Bonded for life
Some might be surprised to discover that Halle’s Bruised co-star is a for-real UFC fighter… and not just any old fighter. Valentina Shevchenko (@bulletvalentina) is the current UFC women’s flyweight champion. A mixed martial artist, former Muay Thai fighter and bona fide badass (note: we truly don’t use that word lightly), Valentina gave Halle a crash course in more than jabs and punches when she joined Bruised. The pair sat down with WH’S Liz Plosser to talk fighting, friendship and why they will always be connected.
WH: Halle, how did you choose Valentina for this role? What drew you to her initially?
Halle: I knew I had to have a real fighter as my opponent. Having another actor who didn’t know the sport inside and out would make my job harder. It had to be a UFC fighter, and to make it real, it had to be someone in my real body weight – I’m a one-twenty-fiver [8st 8lb], so a flyweight. Who’s a better flyweight person to fight in the UFC than the champion? I was a little intimidated at first because I thought, ‘Will the champion be in my movie?’ I asked her, and luckily for us, she agreed to do it.
WH: You obviously had a dream team helping prepare you physically for this film, but was Valentina also involved in teaching you?
Halle: When Valentina came into the picture and we started training together, it all came
to fruition. I realised this is why I needed a real fighter – because when I stepped into the cage with her to train, it was so different than with a stuntwoman. When you start doing manoeuvres with a real fighter, all of it suddenly clicks. And she could say, ‘No, no, no, don’t do it like this.’ I realised halfway through that I’m learning from the champ. There’s no greater crash course. Valentina: What I noticed the most was her endurance. We started training at 7am and went until 1pm. I know fighters who train non-stop every time, and you can tell a lot about a fighter by how they take a training process – if they need to rest, or go do something else. Halle never stops. I was even tired. Then she was like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s do it again!’ Halle: One of the biggest compliments I got in the whole process was when we were shooting scenes and the referee who called Valentina’s fights in real life said, ‘That last take, I thought I was watching a real Valentina fight!’ And for me, that was the moment that all this training, all this work, having a real fighter, paid off. Everybody warned me at first that a real fighter is going to kill you. She’s going to demolish you. I was like, ‘Well, then let’s go.’ To her credit, she didn’t.
She learned to pull her punches. She did the movie as well as any stuntwoman, and she’d never done it a day in her life. WH: The bond between the two of you on-screen is palpable. Is there any parallel with how your relationship evolved off-screen?
Valentina: Fighting each other hard, like very hard, and trying to give a lot of what we have, makes you closer to the person. By the end, you have nothing but respect. If you are both going through it and doing your best, it makes you so close to each other.
Halle: I feel like we’ve been through a fire together. There was a lot of pressure on me to get my part right. But when you have a partner pulling for you, and you’re both scared but want this so badly, you have a closeness. I will love her forever.