Bridge, Besson and the kung fu dragon

In Kiss Of The Dragon, I'm the link between characters. The film is co-written by Leon director Luc Besson, and I play Jessica, a crack-addicted prostitute in Paris who gets mixed up with a drug-smuggling operation.

My character is that wonderful kind of Luc Besson woman, who's tough, resilient and at the same time fragile and sensitive. She is hopeful, moment-to-moment, and yet without hope. She's incredibly gentle, and yet crass and crude. As Luc described to me when we were in rehearsals, 'This is somebody who finds it too painful to think 5ft beyond her. She only sees right in front of her.' Every moment is survival.

I had never met Luc before. So I was happy when my agent said he wanted to meet me. I thought, 'He's never gonna want to work with me after I did The Assassin - a remake of his own movie La Femme Nikita. 'I am very dubious of remakes. The only similarity I see here with that is it's a Luc Besson character in an action movie. But her role is completely the opposite of action. She is avoidance.

I took the role before I'd seen the script, as I knew that Luc would be making a movie that, at the very least, would be really fun to watch. I also knew that with Jet Li, who plays the Chinese cop assigned to the case, there would be great martial arts fight scenes, which I love. I was raised on Bruce Lee. Jet has a wonderful cinematic quality, and yet he's really soulful. And someone I knew said, 'He's the nicest guy ever!'