Olga Kurylenko's unstoppable film career began when she was spotted by a modelling scout on the Moscow subway at the age of 15, she tells Robbie Collin as her new film, Oblivion, is released.
I couldn’t leave.” Except she could – thanks to her mother. Marina saved to
pay for a holiday to Moscow, so her daughter, then 13, could experience culture
first-hand: Gorky Park, Saint Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin.
“She could barely afford it, but she’s an art teacher and she wanted to give
me some education,” she remembers. “It wasn’t for shopping, you know? We only
had money for food, museums and the subway.” While disembarking from a subway
train, young Olga was approached by a modelling scout: a lightning-strike bolt
of luck that zapped her onto the Moscow catwalk circuit. Her first pay cheque,
earned at the age of 15, was $30 in American currency. She spent it on a thick
coat at a flea market to survive the Russian winter.
