RIGHT TO THE POINTE

POWERHOUSE LAWRENCE AN EASY CHOICE FOR HOT ROLE IN RED SPARROW

It was on the set of the final Hunger Games film, Mockingjay – Part 2, that Red Sparrow first came to the attention of Francis Lawrence.

The director read and fell in love with Jason Matthews’ best-selling thriller and immediately thought of his Hunger Games muse Jennifer Lawrence for the lead role.

Red Sparrow tells the story of Dominika Egorova, a prima ballerina who, after an accident, cuts short her dancing career. She is forced by her uncle into training as a Sparrow – a Russian spy recruited to seduce enemy agents.

Q: What attracted you to the book?

A: It was a variety of things I think. First and foremost it was the character of Dominika, the part that Jen’s playing. I’ve found that I’m really attracted to stories about really isolated, lonely people and she’s clearly a very isolated, lonely person. But I’m also attracted to stories about people that have very relatable, visceral sort of needs that are then put in these kind of unbelievable situations.

I’m a big believer that it’s good for the audience to imagine themselves in the shoes of the protagonist. And this is one of those stories where Dominika is put in this situation. I think that we will all wonder what we would do under the circumstances. I find those stories emotional and intriguing. Also the world building aspects of it appealed to me. Eastern and Central Europe was also really fascinating to me and then the more we worked on it the more sort of politically relevant (it became).

Q: Did the increasing tensions between the US and Russia over the past year add a piquancy to your work?

A: It does. It was interesting when we first started this because I was in post on the Mockingjay films when I got the book and started working on the script. I was really drawn to the story but one of the questions we had was just how thematically and politically relevant it would feel. And that has completely changed in the past year, which is an incredible thing but it adds poignancy. You look at the scene with Charlotte (Rampling) describing about how the Cold War hasn’t ended, it just shattered into a thousand pieces, and it rings very true now.

Q: You’ve worked with Jennifer several times now. What does that offer you?

A: I think she was willing to take some risks in this movie. I think she might not have been willing to do that for somebody she didn’t know. We have a shorthand as we’ve had a lot of shooting days under our belt together now. We know how to communicate really efficiently and well and it works.

Q: Jennifer’s character Dominika is a ballerina and Jennifer famously said when she made Silver Linings Playbook that she can’t dance. So how did that go down?

A: She wanted to do all the training and the working out and try her best, but we also knew we were going to need a double for the big dance shots.

I’m not going to be shy about that – it would be really arrogant to try and say that someone with no dance training who trains for three months is going to dance like the prima ballerina at the Bolshoi and so she knew that’s what we would be doing.

She still had to train and she still had to get out there in the costume in front of 500 extras on stage and make her way through this routine. Usually right after the real principal dancer from the American Ballet Theatre went out and did it flawlessly, Jen would have to go out there and do it. It took a lot of guts.

Red Sparrow opens in cinemas on Thursday.