Rebuking all the early talk about Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleans, being a remake, star Nicolas Cage recently compared his character to James Bond.

All fine and good but even James Bond never had a woman like this: I play a character who is Nicholas Cages love interest, and she is a working girl, she is a prostitute who is very damaged, Eva Mendes said of her hitherto secret character in the film. Im a prostitute so Im a criminal in that sense, but its kinda hard to explain. Theres actually a very sweet love story between Nics character and mine, in a very warped and dark, dark world.

Dark, but not despairing, pointed out Mendes, who said that the grim and brutal tone of the original film, its violence and sexuality especially, will not carry over to Herzogs version.

[The original was] very provocative and harsh for the sake of being provocative and harsh and in your face, and although I do have a provocative streak about me, its never for shock value. I dont want to be shocked in any way, Mendes said, visibly shaking while talking. Certainly there is nothing that I was in this film that was like that.

Mendes was much more coy when it came to spilling details on the plot of the film, except to say that it was a murder mystery in a post-Katrina world.

I have no idea what we made in a way because it was so experimental, she said. I dont know [what it's gonna wind up being].