The actresses make their Bond girls modern and multifaceted in 'Skyfall,' out Friday.   11:15PM EST November 6. 2012 - NEW YORK — Naomie Harris is personable, eloquent and very, very pretty, with dewy skin and legs longer than the West Side Highway. But her physical attributes aren't why she wound up secretly smitten with James Bond in the latest film, Skyfall.

"I was never cast for hotness. I was cast because they wanted to create this specific character. The hotness factor was never a part of the audition process. All my costumes were practical for a woman in the field," says Harris. "The sexiness of Eve comes out through her wit and intelligence, rather than her wearing slinky dresses."

As a field agent with a crush on 007 (Daniel Craig), Harris, 36, gets stirred and shaken aplenty. And along with Bérénice Marlohe, the French actress who toys with the British secret service agent in Skyfall, Harris — on paper, at least — joins the ranks of such mythically fanciful Bond girls as Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), May Day (Grace Jones) and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green).

 But not so fast. Both actresses say they the wanted the roles because they were substantial, as opposed to merely sensuously superficial, as some have been in years past.

For Marlohe, 33, "it was very important to get rid of this 'Bond girl' title. It's very abstract, and you can't build anything on that. It was important to create a real human being and a real person and a real story in the real world. It's what makes her modern," she says.

Indeed, director Sam Mendes cast both women precisely because they're earthy, as opposed to otherworldly.