Lionsgate
Ana de Armas has becoming a surprising action star in recent years, parlaying her roles in No Time To Die, The Gray Man and Ghosted into the starring role in Ballerina, the first spin-off in the John Wick franchise.
As per its reputation, the level of action on a John Wick is simply at another level than the rest of Hollywood and that was certainly the case for the Academy Award-nominated Ana de Armas in Ballerina, as she wields over two dozen different types of weapons in the film.
Over the course of Ballerina — not counting guns and a flamethrower — de Armas’ Eve Macarro wields: a frozen pipe, an ice pick, steel rebar, hammers, grenades, forks, knives, a lantern, plate, meat tenderizer, meat cleaver, screwdriver, axe, sword, and ice skates.
“Oh, I mean, it’s always hard to fight with something heavy, you know? For me, I would say it was really hard to fight with the ice skates, and it was really hard with the flamethrower,” de Armas told us.
“It was just crazy. I had both fights [ice skates and flamethrower], and when they presented to me the ideas, I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ It was so much fun to even just look at the inspiration and the storyboards and all the ideas for the fight. But I was so on board with it because it was so original. Yeah, but you know, all of them were really difficult.”
Alongside the Oscar-nominated de Armas, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina also stars Keanu Reeves, Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, and Lance Reddick in a posthumous performance.
You can check out out full interview with de Armas — in which we also discuss trying to be the first one to fill John Wick’s shoes, learning from and training with Keanu Reeves, the pride she feels in doing her own stunts, her memories from making Blade Runner 2049, and more — below.