Ana de Armas demonstrates tremendous skills playing Eve Macarro in "Ballerina" – the new spinoff/sequel from the John Wick franchise. With a variety of weapons in hand (or sans weapons), she operates like a veteran ass-kicker. Watching the movie, one can respect that she gained a lot of confidence as an action star in the making of the blockbuster... but that confidence also led her straight into a seriously emotional experience when it came time to shooting the film's flamethrower sequences.
When I interviewed director Len Wiseman about Ballerina earlier this year, he told me about how his lead actress cried when she first set a stuntperson on fire, and CinemaBlend's own Hannah Saulic asked Ana de Armas for her own perspective on events while speaking to her at the film's New York press day. She explained that she initially declined practice with the flamethrower, figuring she could learn how to use it on set, but the stunt crew explained that it was something she needed to get used to.
00:00For the most part, the training is more focused on the fights, you know, the physical fights and the choreos and knives and guns and all that.
00:09But I never got to practice with a flamethrower, and I definitely had the fire.
00:14It's a scary thing.
00:16And I remember they asked me to rehearse the day before filming, and I was like, no, that's not necessary.
00:20I'll just do it on the day.
00:21And they were like, no, no, you really need to just feel it and the heat on your face and everything, how it moves.
00:28And I did it, and I knew I was with the best people in the business, like just doing fire.
00:36But still, when I shot that, you know, this guy and he got on fire, I was, I had to like drop it, and I walked away, and I had to unzip my thing and just cry.
00:47It was really emotional.
00:48It's just a visual, horrible thing to, you know, to have in your, you know, it's in my brain forever, you know.
00:56But everyone was safe, and I knew that, and, you know, I got comfortable with it afterwards, and then I burned 105 people after.
