Olga Kurylenko and Timothy Olyphant in Hitman Rico Torres/Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

With several French movies already under her belt, Ukraine-born model Olga Kurylenko (L'Annulaire; Paris, Je T'aime) takes on the role of Nika, the tough and sassy mistress to the Russian President who begrudgingly flees with Agent 47 to Istanbul when she realizes she, too, is a target of the Russian secret service. And, oh, she manages to shed her clothes more than once.

Nika is a more complicated character than one may assume at first glance. She has many layers and a mysterious past. Did you develop a backstory for her in order to understand her motives better?
Yes, I actually tried. I tried to imagine what she could have gone through before ending up with [the Russian president] Belicoff. I imagined that she went through human slavery. She says later in the movie that she was sold to Belicoff for 300 American dollars and he was probably not the first person to assault her. She was [a victim of] human trafficking, was probably raped, and sexually and physically abused all the time — which was horrible.

Did you and Timothy have any chance to do some preparation work together? There is quite a strong chemistry between the two of you on camera.
We definitely did, yeah. We sat down and spoke about the characters and the development of the relationship between the two characters. It really helped to talk because we found different things. It is always good to speak with [the other] actors because it is in talking that you find little nuances that help you make it special.

What about all the international locations? As a model and an actress you must have traveled all over Europe — had you ever been to Sofia or Istanbul and did you go to South Africa as well?
No, I didn't, but I have been to South Africa before, four or five times. I have been to Cape Town. But I hadn't been to Sofia or Bulgaria before and that country reminds me a lot of my country: just the architecture, the streets, and the fact that people spoke the language there. So I could understand sometimes. It's weird. That made me feel a little bit at home. Istanbul was just beautiful. I had never been to Istanbul before and I had heard a lot about it. And what they say is true. It is amazing.

Speaking about languages, you speak several. Do you find it difficult to flip from one language to another when filming?
I didn't have to very much in this movie. I speak Russian a little bit — but no, that is not very difficult. It is not that hard. You just start speaking a different language.

Quite a lot of the emotional weight of the movie is resting on your shoulders. What kind of direction did Xavier give you in order to bring that out?
He did actually tell me that she is the emotional core of the movie, that she is kind of the heart of the movie. There are a lot of feelings and emotions that [run] through [the film]. She can express them while Agent 47 can't. Because even though he might feel the same thing, he can't show it. So only at the end you start seeing that actually he does feel because it gets to him. He can't stay cold. Only at the beginning does she have a mask because she is protecting herself. She is tough and mean, but very soon when she sees that he doesn't wish bad things for her, she opens up, and she is real. She wears no mask. She is very open to him.