Gina Carano, Michelle Rodriguez enjoy fight scenes

ABS-CBNnews.com

MANILA – American actress and fitness model Gina Carano revealed it was a pleasure doing intense fight scenes with Michelle Rodriguez, who is making a comeback to the world of action movies.

In an interview with ABS-CBN News on Wednesday, Carano said they delivered their stunts properly in the 6th installment of the “Fast and Furious” series.

“We had pressure to kind of make a really great scene together as far as the physicality and the fight went. I think it delivers because we have such great energy on and off film. I was a little bit nervous to see who I would be working with. I’ve never worked with an actress before, physically like this. It was just really a pleasure to have Michelle,” she said.

According to Rodriguez, there were incidents when she and Carano inadvertently hurt each other while filming some scenes.

Aside from being an actress, Carano is also known as a former mixed martial arts fighter.

“I did take the pad out of my jacket but that was my decision because I thought it made my arms look fun. So I took it trying to be cool. And she (Carano) slammed me into the car like 20 times that day. I had a bruise. I loved watching it change colors. It went from like purple to like green, to yellow,” she said.

Despite this, Rodriguez said shooting the action-packed scenes were among her favorite days going to the set.

“I loved it. I loved getting thrown around by her,” she said.

Manila’s Hollywood Week – The other side of Gina Carano

(HispanicBusiness.com)

She may have been known as the third best female fighter in the world before crossing over to film and television, but mixed martial artist Gina Carano openly shared with the Asian press that she is essentially a very emotional person.

At a roundtable interview at Fairmont Hotel in Makati City, Carano, who was in Manila for The Fast and the Furious 6 red carpet premiere and promotion, said she hopes that someday soon, Hollywood will also whip up scripts for female fighters that will allow them to cry.

“I’m going through scripts right now and everyone wants to give me roles of the stone-faced female lead. But that’s really not me–I want to smile, I want to cry, I want to fight and be physical,” she revealed. “I have these two different sides to me–very emotional yet very physical. But these [current] roles, I find them to be cold; although in saying that, even I have to figure out how to mesh them together in a single role. I think it’ll take time and lots of ideas to get to that point.”

For the moment, she revels in having been able to come face to face and fight with Hollywood’s favorite tough chick, Michelle Rodriguez, in Fast 6.

“Michelle is a character you just fall in love with–she’s such a fireball,” the 31-year-old Carano enthused. “But in terms of fighting she’s been very verbal and I’ve just had to fight physically. And so putting our images together in the movie mixed well because it put together two very believable females.”

With the Vin Diesel-starrer only her third film to date, the former “Face of Women’s Mixed Martial Arts” admits she was quite overwhelmed by being part of the big-budgeted Hollywood film franchise.

“Coming from Haywire [her last film], everything was small and comfortable,” she began. “But then, going into Fast 6 it was all about nice cars, massive personalities, huge set ups. You had to have the mentality to accept the massiveness of the whole production. I mean, from $2-million to $200-million, you have to accept the responsibility of being part of something this big. But once I got over that, I started getting into character, and that’s what I’m doing now, learning character development.”

In the same way that she mastered her sport, which began with Thai Boxing, Carano believes that experience will make her a better actor.

“In my last film I actually had a genuine crying scene, and I’d have to say that’s my proudest moment in film so far–not the fighting,” she laughed. “It felt so good walking away [from the set] and getting that right–knowing that people knew where you were coming from.”

In the meantime, she hopes that with Fast 6 opening in theaters all around the world very soon (May 24 in the Philippines) people will come to see her both for her physical strength and her passion for her newfound love for acting.

Fast6’s Luke Evans and Gina Carano on making movies, fun in the Philippines (by Mac Macapendeg)

According to Carano, “I hope that they feel my presence. It’s not a good feeling being the bad guy, you know being the person that turns and especially for me like, ‘Oh they’re gonna hate me!‘”

“That’s not a good feeling but at the same time if I made an impact of some sort and people are like shocked, I think if I had a presence at all, I think that’s a good sign for a second movie,” she added.

“Everybody wants to give me the job of the cop, or the stone-faced female lead. I kind of would like to figure out because that’s not like me. I wanna smile, I wanna cry, I wanna fight, I wanna be physical, I wanna do anything,” she said.

“I have these two different sides of me, very physical and very emotional. I think that these roles of the strong women who are just cold, there’s a place for that but I wanna figure out how to mesh them. When I I read these scripts, I know that people haven’t got hold of that yet,” she added.

Carano said that she loved her stay in the Philippines, despite their busy schedule.

“I love it…I hope I can come back and check out the beaches and the culture. You guys like to have a good time here, I think. That’s what you’re known for,” she said.

(Credit: EoinA, Hey-Why-Her?, Paul, M1, swinjen & AMC)