent General Medrano to our house. He shot my father. He did things to my mother and my sister and then strangled them while I watched. I was too young to be any trouble, so he just smiled at me and set the house on fire. He left his mark."
James Bond: "So when I pulled you off the boat..."
Camille: "I waited years for that chance."
James Bond: "I apologize."
―Camille Montes discussing with James Bond his motives for revenge against General Medrano.[src]

Camille Montes Rivero is a fictional intelligence operative working for the Bolivian Secret Service who is seeking revenge for the murder of her family by exiled dictator, General Medrano. The main heroine and Bond girl in the 2008 James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, she was portrayed by Ukrainian-French actress and model, Olga Kurylenko, and was also doubled by stunt-performer, Nicola Berwick.[1] Still portrayed by Kurylenko, the character also featured in Activision's tie-in video game of the same name, re-named Camille Rivera.

Biography[]

Background[]

Camille Montes was the youngest daughter of Ernesto Montes, a Bolivian military officer employed by the Junta of Commanders of the Armed Forces (and apparently a "very cruel man"), and an unidentified Russian prima ballerina. When she was a young girl, the opposition in Bolivia sent General Medrano to the family house; he shot Ernesto, raped Camille's mother and eldest sister before strangling them to death, and then smiles at Camille before leaving and setting the house on fire, which is the cause for the burnt scars on her back. This left Camille severely traumatised and pyrophobic, but also instilled in her a burning (pun not intended) hatred of and desire to kill Medrano. Once she was old enough, she joined the Bolivian Secret Service and spent a long time waiting for a chance at revenge. To that end, Camille has approached environmentalist and Quantum operative, Dominic Greene, and had sexual congress with him in order to be able to reach Medrano with whom Greene made a deal in overthrowing the Bolivian government in exchange for giving ownership of a seemingly barren piece of Bolivian land for its vast resources.

Haiti[]

In August 2006, realizing that Camille only sleeps with him to approach Medrano and she is trying to kill him, Greene sent hitman Edmund Slate to murder her by pretending to be a geologist with whom she had planned a meeting at Port-au-Prince, Haiti. However, British Secret Service agent James Bond kills Slate in his hotel room with his own agenda and taks the assassin's briefcase. As the spy is walking on the street, Camille sees him and tells him to get in her car, mistaking him for the geologist. As the Bolivian operative drives 007 off, she finds a gun and a picture of herself at the bottom of the briefcase and pulls her gun on Bond, who quickly jumps out of the car commenting "That wasn't very nice!". Camille later goes to a nearby dockside to confront Greene for trying to get her killed but the villain turns her over to Medrano, requesting that he kills her once he is done with her to sweeten their new partnership. Fortunately, Bond pursues them and manages to save Camille and the pair make escape, killing many of Medrano's men in the process. An unconscious Camille is then dropped off at a hotel down the river before Bond continues his investigation of Greene.

Bolivia[]

Camille: "So, its British Intelligence now. What the hell do you want from me?"
James Bond: "You're going to show me Dominic Greene's Tierra Project. Are you up to it?"
Camille: "Do I have a choice?"
James Bond: "Do you want one?"
―Camille Montes and James Bond[src]
Quantum of Solace - Greene shows Camille the dead employee

Green and Camille

A few days later, Camille is present at a party hosted by Greene, who celebrates the land in Bolivia and attempts to make other deals. In order to force the billionaire to tell him where Medrano is, Camille makes him lose investors and a furious Greene tries to push the spy through a balcony, but Bond intervenes again and leaves with Montes. The criminal operative sends his right-hand man Elvis after them but 007's colleague Strawberry Fields trips the henchman and sends him tumbling down a staircase, leaving Bond and Camille leave the party. Unfortunately, Greene has the corrupt Bolivian police chief murdering French agent René Mathis in order to frame Bond and have the spy arrested by the police. However, Bond and Camille manages to escape after killing two of Carlos' policemen and then borrow an antiquated transport plane. Their pilot towards Bolivia's Atacama Desert to learn more about Greene and Medrano's plans. Carlos so dispatches a militarized Aermacchi SF.260TP fighter-trainer to pursue the duo and kill them on sight. To that end, the unidentified pilot riddles Bond and Camille's plane with bullets, destroying one of the engines and causing it to produce heavy smoke. Despite the damage, Bond manages to improvise by using the smoke to block the pilot's vision, placing his aircraft in such a manner as to reduce the SF.260's airspeed; causing him to lose control and crash into a rock formation. Bond and Camille fall into a chasm but survive thanks to a parachute. While they are alone, Camille talks with Bond about his motives for her revenge against Medrano.

