The would-be ‘Bond girl’ who dodged a Razzie-winning bullet: “I wanted this job more than anything”
While it’s no longer a concern as the franchise continued to move with the times and treated its prominent female characters as more than just eye candy in recent years, in the past, being cast in a James Bond movie usually went one of three ways for the women who played 007’s latest squeeze.
Halle Berry was already an Academy Award-winning star before she debuted as Jinx in Die Another Day, so she was never likely to fall victim to the ‘Bond girl’ curse. For established names, there’s less risk involved because they’ve already got a successful career that a one-note character won’t harm.
There are also the actors who use their one-and-done appearance in a Bond flick to propel their career to new heights and capitalise on their newfound stardom, and at the opposite end of that spectrum are those who regret their brief ‘Bond girl’ tenure because it’s done them absolutely no favours in either the short or the long-term.
Countless careers have stagnated, stalled, or been ruined by the trope-heavy and archetypal parts penned for women throughout the spy saga’s six-decade history, but the only official ‘Bond girl’ to win a Razzie for their performance was Denise Richards, who was savaged for her turn as Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough.
She was left broken-hearted by the merciless mockery that followed her after embodying a hotpants-wearing nuclear physicist, who also suffered the misfortune of being on the receiving end of the queasiest line in Bond history when Pierce Brosnan said he thought Christmas only comes once a year during their tryst in the final scene.
It wasn’t the greatest experience for Richards, who said she felt betrayed by director Michael Apted when he refused to listen to her suggestions for altering the character to make her less of a vapid interest, although she did at least get an apology. With that in mind, Saved by the Bell alum Tiffani Thiessen dodged a bullet when she unsuccessfully auditioned for the gig.
“I wanted this job more than anything for two reasons,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “One, I thought it was going to change my career in a great direction. And two, I was a massive James Bond fan.” Little did she know at the time that Richards was on a one-way track to ridicule, but that didn’t dampen her regret.
“It was everything I wanted to be,” she explained. “So I get the opportunity to audition and go back for many callbacks, and then I tested, and it was between me and two other actresses, and I didn’t get it. Of course, I didn’t get it. And it hit me so extremely hard because I wanted it so bad.”
No offence to Thiessen, but her post-Saved by the Bell career didn’t take off the way many were expecting. Would Christmas Jones have done her any favours? It’s hard to say. It didn’t exactly destroy Richards’ reputation, but it did win her a Razzie and the character is still lambasted over 25 years later as one of the weakest ‘Bond girls’, so it could have gone either way.
