TORONTO - After scoring roles in the big-budget spectacles "Prince of Persia" and "Clash of the Titans," former Bond girl Gemma Arterton decided her next film had to be something completely different.
The brunette beauty says that's why she leapt at the chance to play the tortured title role in the British indie project, "The Disappearance of Alice Creed," a dark and twisting tale about a humiliated kidnapping victim who slowly gains the upper hand.
"I read the script and loved it for its raw grittiness, you know," Arterton said during a recent visit to Toronto to promote the film.
"I'd just come off of making blockbusters so I was kind of desperate to do something like this. I read for it and had to do a really full-on scene in the audition, which are always the worst things to do, ever."
Arterton plays the film's title character, the only child of a wealthy businessman who is snatched off the streets by two hooded men.
Her captors are ex-cons Vic (Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston) -- one is a ruthless mastermind who meticulously keeps the shakedown on course while the other is a younger, less certain accomplice who seems willing to defer to his more experienced partner. Of course, their relationship is revealed to be far more complicated than that, especially when Alice proves to be more than either bargained for.
As the captive Alice, Arterton was required to be tied and handcuffed to a bed for much of the month-long shoot, with many of her scenes involving a frantic desperation and tension she found exhausting on many levels.
"It was a scary role for me to play, more so because I just didn't know if I was actually going to be able to do it, capable of it as an actor," says Arterton, noting she suffered cuts on her hands and several bruises due to her flailing against the restraints.
"Every day I woke up with trepidation, thinking 'Oh, God, how am I going to do this scene? How am I going to do it within the time (constraints) and am I actually going to do it?' It was emotionally and physically and mentally draining but so satisfying as a job. And fun. It doesn't look like it, but it was fun."
The movie, written and directed by J Blakeson, features just three characters and largely takes place in a shabby apartment with a bedroom lined with sound-proofing foam.
Because it was also filmed in sequence, Arterton says the shoot felt very much like performing a theatrical play, and that helped her tap into Alice's escalating terror.
"The first day I had the bag over my head and I had the kidnap (scene) and the clothes coming off of me and all of that," says Arterton, who appeared as Bond lover Strawberry Fields in 2008's "Quantum of Solace."
"It was uncomfortable, it was full-on but I had agreed to do the movie so there was no complaining. It was just what it was and I went for it and I completely committed to it and threw myself into it. Maybe too overzealously because I ended up kicking somebody in the face or something when I was getting kidnapped."
The 24-year-old also had to contend with a fair bit of nudity, both for herself and in scenes involving her co-stars. But Arterton says she's comfortable with the amount of skin in the film, insisting it's relevant to the plot.
One of the most memorable scenes is a round of naked fisticuffs that rivals Viggo Mortensen's infamous nude beating in 2007's "Eastern Promises" for sheer shock value.
"Pretty much everything was an awkward scene to film but that scene was bonkers, actually," Arterton admits of the surprisingly bold confrontation.
"Alice Creed" was enthusiastically received when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, where it earned a distribution deal that will see it unspool in Canada and the United States.
Arterton says the North American deal is an especially satisfying coup for the filmmakers, who had no expectations the low-budget indie would find an audience across the pond.
"For me it's brilliant because I think it's a very sort of anti-establishment movie and I think it's important that these kind of films get seen worldwide rather than just in the little niche markets that they do occasionally, like the European market or whatever," says Arterton, whose black comedy, "Tamara Drewe," with Dominic Cooper and directed by Stephen Frears ("The Queen"), lands at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
"I'm actually quite shocked that it's been picked up and that American audiences are liking it and the Canadians seem to love it, which is great."
"The Disappearance of Alice Creed" opens in Toronto on Friday and in Montreal and Vancouver on Aug. 20.
