THE RHYTHM SECTION
Blake Lively is giving 007 a run for his money
Director Reed Morano
starring Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown
“I would work with Reed Morano on every movie I do for the rest of my life,” enthuses Blake Lively of her director on espionage tale The Rhythm Section. It’s hardly surprising: Morano is a director to watch right now, after working on The Handmaid’s Tale. Moreover, with coproduction from Eon, the company behind the James Bond films, this looks like a female spy franchise in the making.
Based on Mark Burnell’s novel from his Stephanie Patrick series, Lively plays the aforementioned heroine, who goes undercover after she discovers the plane crash that killed her family may not have been an accident. Co-starring with Jude Law, her guise is that of a “heroinaddicted prostitute assassin”, she explains. “Yeah, and I’m British… watch out! I want some feedback!”
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, though. Lively damaged her hand on set in Dublin last December, causing the production to shut down until June this year. “We were doing our own stunts in a fight scene,” she explains. “We wanted it to be a really, really brutal hand-to-hand combat scene. We quickly realised why actors don’t beat the shit out of each other – because we don’t know how to do it well!” JW THE RHYTHM SECTION OPENS ON 22 FEBRUARY.