Gemma Arterton regrets playing Bond girl opposite Daniel Craig

Gemma Arterton revealed that she still gets criticism for agreeing to portray Bond girl Strawberry Fields in "Quantum of Solace."

The 34-year-old actress found international fame after she starred as Daniel Craig's Bond girl in the 2008 film. But in an interview with The Sun, she admitted that she still gets flak for a role that she had reservations about.

She explained that she did not think too much about the implications when she bagged the role out of the other 1,500 hopefuls. She was just happy to get the job as she needed the money to pay off her debts.

"At the beginning of my career, I was poor as a church mouse and I was happy just to be able to work and earn a living," Arterton shared.

"I still get criticism for accepting 'Quantum Of Solace,' but I was 21, I had a student loan, and you, know, it was a Bond film," she added.

But looking back at it now, as she got older she "realised that there was so much wrong with Bond women." She said, "Strawberry should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes."

In "Quantum of Solace," Craig's James Bond seduces MI6 Strawberry Fields shortly after they met in Bolivia. Their tryst is short-lived though, as he returned to his hotel room and found her naked body sprawled on the bed and covered in black oil.

Arterton has since made a name for herself after she appeared in several other big-budget films. She was in "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," "Clash of the Titans," "Byzantium," and more. She plays the role of an uptight nun in the BBC One series "Black Narcissus," about a religious group that sets up a school and hospital in the Tibetan Himalayas.

In the three-part miniseries, she plays Sister Clodagh, who leads a group of nuns into their new home in the Himalayas only to find that it used to be a harem. There she fell in love with the home's caretaker, Mr. Dean.

Arterton shared that because of the criticism she received from playing a Bond girl, she now chooses her projects carefully. They have to be "really something great." She does not want to simply "work for the sake of working."