Bridget Fonda's Leap of Faith

Bridget Fonda was so anxious to work with writer-producer Luc Besson on his new film Kiss of the Dragon (in theaters Friday) that she took the role before a script was even completed.

"I thought I was never going to get a chance to work with him," says Fonda, who starred in the 1993 action flick Point of No Return, a remake of Besson's La Femme Nikita. "When I [met Besson] he said, 'I don't have any script, it's still being written and all I can tell you is that she's a junkie hooker. Are you interested?'

"Luc's characters... are all different, [but] what they have in common is an inner strength of some sort," continues the 37-year-old actress. "I just took a leap of faith figuring that [he] and [co-star] Jet Li would be making a movie that I would want to go see."

Unfortunately, there was one major obstacle Fonda had to overcome during filming: Adjusting to the "outrageous" high-heel pumps she purchased for her role as a down-on-her-luck B-girl. "My daily fear was that I was going to break my ankle," she confesses. "[I was] running as fast as I possibly could, trying to keep up with Jet Li — who is really fast. I was telling him, 'Could you please just run in place so I can keep up?' Which he found amusing.

"As trite as it sounds," she adds, slightly embarrassed, "dealing with my shoe situation was actually harrowing."