Sofia Boutella
Sofia Boutella plays Eve Mansour
BBC
- Craig McLean
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Where do we find Eve Mansour at the beginning of series two?
She’s still part of the French Resistance and needs information to report to General de Gaulle. But her mission is slightly different this time around — she needs the French Resistance to be trained by the SAS.
What appealed to you about playing Eve?
I was really excited to be part of something historically accurate. I wish that my character was a real-life person — but Eve is based on people that really fought during the Second World War. And not just French — women from all over the world: Nancy Wake, who was from New Zealand; Violette Szabo, who was French and British; Noor Inayat Khan; and American Virginia Hall. All these women played a key role in intelligence, logistics and physically liberating countries from the Nazis. Eve represents all these women.
You’ve done a lot of big-budget films, including the Kingsman movies, Argylle, Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon. How did filming this BBC TV series compare?
The scale of SAS Rogue Heroes is quite big, especially in series two, and the time that we spent on it was quite long. The difference for me is that I’m not doing as much action, so I didn’t have to do so much training, even though in series two Eve holds a gun and shoots some Nazis.
Eve represents all the women key to liberating countries from the Nazis
Do you enjoy playing those action roles?
It depends. With the right group of people, yes. I didn’t start acting for the love of action, and it’s not particularly my go-to film as a viewer. I got lucky when I booked Kingsman — Matthew Vaughn [the director] asked if I could do a round kick, and I was a dancer and flexible so I could. I learn fast and I absorb very easily what people teach me so I carried on training, and all of a sudden everybody thought, “Wow, she can do all these action films.” But I’d never done any fight or action training until I was 31 [Algerian born Boutella is now 42].
Does this series glamorise violence?
Maybe there is an aspect that makes it cool and exhilarating. But all these men were quite young and free-spirited and there was an excitement in going to serve — especially the SAS, they were balls-to-the-wall and they were going for it. But in series two, you see also the damage that it caused psychologically and physically. So, there’s a balance and it’s honest.
Do you think there would be as many wars if women ran the world?
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Not at all. I mean, maybe not — it depends what time of the month it is. I’m joking!
Authors
Craig McLean
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