On the north side of Westminster Bridge, in the shadow of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, stands one of London’s most impressive and dynamic statues. Cast in bronze, astride a chariot led by two rearing horses, is ancient Britain’s famous and feared Queen of the Iceni – Boudica.
This chieftainess, who led an uprising against the Romans in the 1st century AD, stands upright in a flowing gown, holding a spear in her right hand, flanked by her two daughters. The monument was created by Victorian sculptor Thomas Thornycroft.
Now Boudica is the subject of a new British film of the same name, starring former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko.
“It was incredible how one woman could lead such a resistance,” the Ukrainian-born actress, who now lives in London, tells the Daily Express. “Boudica was fearless. I’m always amazed by people who have the courage to protect and to lead. I could never do this because I don’t have that in me. I am incapable of violence.”
The real-life Boudica was both a perpetrator and a victim of the cruellest violence during her short lifetime. When her husband – a Celtic king and ally of the Roman Empire – died, sometime before 60AD, she was flogged by the occupying Romans, her daughters brutally raped.
Incensed, the new Iceni queen then led an uprising of several British tribes against the Romans, defeating them first in Camulodunum (modern-day Colchester) and then in Londinium and Verulamium (modern-day London and St Albans).
It’s estimated that, during her rampage, she and her followers slaughtered more than 70,000 Romans and Britons loyal to them. Boudica was eventually defeated, somewhere in the West Midlands, and died, either by suicide or illness, according to historians.
But after the Middle Ages, she became a robust symbol of English nationhood and of resistance against oppression – an idea that has lasted until the present day.
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The new film, written and directed by British filmmaker Jesse V Johnson, plays on these ideas of patriotism and rebellion, pulling no punches when it comes to the savagery portrayed.
And it’s Boudica’s transformation from gentle, doting mother to ferocious warrior that Johnson finds so intriguing.
“One minute she was a housewife getting her nails done, and the next minute she’s leading an army of 70,000, driven by a delirious desire for revenge,” explains the 51-year-old who started his career as a stuntman and has since directed more than 20 action films starring the likes of Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren and John Malkovich.
“I like to think that idea is timeless. If pushed, we all have it inside ourselves to be a warrior; to be the everyman who rises up, like Boudica did, pushed to such a degree that we decide enough is enough. Now you’re going to have some of my wrath.”
Johnson first had his interest in Boudica piqued when he was seven years old, and his mother took him to see the famous statue of the queen and her daughters at Westminster Bridge.
“As you walk around them, it almost looks like they’re alive,” he tells the Daily Express.
“There’s a defiance to them. It’s absolutely breathtaking.” After that first visit, Johnson became “obsessed with Boudica’s story”.
Later in life, he even gave his daughter the same middle name, but spelt with two Cs. (Boudica, meaning “victorious woman”, is the common ancient Celtic spelling, while Boadicea is the name medieval writers used).
Although he started writing the script many years ago, it wasn’t until the summer of 2022 that he finally embarked on the film, shooting most of the scenes in Suffolk, the same region his heroine hailed from.
For backdrops he used a former RAF airbase, churches in Ipswich, local ancient oak forest and an old friend’s farm near the town
of Woodbridge.
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Johnson admits to feeling a “supernatural” connection with the land that Boudica herself once inhabited and rampaged across.
“There was a strange good fortune that seemed to protect us,” he says, pointing out how the weather smiled on them throughout the entire shoot. On the second day of filming, his friend who owned the farm arrived on set with a wooden box.
“It contained Roman artefacts his family had found farming the fields: coins, toys, small glass items, tokens,” Johnson explains.
“The fact that, 2,000 years ago, our Boudica had lived right there, or thereabouts, where we were filming, had an overpowering effect on cast and crew alike.
“It was a strangely magical shoot. I’ve never had an experience like it before. I woke up every day and said a quiet mantra: that I wouldn’t shame her memory, and that I would do my very best to tell her story.”
And tell it he certainly did.
His sword-and-sandals movie gallops along at breakneck pace, with gripping action scenes, as you’d expect from a former stuntman who includes Avatar, Total Recall, Mission: Impossible III, War of the Worlds, Planet of the Apes, The Amazing Spider-Man, Terminator 3 and Starship Troopers among his credits. Johnson even features himself in a couple of minor stunts in Boudica.
Kurylenko is sensational in the title role but admits she was distinctly uncomfortable with all the blood and gore.
“People say I’m an action hero, but I hate violence,” says the 43-year-old.
“Most of the characters I play are the opposite of me. Some of the movies I make I can’t watch because there’s so much violence in them. I’m just doing my job. I get into character. That’s all it is.”
Kurylenko was born in Berdyansk, in southeastern Ukraine, back when it was part of the Soviet Union.
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As a teenager she moved to Paris and adopted French nationality.
Since then she has appeared in more than 60 films, starring alongside Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace, Tom Cruise in Oblivion, and Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow. The parallels between Boudica’s struggle against the occupying Romans and her fellow Ukrainians’ existential battle against Russia since last year’s invasion of the country are crystal clear.
Despite this, Kurylenko insists Boudica’s story remains universal.
“Of course there’s a parallel,” she says, becoming animated.
“But it’s not just Ukraine and Russia; it’s any war. Boudica is parallel to all the wars: people attack, and other people defend themselves. Sadly, the dynamics are exactly the same. It’s human nature – the thirst for power and blood.”
Johnson says that when he first asked Kurylenko to play Boudica, he worked hard to compare the Iceni queen’s struggle to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I told her it would be the equivalent of her taking up arms against Putin and his invaders,” he explains. “She understood it immediately.”
Coincidentally, the conspicuous bronze sword that Olga arms herself with in the film is also Ukrainian – custom-made by a Ukrainian swordsmith – although the producers had no idea of this when they commissioned it.
Johnson said he only found out when he was told delivery of the sword had been delayed due to fighting in the Donbas region.
“So we had a Ukrainian queen holding a Ukrainian sword as the centrepiece of our film,” he adds.
Inevitably, many may moan at Kurylenko – a Ukrainian-born Frenchwoman – for taking on the role of an ancient queen.
“I asked [the director] right away: ‘Why do you want me? Why don’t you take a British person?’” the actress says in defence. “If you take things as political, then of course he should take a British actor.
“But if we’re talking about art, then he’s just telling a story and I’m just an actor. People always criticise, I don’t care. I’m not a politician. I’m just doing my job.”
Johnson, who also directed Kurylenko in a 2022 action film called White Elephant, insists he wouldn’t have used any other actress.
“There was not a second choice,” he says. “It was Olga or nothing. I have told her I would only work on films with her, if I had the choice.”
Indeed, his next film, a spy thriller called Chief of Station, also stars Kurylenko, this time alongside US actor Aaron Eckhart.
At the end of Boudica, just before the credits roll, Johnson brings his ancient story right back to modern day, showing the statue at Westminster Bridge – the monument that first inspired his admiration for this great British leader.
On a pedestal, high above street level, she faces boldly upriver, towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, gazing over passing tourists and office workers as if to warn any British government that, should it dare oppress the people, they will once more rise up in rebellion.
“The mother and daughters appear to move, breathing as you watch them clinging to the speeding chariot,” Johnson says. “The placement of the statue gives you a clue to the importance of these three women to this island nation.”
● Boudica is streaming now on digital platforms
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