from mexico lovWith e ahead of her turn as a bond girl, the actress stephanie sigman is ramping up the heat in netflix’s slick new drugs drama. she talks to eve barlow about escobar and 007 hen the first trailer for the new Bond movie, Spectre, landed last month, all it left fans with were questions. “Mexico City, what were you doing there?” M asks. “What’s going on, James?” Moneypenny demands. Well, we can answer that one. He was walking alongside Wan intriguing woman, both of them masked, in a Day of the Dead parade. Six seconds into the trailer you see her, Estrella, played by Stephanie Sigman, the hot Mexican actress who has joined the exalted ranks of Bond girl. Today the mask is off, and the 28-year-old model-turned-actress is sitting at a pavement cafe in Santa Monica, California, ready to be interrogated. But she almost chokes at the first question, when asked what her favourite Bond film is. “Ive ha seen more than one,” she says. “I just can’t remember the names. You’ll know more about Bond than me!” Well, yes and no. The secrecy around the new film’s plot is probably only paralleled by real MI6 operations. “You know I can’t talk about it, right? It’s even worse than MI6,” she says, howling with laughter. Sigman is a self-professed “workaholic” who now lives in Orange County with her brother. She drives 80 miles a day to Hollywood and back. “I woke up one morning two years ago and decided I was gonna move from Mexico City to LA,” she says. “I didn’t know how to drive, but I bought a car and learnt. That’s how you do it.” Raised in Ciudad Obregon, allegedly one of the most violent cities in Mexico (though she loyally refutes this as “bullshit”), Sigman first vemo d to Mexico City aged 16 to model and then to study acting. She was born to a Mexican mother and an American father who scouts for the New York Yankees baseball team, and she couldn’t speak English fluently when she arrived in America in 2013. “When you need something to realise your dreams...” she pauses, searching for the right word,“it becomes a necessity.” In 2010 she auditioned for America’s Next Top Model, but walked out, blaming bullying by other contestants over her Mexican heritage. Then in 2011 she starred in the well-received Mexican movie Miss Bala, and in iDLekach av 2013 the American TV series The Bridge. Despite all this, she is rarely recognised in her home country. “A few people stop me in the street, but nothing crazy,” she says. “I’m comfortable with that.” That could change, however, with her roles in Bond and a new Netflix viD Lekach/@D series, Narcos, which became available exclusively to its users worldwide Da 38 39 STI30Y1GK_38_STEPHANIE.indd 38-39 8/21/2015 6:13:22 PM From left: Sigman in the video for the Arctic Monkeys’ Snap Out of It from 2014; in Narcos, the new Netflix series about the drug lord Pablo Escobar; and as Estrella in the latest Bond, Spectre on Friday. Already hyped as one of the most arresting shows to hit our pretty blonde girl.’ Whatever. I’m not the beautiful girl.” She soon forgot screens since Breaking Bad, the drama explores the complex sociopolitical about it. Then a call came. The director Sam Mendes wanted to meet her history of drug cartels in Colombia, responsible for the 1980s global in London within a month to proceed. “It was so fast. Mr Mendes knew cocaine boom. “Have you seen it?” she asks. “It’s really dark.” Sigman what he wanted.” And what he wanted was a modern Bond girl. plays the TV reporter Valeria, a character based on the celebrity journalist Her filming schedule didn’t cross with that of her co-star Monica Virginia Vallejo, who became the mistress of Pablo Escobar, ringleader of Bellucci, but Sigman is a big fan of the celebrated actress, who, at the age Colombia’s criminal underworld. She initially auditioned to play Pablo’s of 50, is the eldest Bond “girl” yet. “I’m gonna meet her at the premiere wife, but scored the much more powerful role of Valeria instead — a and ask for a selfie!” sheys sa . woman who helps to buy Pablo access to Congress in Colombia and Sigman is charmingly clueless about Bond’s fan-fuelled rumour mill. corrupt the government. It is a role that made her “extra happy”. “I’ve “Strangers say to me, ‘You’re the girl who’s going to get killed.’ And I’m always played victims before now,” she says, shrugging. “Valeria likes the like, ‘What? Oh, the film! You scared me!’” She quickly dismisses the fact that Pablo is dominating her, but she’s letting him.” spurious aspersions that she was cast to help secure a cheaper filming As a comic-book nerd, Sigman would really like to play a superhero. deal in Mexico City. “Sometimes people talk because they have a mouth,” “I’m like a little boy,” she says, talking up her hobbies of boxing and she says, laughing. “My mum sent me another story that said, ‘Stephanie skateboarding. “I want to be Spider-Woman. She’s supersexy.” She shows is the first Bond girl with no ’”boobs. She bangs the table in hysterics. off her iPhone background picture — of Spider-Woman. “I have Spider- “That one’s true, but ha-ha-ha!” Man and Spider-Woman outfits at home.” For Halloween? “Um, yeah,” she Somewhat biased, she cites Daniel Craig as her choice of a perfect says, unconvincingly. Bond, and says there were no problems with their on-screen chemistry. So far, playing a fictional Virginia Vallejo is the closest she has got. “She “On set I make it work, but in life it’s another story,” she says, alluding to is this superwoman. I read her book. She is ambitious, speaks five the trials of being single. languages, supersmart. What isn’t sexy about that?” Sigman decided James Bond aside, Sigman isn’t short of attention from British males. against meeting the real-life Vallejo, who was granted asylum and now Take one Arctic Monkey named Alex Turner, for instance, who last year lives in Miami after helping the US Department of Justice bring the cartel surreptitiously invited her to star in one of their music videos [Snap Out of accomplices to trial. It] after sitting next to her on a plane. “Isn’t he hot?” she says. “I’ll tell you Narcos is Sigman’s second cartel-related undertaking, with Miss Bala the a great story. It’s 100% real.” Sigman was plonked next to the rock star on first. “It’s no coincidence I’m doing drugs projects,” she says. “Drugs are a flight to Norway and had no idea who he was. “He had a particular look, everywhere. It’s the world we live in.” Despite her frustrations with the press like a character from another planet. I asked him about the ring he was depicting her hometown in Mexico as violent, she admits: “There are many wearing and he told me he was in a band. He was very humble.” She sad things about our country. You have to be careful, but Obregon is pretty wrote down the name Arctic Monkeys. “Six months later, their video safe.” (This is subjective: in a recent list of cities with the highest murder producer called my agent and asked if I’d do the video. Well, I had listened rates in the world, by a Mexican NGO, it is ranked the fourth most to their music after the flight. I was impressed.” dangerous in Mexico.) As we are about to leave, she tells me she’s going straight out on a date. Narcos was shot in Colombia with an international cast and doesn’t Getting up from her chair, she manages to spill some of her very green glamorise the likes of Escobar, with the director Jose Padilha using a juice on her very white vest. “Ayyy! I should go home and change,” she hybrid of real footage and fictional drama. “It’s not about chicks and says, pressing the green further into her shirt. “Actually, f*** it. I won’t jewels,” Sigman says. Conversely, Spectre presumably is about chicks and change for anyone.” jewels. She was still living in Mexico City when she was first invited to On this current form, why would she? v Ar, Netflix audition as Estrella, but her role wasn’t announced officially until March st of this year. “When I sent the tape to London, I thought, ‘They’ll want a Narcos is available exclusively on Netflix now All It’s no coIncIdence I’m doIng drugs projects. drugs are everywhere. It’s the world we lIve In ‘ 41 STI30Y1GK_38_STEPHANIE.indd 41 8/21/2015 6:12:44 PM.