ACTION FILM PUTS WOMEN CENTRE STAGE
Jacquie Davis, who spent four years as JK Rowling’s personal security expert, tutored film star Noomi Rapace in the fine art of close protection for her role as minder to an heiress
WITH a machine gun held under her chin, the female bodyguard has the calm of a professional as she sprays her enemies with bullets. Deep in hostile territory and with danger around every corner, she will do anything to protect her terrified client, a wealthy young heiress called Zoe.
This incident is a scene from Close, a new film from Netflix which stars the Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, who was nominated for a best actress Bafta in 2011 for her role in The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo, as the steely-eyed bodyguard Sam and the up-and-coming Canadian Sophie Nelisse as Zoe.
To prepare for the exhausting, full-on action role Rapace spent time with a British woman bodyguard, who regards herself as lucky to be alive after a career dodging real bullets in some of the most perilous parts of the world.
Jacquie Davis trained in close protection with Scotland Yard but moved into the private sector in the 1970s to take advantage of the many wealthy Middle Eastern families coming to London.
She has written several books on her exploits, which partly inspired Close director Vicky Jewson to make the film, out tomorrow.
In real life Davis, now in her late fifties, has been stabbed in the leg, thrown through a shop window and just last year had to step in to protect a client who was being attacked on a London street.
The list of stars and famous people she has protected reads like a Who’s Who of cultural icons: JK Rowling, Nicole Kidman, members of the Royal family and Justin Bieber, to mention just a few.
ONE of her toughest assignments was to find and free a young pregnant British woman who had been tricked into going to Pakistan, where she was held against her will by her new husband. Wearing a balaclava Jacquie broke into the villa where the woman was being held in the middle of the night on a reconnaissance mission.
However, the full-scale nocturnal rescue operation had to be brought forward after Davis had a very unfortunate piece of bad luck. One of her previous clients Benazir Bhutto, the former President of Pakistan who was later assassinated in 2007, got wind of the fact she was in the country and Davis felt that her window of opportunity was narrowing.
Taking up the story, she recalls: “We then had to storm the villa during the day and we did that by paying a taxi driver to ram the gates. We got her as far as we could in a vehicle and then we had to hot foot it across mountains into India.
“We’ve been trained and we’re fit but here I’ve got a pregnant 23-yearold who has been beaten and starved and got a pair of flip-flops on. We wandered into Kashmir and were being followed by the Pakistan THE script that does such a good job of capturing the tough world of women bodyguards was written by British writer Vicky Jewson, who says it was a privilege to work with Noomi Rapace, 39, and 18-year-old Sophie Nelisse.
“It felt unique to explore a strong female relationship prevailing against extraordinary odds,” says Jewson, who also directed the film. “Working closely with Jacquie allowed us to bring an authenticity to the action scenes, which was very important to me.”
The plot revolves around counter-terrorism expert Sam (Rapace) who takes a job protecting Zoe (Nelisse), an heiress. Neither is keen on the arrangement at first but when a violent kidnap attempt goes wrong the pair are forced to work together to stay alive.
Tension builds as Sam and Zoe turn the tables on their kidnappers and close in on those behind the plot.
The film was shot in the UK and Morocco, where many of the action-packed sequences were filmed, and both actresses were stretched physically to meet the demanding action sequences demanded of them.
With a woman playing the traditional male action hero role, Close is set to make movie history and Netflix executives are hoping it will enhance the company’s growing reputation for making original movies.
amy. We were caught in the crossfire. They weren’t shooting at us, thank God, and we managed to get out and get her home.”
On that particular job she was acting in a grey area, legally, but when asked to explain her justification she responds: “Justice. Nobody has the right to steal somebody else and to tell them you are going to stay here and do this. It’s not right. Everybody has the right to be where they want to be.”
In some countries she was able to carry a gun, which made her feel more secure. It was in Iraq that she faced one of her toughest missions, rescuing some men who had upset Uday Hussein, the son of Saddam, by beating him at cards. After Uday accused them of cheating they were dragged off and put in a cage.
“Our job was to find them and get them out,” says Davis. “I spent a lot of time in a burqa begging on the streets opposite where they were being kept so I could watch guard
movements.” Stories of her derring-do and knowledge of how to react in terrifying situations reached the producers of Close and she was hired as a consultant, spending time on set advising Rapace on how to make her character as authentic as possible.
“I’ve always been so fascinated by female bodyguards,” Rapace explains. “I was obsessed with their world and how good they are at leading people and blending in