Sofia Boutella

Born in Algeria, raised in France and honed to lethal sharpness on stadium stages, the actress, dancer and erstwhile licker of Tom Cruise’s face takes on her edgiest project yet

Q1: With Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Mummy and Atomic Blonde, you’ve earned a reputation for playing characters that are sexy and deadly in equal measure. Do you enjoy taking on seductive roles?

BOUTELLA: I feel great about it. We all have sexuality. I recognize traits in myself and I use them for the characters. I wouldn’t do penetrative sex; I think that would be a bit too much. But at the same time, other people have done it — like in the Gaspar Noé movie Love, they had real sex. If people want to explore having sex for real, I’m not judging it. I don’t mind proximity or intimacy. Even licking Tom Cruise’s face in The Mummy was fun. He kept saying to the makeup artist, “Make sure to clean my face. It’s fake dirt and fake sweat, so make sure it’s clean for Sofia!” It was so sweet. We laughed a lot during that scene.

Q2: When Atomic Blonde came out last year, the media made a big deal about your sex scenes with Charlize Theron. Did that bother you?

BOUTELLA: It was not annoying, but why is it such a big deal to see people having sex? You see people kill each other on-screen all the time. That’s not a big deal; they’re just movies. People are giving Noé shit for having so much sex in his films. Why put so much energy into that? What’s wrong with sex?

Q3: Noé also sequenced what is probably cinema’s longest and most brutal rape scene, in his 2002 film Irréversible. Now you’re starring in his new film, Climax. Were you nervous about working with him?