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When Rhona Mitra modelled for the Lara Croft video game at the age of 19 - long before Angelina Jolie embodied the movie role - little did she know that she would one day play a big screen action heroine herself.
Yet there she was on the New
Zealand set of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, dressed rather majestically in a leather corset, chain mail and armour, as Sonja, replacing Kate Beckinsale as the female lead in the prequel to the other two Underworld movies.
"I was really adamant that after Selene had been so striking and so iconic in her latex, it was important that Sonja had her own iconic costume," the 32 year-old British actress says. "It's quite a number really and is one of the most complicated costumes I'll ever get to wear."
In the story, which lays out the origins of the war between the aristocratic vampires and the beastly lycans (humans who can turn into werewolves), Mitra plays the daughter of Bill Nighy's vampire leader.
When she falls in love with Michael Sheen's lycan, it's a little like the Romeo and Juliet story of lovers from opposing families, only here it's species. Understandably, creating the love scenes posed a challenge.
"It's vampire-werewolf jiggy jiggy," Mitra laughs.
"In fact the most detailed conversation I had with Michael was about that, like, how on earth do these two mate and how do you do it without having it look ridiculous?
"We devised something which is hopefully tasteful, but as to how accurate it is, I'm not quite sure."
The stunning, London-born Mitra, who is of Irish and Indian parentage, is best known as the sexy lawyer and the only woman James Spader ever loved on television's Boston Legal. So how does Spader's smooth lawyer compare with the warrior Lucian?
"Oh, James would loathe the idea of having to get up and fight, unless it's verbal," she says. "I suppose he battles it out in the courtroom."
Coming off as highly intelligent, in part because of her statuesque presence and her sultry deep voice, Mitra was clearly cast in Underworld 3 because of her resemblance to Beckinsale. (This is important as in the follow-up films we know that Victor had spared Selene because she reminded him of his daughter.)
"Initially when I heard 'number three', I thought that's not a brilliant move forward for anybody," Mitra recalls, "but then I realised it's a prequel and it's set in the past, the 12th century, so it's a completely unique story. With all the costumes and the universe that has been so carefully created, I knew I could flex my acting muscles and that it would be a great ride with people like Michael and Bill involved.
"The fact that they have such a great love and respect for the first two movies was infectious. There's a family feeling about it. Len Wiseman [Beckinsale's husband for whom she left her then husband Sheen on the first film] created it and now bringing in the previous films' production designer, Patrick Tatopoulos, to direct, kept it in the family. It didn't mean anyone was going to come in and completely take it off into a radical new place."
Given that this is her first high profile leading role, and that she has two more films in the can, it seems that this could be Mitra's moment.
"I don't know because I've been working so long," she responds, "I try not to get too excited. You never know, these films could completely disappear into the mire."
While she has completed Boy in The Box, a thriller co-starring Josh Lucas, she returned to New Zealand for the romantic comedy The Truth About Men, directed by Paul Middleditch and co-starring Joel Edgerton and Danielle Cormack.
"It was a fast brutal shoot but it was my second time with a New Zealand crew and they are really good people," she says. "There were lots of laughs all round."
Prior to making two films here, New Zealand had been at the top of her list of travel destinations. "I've travelled a lot in my time so when I was making Underworld I was determined to make the most of it.
"We were based in Auckland and I managed to travel around the North Island. Then when I went back for The Truth About Men we were in Wellington, which meant I got to travel around the South Island. It was great; it made me feel like I was at home. The feeling of isolation and the greenery, reminded me of Devon and Scotland."
Of her ethnicity she says, "the Irish side is the mischief, which has been put to bed for the most part, and the Indian side keeps me grounded and with a strong sense of self."
Although she has lived in Los Angeles for ten years, she says she hasn't developed any American traits. "I've never really felt English either, I don't really feel like I'm from anywhere," she says. "Part of it's because I travel so much and I spend so much time in hotel rooms. But it's also because I'm not really English in my blood. Ultimately my heart lies in London because that's where I spent my childhood."
A forthright woman who speaks her mind, she was expelled from a Catholic boarding school as a teenager.
"I got angry; I didn't like being told what was right and what was wrong. I found my own religion and that's why I love New Zealand.
"I think God is in the elements, I think God is the mountains, the ocean and the wind and rain. If you want to seek solace and peace there's nowhere better to be."
Clearly a free spirit, so far she has steered away from being tied down to a long-term relationship. When it comes to men she notes, "I don't have a type. But I think that recently I've seemed to attract a couple of wolves, men who are beardy, furry and maybe a little too mischievous for my liking."
Who: Rhona Mitra, the new Kate Beckinsale
What: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, opens March 12
Past roles: Kit McGraw in Nip/Tuck; and Tara Wilson in Boston Legal and The Practice