The pair later leads a raid at Perla de las Dunas where Greene and Medrano attempt to finalise their deal, killing all of Greene's thugs and Medrano's men. As Bond fights against Greene, Camille makes her way to Medrano' suite, where she frees the maid the general attempted to rape and lets her escape. However, Medrano attacks the vengeful agent, gloating of the time when he raped and killed her mother. The ruthless General then tries to rape Camille, but she fights back and grabs her gun, aiming at Medrano. Swearing that she will burn, the dictator foolishly charges at Camille in an attempt to kill her, but the latter forcibly shoots the General in the head, killing him and ending her quest for vengeance. However, as the burning hotel is falling apart, Camille starts to panic but manages to escape the building with Bond, leaving Medrano's corpse to be buried in the rubble. Bond later escorts her to a train station where she is last seen walking for an unknown future.

Alternate continuities[]

Quantum of Solace (video game)[]

Personality[]


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Behind the scenes[]

For the part of Camille, director Marc Forster chose Olga Kurylenko because out of the 400 women who auditioned, she seemed the least nervous.[2] When she read the script, she was glad she had no love scene with Daniel Craig; she felt it would have distracted viewers from her performance.[3] Kurylenko spent three weeks training to fight with weapons, and she learned a form of indoor skydiving known as body flying.[4] Kurylenko said she had to do "training non-stop from the morning to the evening" for the action scenes, overcoming her fears with the help of Craig and the stunt team.[5][6][7] She was given a DVD box set of Bond films, since the franchise was not easily available to watch in her native Ukraine.[4] Kurylenko found Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies inspiring "because she did the fight scenes by herself."[2]

The producers had intended to cast a South American actress in the role.[8] Kurylenko trained with a dialect coach to perform with a Spanish accent.[6] She said that the accent was easy for her because she has "a lot of Hispanic friends, from Latin America and Spain, and it’s an accent I’ve always heard".[9] When reflecting on her experience as a Bond girl, she stated she was most proud of overcoming her fears in performing stunts.[10]

QoSPublicity5

Barbara Broccoli has said that she intends for Camille to return for a future film. If this happens, Camille will become the second Bond girl, alongside Madeleine Swann, to make a return appearance since Eunice Gayson, as Sylvia Trench, appeared in Dr. No and From Russia with Love and Rubelvitch from The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy, albeit as a minor character.

Gallery[]

Camille Montes/Gallery

Trivia[]

  • Camille Montes is the only main Bond girl not to indulge in sexual intercourse with James Bond in the Eon films. The major and villainous Bond girl, Xenia Onatopp, also did not make love to Bond, despite some foreplay however she was not the main Bond girl in GoldenEye.
  • Camille shares similarities with Melina Havelock from For Your Eyes Only as she also attempted to avenge her family's death at the hands of a villain.

References[]

  1. Jay Richardson. (2018). The Stunts of Bond with Paul Weston & Jay Richardson (YouTube). James Bond Radio. Event occurs at 35:55.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Matt Mueller. "On the Set of 'Quantum Of Solace': Olga Kurylenko: The Bond Girl", Premiere. Retrieved on 14 January 2009. 
  3. Tim Masters. "Talking Shop: Olga Kurylenko", BBC News, 31 October 2008. Retrieved on 31 October 2008. 
  4. 4.0 4.1 Mark Brown. "Everything changes but Bond", The Guardian, 24 January 2008. Retrieved on 24 January 2008. 
  5. Chile Soundbites videos. Sony Electronic Press Kit. Retrieved on 11 April 2008.
  6. 6.0 6.1 Chris Tilly. "Olga Kurylenko Q&A", IGN, 31 January 2008. Retrieved on 31 January 2008. 
  7. Hollins, Grant. "Street urchin to Bond girl", The Sun, 5 April 2008. Retrieved on 6 September 2011. 
  8. "Bond 22 Pre-Production Diary (22)", MI6-HQ.com, 30 December 2007. Retrieved on 31 December 2007. 
  9. Rob Scheer. "INTERVIEW: Olga Kurylenko on "Quantum of Solace"", UGO, 14 November 2008. Retrieved on 6 September 2011. 
  10. David Giammarco. "From Ukraine, with love", The Herald. Retrieved on 18 September 2008. 

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