The drop-dead gorgeous heroine of Starship Troopers and the literal femme fatale of Wild Things, Denise Richards plays her biggest role to date as nuclear scientist Dr. Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. Richards has some big, um, shoes to fill, following in the footsteps of legendary Bond Girls Ursula Andress, Jill St. John, Maud Adams and Jane Seymour. Here's what she has to say about playing doctor.

Playboy.com: Have you met any of the previous Bond Girls?

Denise Richards: I actually did a Vanity Fair shoot (with all the Bond Girls), starting from Ursula down, and it was so cool to see them and to meet a lot of them. They said it stays with you forever [laughs].

They were all very positive and supportive, and they said to enjoy it and that it's exciting and they didn't realize when they did the film that it would stay with them for as long as it did. It was really neat to meet them.

PB: What can you tell us about kissing James Bond?

DR: I guess in people's eyes it's very cool to kiss James Bond, but when you're on the set and you've got the crew and everything, it's a little different, but I got to kiss Pierce Brosnan.

PB: How does your boyfriend (Starship Troopers co-star Patrick Muldoon) feel about that?

DR: He's an actor, so he knows he can't say anything because he's kissed women, too, in films. But I'm sure it's uncomfortable; it's not the most normal thing to have your boyfriend or girlfriend go to work and kiss their co-worker.

PB: Your most notorious screen kiss is with Neve Campbell in Wild Things. That made quite a stir.

DR: I don't know what the big issue is about it. It's a role, and I think a bigger issue is made out of it. It was a part I took and it's what the character did, so I did it.

 PB: Did you have to heavily research your role as a nuclear physicist?

DR: Yes, I met all the nuclear scientists that I could meet [laughs]. I think it's more about my relationship with Bond and that sassy one-upmanship and the little banter back and forth.

PB: Did you grow up watching James Bond, and do you have a favorite film?

DR: The first one I ever saw was GoldenEye. I didn't grow up watching them. Of course I've gone back to watch them. My mom's favorite is Goldfinger; she saw that like seven times. I couldn't pick one.

PB: In The World is Not Enough, there's lots of action, including a 150 mile-per-hour slalom through an oil pipeline. What was your favorite scene to film?

DR: I couldn't wait to film the water stuff -- the submarine. That was the last three weeks of shooting, and I was so excited to get to do the water stuff, but after the first week I couldn't wait to finish it. We were in such a confined space for three weeks, and wet, and we had wetsuits and stuff, but doing it, it was like being in a real James Bond film with the water and the divers underneath us. It was fun.

PB: Do you like all the information about you on the Internet?

DR: That's the one thing that's a downside. The Internet's been so great, and it's so nice to have fans do nice, elaborate websites, but I think the downside is some of the things...for real fans to go on and see that 90 percent of the information isn't true or to see pictures that aren't really me, or for them to be able to sell these things, that's one of the downsides, I think.

PB: Do you have any fears about the millennium?

DR: I'm not afraid to travel, although I did book it so that it was a few days after and a few days before. I'm going to Hawaii, so that's not a bad place. I personally don't think anything's going to happen. I'm not going to withdraw all my money.

PB: What's your favorite thing to do that has nothing to do with movies?

DR: Shop. I'm a girl's girl.