Motherhood and mayhem
Ruby Rose goes to extremes in ‘Vanquish’
Ruby Rose teams with Morgan Freeman for “Vanquish,” which mixes maternal drive with pulverizing mobsters. “I play Victoria, a single mom who basically is just trying to make ends meet” Rose, 35, began this week on Zoom.
“Her daughter is not well and she works as a caretaker for Damon (Morgan Freeman),” who is spectacularly wealthy and wheelchairbound.
Damon has been practically a father figure until as “Vanquish” begins, he demands that Victoria do a series of criminal jobs — with her child held as ransom.
“That’s the ultimate betrayal which she just can’t understand. It’s the realization that,” Rose said, “she didn’t really know this person that she thought that she knew so well.
“But she doesn’t have time to really process that because she has to go and do these things that she never thought she would do again in order to get her daughter back.”
For Rose, born and raised in Australia, “Vanquish” clicked a number of boxes that made saying yes pretty simple.
“I wanted to work with (director) George Gallo forever and Morgan Freeman, obviously. And I just loved how different this character was to what I played before.”
Rose played “Batwoman” for one season on the CW.
Killing these cruel scum leaves her “heartbroken that she has to do this. There’s a reluctance, almost like a suffering, every time she has to go in, pick up a package and use force or whatever.
“I also loved the idea of playing a young single mom with a daughter, which is what my mom was when she had me. Seeing at just what level a single mom (or a single parent) would go to, to save their child!
“I could look back at so many times my mom was in that same position and did things that I just didn’t even know were possible. Anything it took to help us survive.”
Gender fluidity has always been part of Rose’s persona — she came out at 12 — and at one point in “Vanquish,” Victoria is asked if she’s a boy.
“That was already in the script,” she said. “These crooks were just assuming that anyone that’s managed to cause all this drama amongst these mobsters, ‘Oh, that would have to be a guy.’
“But it did make it extra funny that at that point I had shaved my head and kind of looked like an errand boy.”