Mathieu Amalric in Heartbeat Detector Courtesy of Sophie Dulac Distribution

But despite his (unfounded) terror of being exposed as a fraudulent talent, Amalric did not hesitate when the lead villain role in this year's Bond film came his way: "I'm so lucky, it's because I didn't look for it, it just fell down on me." As a child, he saw a lot of the Bond films and was particularly impressed by Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice. Before taking the part of Dominic Greene, he consulted with his Heartbeat Detector co-star and fellow countryman Michael Lonsdale, who had starred as Hugo Drax in the 1979 Bond flick Moonraker. Lonsdale told him that while some had accused him of being a "traitor" for appearing in an English-language blockbuster, he told Amalric that "you always have to be where people don't expect you to be. That's the pleasure of being an actor."

Mathieu Amalric's most recent screen roles include a series of less-than-likeable dark characters. In Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Amalric portrayed ELLE magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, a corporate playboy who despite his paralyzing accident never loses his callous flintiness, and as Simon Kessler in Nicolas Klotz's Heartbeat Detector he is a tenacious and ambitious corporate drone. And now as Dominic Greene, Amalric gets to play the quintessential ruthless businessman and villain. It has been widely reported that for the Bond nemesis role Amalric found inspiration for his character in the smile of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the craziness of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. To this Amalric makes a small revision: "Oh, no, no. I didn't exactly say that. I was saying that he was a villain and that villains today, you can't recognize them anymore. They don't have a metal jaw, you know: they're hidden behind smiles. That's what I meant. So the smile of Tony Blair had a mystery that could be interesting — that's what I meant."

But the reference to these political figures opens the door for Amaric to express his strong feelings about current events on the global political stage: "They are actors. I mean, when I look at Hillary and Obama, I look at them as actors. And what is amazing about CNN — because here [in Panama] I only have CNN — is that even in the political commentary, they talk about performing, not about ideas. It's amazing. 'Wow, she was great!'" And here Amalric adopts the intonation of a television political pundit: "'But why doesn't she show her heart? She should show her heart; she should cry a bit more. And the other guy. Wow! He has beautiful hands. He should use his hands more. Maybe he uses them too much now. He has to be tough. Seem tough.' No ideas. It's about how to convince people but not with ideas, just with performing. And it's in fact much more honest than in France where everybody talks about ideas but the person that has been elected, Sarkozy, is just a better actor than [his presidential opponent] Ségolène Royal — that's all. He's a really great actor."