SFX

RUBY RUBY RUBY RUBY

Ruby Rose is Jaxx Herd

- Richard Edwards

Were you familiar with the book before you signed up for the movie?

When I heard there was potentiall­y a female role in there that could be good for me, I read the book, had a meeting with the director, got a copy of the script, and I just fell in love. I’ve read the book now and I love the author. He sent me some books and one of them said, “Dear Ruby, thank you for being in this film. My daughter has finally read my book!” She got excited, apparently, that I was doing the film, and decided that maybe dad’s books are okay!

What can you tell us about Jaxx?

Jaxx is an engineer and she’s the best at her job. She works in a team of people who basically study the marine ecosystem. Personalit­y-wise, I enjoy the fact that she’s a little hard to get to know. She’s standoff-ish when she meets people for the first time, but once she’s on your side, she’s the best friend to have.

Did you do much background reading on real megalodons?

Growing up I loved the megaladon. At school when we had to do something about a dinosaur or a prehistori­c creature, a lot of kids would do a t-rex or a pterodacty­l, but I would always do the megaladon because I love the ocean, and I love sharks. So a lot of what I already knew was really, really helpful for me, and then I could obviously expand on that by doing further research. Like the tooth of the meg is all that we really have now – we don’t have their skeletons because the cartilage has dissolved over time. When people first started to discover the teeth, they actually thought that they were a dragon’s tongue!

Did you go through much of a boot camp beforehand to get your sea legs?

[The other cast] were talking about how they haven’t spent a lot of time in the water, so I was like, “I’ve got this. I’m going to be the superstar and show them what a good swimmer I am!” And I was terrible! We were all the same. Jason’s like a profession­al diver, and he’s extraordin­ary in the water, but when they put clothing on us, I had totally forgotten the impact of that – it’s exhausting. Any of the skills I thought I had, I was definitely not prepared for that type of fitness.

Is it true that you had fake tattoos created instead of using your own in the movie?

Yeah. When I look at the character, it’s going to be very rare that I’ll ever play someone that would have my tattoos. I didn’t see Jaxx having a Ninja turtle and Astro Boy, and some of the other cartoons and comics that I have. I felt that she is so in love with marine life, I got a big octopus and fish so it was more about the ocean – we had them designed by tattoo artists.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia