From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina Star told to scream for blood

Lead actress Ana de Armas was taught vocal exercises to get in the mind of her assassin character

- John Lui

Actress Ana de Armas was making all the right moves when it came to the fight scenes in the movie From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina, but something was missing.

"I would do the stunts, but it felt too choreographed. The stunt team said, 'Come on, you have to start getting into character, to feel her rage and passion,'" she tells The Straits Times in a Zoom interview.

The team offered a suggestion: screaming.

"They taught me how to scream myself ready. We screamed at one another. It became my way to get in the right mindset. The energy would wake me up in the morning, or at 3am, when we were shooting at night. I would just start jumping up and down and screaming, to get the blood flowing," says de Armas, 37.

Once the crew members heard her screams, they readied the cameras.

The vocal exercise worked. Viewers will see the Cuban-Spanish star punching, shooting and throwing grenades in Ballerina, which opens in Singapore cinemas on June 5.

She is no stranger to action movies, having appeared in the Netflix thriller The Gray Man (2022) and the James Bond film No Time To Die (2021).

As its full title suggests, Ballerina is set in the assassin-filled fantasy universe made popular through the John Wick films (2014 to 2023).

This is the first movie spin-off after four films in the franchise. It is set in the period between John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) and John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023).

De Armas plays Eve Macarro, daughter of Javier (David Castaneda), a hitman murdered by a highly secretive cult led by the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).

Winston (Ian McShane), manager of the Continental Hotel - a haven for hired killers - takes the child (Victoria Comte, who plays the younger Eve) under his wing. He sends her to the Ruska Roma, a ballet academy run by the Director (Anjelica Huston).