Former mixed martial arts champion Gina Carano (left) plays a black-ops contractor who is double-crossed by her employers in “Haywire.” The cast also includes Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas and Channing Tatum (right). / Photos by Relativity Media
“Haywire” star Gina Carano took lessons from a former member of Israel’s most elite security force.
'Haywire'
Country: U.S.
Length: One hour, 32 minutes
Director: Steven Soderberg
Cast: Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas
Screening: 11 a.m. today, Palm Springs High School
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It’s been one year since Gina Carano fired a gun, but you wouldn’t know it watching her shoot one. The former mixed martial arts champion, who makes her feature film debut in the Steven Soderbergh’s action movie “ “Haywire,” is engaged in lively target practice with Aaron Cohen, an ex-Israeli special ops fighter who served as her tactical train
Everything from Carano's crouched stance to the steely glint in her dark-brown eyes suggests that firing 9-millimeter pistols at close range is second nature to this 29-year-old extreme athlete.
“How's my form?” she asks as she fires multiple bullets into the chest of the paper target affixed to a wooden board 30 feet away.
“You haven't forgotten a thing,” replies Cohen.
“Wow,” says Carano, who earlier emerged from a black SUV at the dusty gun range in full movie-star attire — black leather jacket, lacy top, high-heeled boots — only to quickly transform into a fighter in cargo pants and sneakers, her hair pulled back in two low pigtails.
Geared up in hearing-protection headphones and a tactical fighting vest, she walks up to the target to poke at her center chest hits. “It's just like riding a bicycle.”
Carano and Cohen are at the Burro Canyon Shooting Park at the base of the Angeles Crest Highway showing off the skills Carano learned during Cohen's course designed to transform Carano into the role of Mallory Kane, a black-ops private contractor who is double-crossed by her employers.
The movie, which screens at 11 a.m. today at Palm Springs High School, is another one of Soderbergh's filmic experiments: This time the Academy Award-winning director reimagines the spy genre within the confines of physical realism. Rather than employ movie technology audiences have grown accustomed to — stunt doubles, quick film cuts, wire work — Soderbergh opted to approach the genre with a real-life fighter as his lead and a real-life elite soldier as his technical adviser. He then surrounded Carano with such actors as Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas and Ewan McGregor.
The result is a high-paced action film with kinetic fight scenes that stand apart from those in other films because they look so real.
“I really wanted to make a spy movie that wasn't a fantasy, in which the scale of it was very human,” said Soderbergh. “Then I saw Gina on TV, and I thought, ‘She is (James) Bond,' just in a different context.”
With little more than that idea in his head, Soderbergh first arranged to meet Carano in summer 2009, one week after Carano lost her first mixed martial arts fight against Brazilian fighter Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos. Sporting a black eye and a downtrodden attitude, Carano reluctantly picked up Soderbergh from a train station in San Diego, where she was living at the time.
“I didn't want to talk to anybody, see anybody,” said Carano, who was surprised when their meeting turned into a four-hour lunch. “We had this normal conversation. He was feeling me out. He wanted to know what kind of person I am. And I didn't have any preconceived notions of him because I didn't really know what a director really was.”
Soderbergh knew Carano mainly from her YouTube fights, where with her hair pulled back in tight cornrowed braids, she relentlessly punches and kicks her opponents, often breaking their noses and knocking them out. The director wanted to see if there was more to her than the intense brutality she conveys in bouts. He was hoping for something soft, feminine, maybe even vulnerable.
Soderbergh, who previously cast adult film star Sasha Grey as his leading lady in “The Girlfriend Experience,” knew the secret to working with untrained actors is to capitalize on their true character.
“The more you play to the essence of their personality, the more success you are going to have,” said Soderbergh. “I found her genuine, sincere and very female. She was in some respects very girly, which I thought was great. Even early on, I was hoping to have her play both sides of this, a girl in a beautiful dress who could also chase a guy down on foot. I had no doubts about that after I talked to her.”
Carano also got an acting coach once production began, but it didn't help settle her nerves when she showed up on Day 1, only to find out that she would be kissing Fassbender in her first scene.
“If you look at my face during that scene, I've got the biggest, cheesiest grin. My whole face was shaking. My mouth was shaking for that scene,” said Carano, who may have no fear when it comes to getting inside a cage to face off with another fighter but was clearly intimidated by the “acting days” in front of the camera.
Rather than panic, Carano trusted Soderbergh and held on for the ride. “Every day I woke up, not knowing what we were going to do that day or what that day held, and I just did it. It was all adrenaline. I think I do better in circumstances requiring natural adrenaline.”
