'Great fun to play a bitch' - Victoria Smurfit
Irish beauty Victoria Smurfit adores being a baddie in her new film, Bulletproof Monk; she plays Nina, the determined and dangerous granddaughter of the evil former Nazi, Struker, who was sent by Hitler to Tibet in l943 to steal the all-powerful Scroll of the Ultimate. Being a bitch has a lot going for it!
The Monk, though, has escaped with the valuable scroll and Struker spends his life tracking it down; with the help of his power-mad granddaughter.
Bulletproof Monk was originally a three-comic series in the late l990s, an ultra-cool, exciting departure from the traditional superhero format.
Says Smurfit: "The story not only combines cutting-edge Hong Kong-style action with classic comic-book storytelling, heroism and comedy, it also features a hero with a philosophical side."
Nina's grandfather, explains Victoria, has spent his whole life looking for the Monk, looking for the scroll, looking for the power: "She's been brought up by him, so she has the passion for it as well.
"But her passion for the scroll has much more to do with getting control and power than the whole mystical element the scroll also possesses. She has no interest in enlightenment; she's just interested in who has the power!"
It is, she adds, with a grin, "great fun to play a vile, immoral bitch. You get paid to go to work and be horrible to everybody, get it all out of your system, then go home and be all fluffy. It's just so nice!"
With a cast that includes Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott, Jaime King and Karel Roden, Bulletproof Monk comes packed with high-flying acrobatics, martial arts action and quick-witted humour.
"It has the feel of a contemporary Western buddy comedy and a kind of Eastern philosophical epic. It has wonderful aspects of time, spirituality and magic, but also has a lot of humourous and exciting moments."
Victoria was seen recently in About a Boy and has lined up in other films alongside Hugh Grant, Adrian Dunbar and Albert Finney, having first hit the headlines as Lady Rowena in the TV Ivanhoe.
She was, of course, Orla in the long-running BBC TV series, Ballykissangel and can be seen playing the lead on the small screen in Lynda LaPlante's Trial & Retribution.
But she still loves being a very bad girl!
