B.C. NATIVE MIXES IT UP
Smulders stars with Cruise
Vancouver native Cobie Smulders enjoys testing her range.
For instance, the 34-year-old returned home last summer to film her husband Taran Killam’s comedy Why We’re Killing Gunther, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before that, she was in and around New Orleans shooting the Tom Cruise action thriller Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
“I love switching it up,” says Smulders, promoting the Jack Reacher sequel based on a Lee Child crime novel.
Of course, on TV, she’s remembered for her role of Robin Scherbatsky on the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother. In movies, she’s known as the strait-laced S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill in the superhero films The Avengers and The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
In Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Smulders plays Maj. Susan Turner, who is framed for a murder along with former military man Reacher (Cruise). They become fugitives, trying to uncover a conspiracy before they are killed. Both are on the run with an incorrigible teenage girl (Danika Yarosh) who may be Reacher’s daughter.
In fact, the three make up a quasi-family with more problems than the bad guys trying to kill them.
“Ed (Zwick) embellished that part of the story a lot more than is in the book,” Smulders says of the director. “Jack Reacher is this guy who is used to being alone, but he’s thrust into this dysfunctional sort of unit, and that was fun to play.”
As Turner, Smulders was also required to fight martial-arts style and run for her life on more than one occasion; not a problem except for an unfortunate incident.
Weeks before workouts were to begin, the former model broke her leg after a fall in her New York apartment.
“I’ve always been quite a klutz,” she says. “So I was newly off crutches when we started training, and I was in the weakest shape of my adult life.”
The good news for Smulders was that Cruise and his expert trainers made sure she didn’t push her regimen.
“It turned out to be the best therapy because they made me stronger but in a safe, controlled way so I wouldn’t get hurt again,” she says.
Helping the film’s cause was the strong but unforced bond between Smulders and Cruise.
“You never know what’s going on in the head of an audience, but I got along so well with Tom, so I hope it shows on camera,” says Smulders. “We became great friends.”
To get into “the mind space” of a female in the U.S. military, she screened documentaries on the subject, met with active duty officers and others who had retired
You never know what’s going on in the head of an audience, but I got along so well with Tom, so I hope it shows on camera.
from service.
“I learned it’s a job that’s high pressure and extremely demanding,” Smulders says. “To have that kind of dedication to duty is something special.”
Filming the hit-man spoof Why We’re Killing Gunther in her hometown was less gruelling and a great deal more easygoing.
“It was honestly such a dream,” Smulders says. “It was great not only to be in my husband’s movie, but I got to see friends and family almost every day.”