Ballerina Team “Not Setting Out to Do a Female John Wick”

When From the World of John Wick: Ballerina hits theaters in June, it will mark the first film entry in the ever-expanding franchise not led by Keanu Reeves’s titular assassin. Instead Reeves passes the baton (or should we say Glock) to Ana de Armas and her character Eve Macarro, who the team insists is complex and nuanced in her own right and not just a female John Wick clone.

De Armas leads a cast of newcomers featuring Norman Reedus and Gabriel Byrne along with returning faces Reeves, Ian McShane, Anjelica Houston, and the late Lance Reddick.

On the heels of a wild panel at CCXP last week in São Paulo, Brazil, much of the cast along with director Len Wiseman sat down with IGN to talk about building on the franchise’s mythology, if de Armas could take Reeves in a fight, and how they made a John Wick movie without John Wick himself as the lead.

IGN: At the CCXP panel, the fans were really excited to see you all.

Ian McShane (Winston Scott): Delicious. It was delicious.

IGN: With all that energy, what do you think is going to surprise and excite them about Ballerina?

Ana de Armas (Even Macarro): It’s (a) new take on this world. It is changing perspectives and a new point of view in the world that we already know and love. But this time (it’s) through Eve’s experience. We’ll see the connection and the timeline, how it intertwines with John Wick.

Len Wiseman (Director): One of the things that was very important early on was that I was not setting out to do a female John Wick, that John Wick is John Wick. This is an entirely different character, kick-ass (in) her own right. (She’s) a new character within the world, not somebody that’s replicating what John Wick does.

IGN: John Wick shows up in some form in Ballerina…

Norman Reedus (Daniel Pine): He shows up in human form. In human form.

Wiseman: Eve is looking to become an assassin. (She) starts up with the Ruska Roma, train(s), and becomes an assassin. John Wick is really essentially trying to get out of the world. So that became the building ground of what really set it apart.

McShane: It’s new but natural. I mean, don’t forget, we’ve met the character before as a girl, but now we meet her as a grown-up. So my character has been keeping tabs on her throughout all these years. So when she appears, (he tries to) dissuade her from a mission in a certain sense as he always does John. Winston’s ever, ever enigmatic. And also it’s a natural thing. It’s nice to turn around instead of looking at Keanu, I look at this gorgeous…

De Armas: Keanu’s gorgeous,

McShane: Oh, he’s gorgeous too.

De Armas: Keanu is gorgeous too. We love him.

IGN: Norman, was there something specific that made you want to join this franchise?

Reedus: Well, I’m a big fan already. I’ve worked with Len before. I am friends with Keanu. I’m a big fan of Ana’s as well, and the whole franchise. I mean, it’s a cool world to be a part of, so it was kind of a no-brainer.

IGN: Ana, you’re no stranger to fight scenes. Can you compare what you’ve done in Ballerina with what you did with Paloma In No Time To Die? Was there a change in how you approached the action scenes?

De Armas: It’s a completely different character. I mean, I loved Paloma. I really wish I had more time in the movie and…

McShane: No, it was perfect. Everybody wanted her to come back again and she never did. But now you come back as a fully fledged “Paloma Two!”

De Armas: (With) Eve, her motivation behind it all, it’s pain. In this case also, I had the time to sink my teeth into the fights and really had time to get better at it. Not just three weeks training. I was training for four or five months. So it was really intense and the stakes (of) the fights and the level of detail and everything.

These are very intricate, complicated fights with very imaginative stuff that I have around me to figure out how to defend myself in this male-dominated world. So it’s less humor, but also (in) the John Wick universe (there’s) this kind of humor or irony in these scenes. And some things are so crazy that you have to laugh at it because it’s bananas.

IGN: As the series has progressed, the mythology has gotten bigger and more complex. When you’re making this movie, how do you balance that with the action scenes the John Wick films have become known for?

Wiseman: One of the things that is very special about the franchise is the mythology and the worldbuilding. There’d be a lot of conversations (with Chad Stahelski, director of the four John Wick movies, and Keanu) about that. We’d say “what if we developed this section that’s new to the world?” And so it is a balance. It’s fun. I love worldbuilding. So it’s challenging, but it’s a lot of fun as well.

McShane: The mythology behind it has always been steeped into some kind of movie reality. That’s why people love them. Lights go down (for) two hours, you go somewhere else, then the lights go up and you should feel you’ve been somewhere (else), a little deeper each time. Fans get so obsessed by and now social media, they want to know an answer to everything that happens in a movie.

De Armas: When we met John Wick, he’s already who he is, and we didn’t see him becoming that person. We didn’t see him in the Ruska Roma. And how was that training and preparation? And we do see that through Eve. What does it mean to be protected by them or be an outsider? What are the consequences? If you break the rules, who can help you? Who can you trust? So for me, it was interesting to explore a little bit more of the origins of becoming an assassin.

McShane: I know (writers) Chad (Stahelski) and Michael (Finch) and Shay (Batten), each time kill off every character apart from Keanu. There are many versions until they decide how it should be going forward. The one thing I’ll miss if we do another one is my dear friend Lance Reddick, of course. God bless you brother. But this will be a fitting testament to his character. And he was a great human being. He was a lovely man.

IGN: Norman, you’ve been involved in projects before that have had really hardcore dedicated fan bases.

Reedus: I think the first time I experienced a rabid fan base was Boondock Saints. That movie, for not coming to theaters, was the most rented Blockbuster DVD ever above Titanic. And we filmed that for like $7 million. It became that successful because of the fan base.

(With) The Walking Dead, that fan base is crazy. Death Stranding even has a crazy fan base. Of course, (John Wick) has a crazy fan base. Every time you check into a hotel, you’re on an airplane, John Wick is playing. I’m sure this will be the same. So bring on the crazy. It’s great.

IGN: When you’re preparing for a role like this in Ballerina, do you approach it differently than your involvement in something like Death Stranding?

Reedus: That’s apples and oranges. (Ballerina) is very physical and very mathematically put together as far as action scenes go. There’s a lot of people that help put those types of things together and make them safe and make them spectacular.

(The) people on a Death Stranding game are behind a computer and the walls are blue and I have a skintight, Lycra body suit on with a camera and balls all over me. And Hideo is going “pick up that baby doll and cry.” And I’m like, “why?” And he’s like, “look, a whale goes over.” They’re totally different. There’s nothing to hold onto in a Death Stranding game.

IGN: Ana has trained so much for this, as Keanu did for all of his movies. Could you pick between Ana and Keanu if they faced off against each other? Who would win?

Wiseman: John Wick. John Wick is the Baba Yaga. He has been Eve’s character. She’s on the rise. She starts to train, so we’ll check it in a couple years.

Reedus: There’s John Wick, then there’s Keanu. If those crossed, maybe she would win because John would be “I can’t. You can have it.” You know what I mean?

IGN: Ana, with all of the training you’ve done, do you think you could take Keanu if it came to it in a fight?

De Armas: No, he’s God. Keanu is God. He’s the Baba Yaga.

This piece was combined from two separate interviews and has been edited for clarity.