Arianna Rivas on Preventing Alongside Jason Statham

SPOILER WARNING: This interview accommodates plot particulars from “A Working Man,” now taking part in in theaters.

In David Ayer’s “A Working Man,” Jason Statham performs Levon Cade, an ex-Royal Marine dwelling a quiet life as a development employee in Chicago. When his boss’ teenage daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped by a gang of human traffickers, Levon comes out of retirement to tackle her kidnappers.

The movie is the most recent in a sequence of actioners from Ayer and Statham chronicling working-class heroes following final 12 months’s “The Beekeeper,” which additionally noticed Statham on a mission to assist the helpless. However whereas the little outdated women Statham saves in that movie aren’t a lot for hand-to-hand fight, “A Working Man’s” would-be damsel in misery takes cost of her destiny within the movie’s finale, combating alongside Levon to take down her kidnappers.

“I felt unleashed. I felt highly effective, I felt robust, I felt radiant,” Rivas tells Selection about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Statham. “I felt like I used to be really, really moving into one thing and I obtained to painting one thing that I’ve at all times dreamed of.”

A fan of basic motion movies, Rivas says she jumped on the probability to be part of “A Working Man,” taking Sylvester Stallone’s involvement within the movie — he cowrote the screenplay with Ayer — as a great omen.

“I noticed the phrases ‘Sylvester Stallone’ in an e mail, and I’ve at all times liked his story about promoting the ‘Rocky’ script,” she explains. “At any time when I’m unsure, I’m like ‘Sylvester Stallone, he did it so I can do it.’ Once I noticed his title I assumed ‘Okay, this can be a signal.’ It was completely a dream come true.”

Not everybody’s goals contain spending hours on the fitness center studying to throw a punch, however stunt coordinator and second unit director Eddie J. Fernandez (who additionally performs a supporting position within the movie) says Rivas was greater than as much as the duty.

“The very first thing we did was assess her — see if she’s in a position to throw kicks and punches. Proper off the bat, I knew she was going to be any individual,” Fernandez says. “She’s stunning, she’s proficient, she’s younger, she’s a go-getter. Each time I instructed her she needed to be on the fitness center at a sure time, she was there early, stretching out, able to rock and roll, to get thrown and get pushed. She did all of it. It was actually cool to have her on set and to see her on the massive display screen.”

If Rivas was intimidated by working with an motion star of Statham’s caliber, Fernandez says she didn’t let it present. “Jason’s so cool, however he could be type of intimidating typically, however she’s an actress, she is aware of find out how to carry out. By the center of the movie, they have been hugging and high-fiving one another like ‘Hey, good job!’ It was a great combo.”

As for what Rivas discovered from Statham, she says “simply watching him throw a punch” was instructive. “How does he throw it and make it look robust with out hurting a stunt double or really hitting any individual? All of these small technical points, the place does the burden come from? It was very fascinating,” she explains. “I used to be type of nerding out watching him go, taking notes wherever I may.”

Rivas spent 4 months studying choreography for her massive stunt sequence in “A Working Man’s” final act, however manufacturing challenges pressured the crew to transform Jenny’s essential second. The sequence Ayer and Fernandez landed on options Rivas along with her fingers cuffed over her head as she fights along with her sadistic captor Artemis (Eve Mauro).

“That was modified about 4 occasions. We had extra of a combat, however the variety of taking pictures days we had was lower, so David thought on his toes and rewrote that complete ending,” Fernandez explains. “We most likely solely had about 24 hours to rehearse that and see how the ending got here collectively in comparison with what was initially written.”

“That was the toughest scene,” Rivas says, including that she was “simply flailing round like a fish. We had lengthy choreography that we did for 4 months, after which within the second we stated, ‘Okay, we’re gonna change it.’ But it surely was a lot enjoyable once we obtained it.”

Although it could have been born out of a time crunch, Fernandez says one in every of his favourite moments comes throughout the re-configured ending sequence. “[Statham and Rivas] have a bit second — they take a look at one another and it’s like ‘Not solely did you will have my again, I obtained your again.’