Ballerina Team “Not Setting Out to Do a Female John Wick”
When From the World of John Wick: Ballerina hits theaters in June, it will mark the first film entry in the ever-expanding franchise not led by Keanu Reeves’s titular assassin. Instead Reeves passes the baton (or should we say Glock) to Ana de Armas and her character Eve Macarro, who the team insists is complex and nuanced in her own right and not just a female John Wick clone.
De Armas leads a cast of newcomers featuring Norman Reedus and Gabriel Byrne along with returning faces Reeves, Ian McShane, Anjelica Houston, and the late Lance Reddick.
On the heels of a wild panel at CCXP last week in São Paulo, Brazil, much of the cast along with director Len Wiseman sat down with IGN to talk about building on the franchise’s mythology, if de Armas could take Reeves in a fight, and how they made a John Wick movie without John Wick himself as the lead.
IGN: At the CCXP panel, the fans were really excited to see you all.
Ian McShane (Winston Scott): Delicious. It was delicious.
IGN: With all that energy, what do you think is going to surprise and excite them about Ballerina?
Ana de Armas (Even Macarro): It’s (a) new take on this world. It is changing perspectives and a new point of view in the world that we already know and love. But this time (it’s) through Eve's experience. We’ll see the connection and the timeline, how it intertwines with John Wick.
Len Wiseman (Director): One of the things that was very important early on was that I was not setting out to do a female John Wick, that John Wick is John Wick. This is an entirely different character, kick-ass (in) her own right. (She’s) a new character within the world, not somebody that's replicating what John Wick does.
IGN: John Wick shows up in some form in Ballerina…
Norman Reedus (Daniel Pine): He shows up in human form. In human form.
Wiseman: Eve is looking to become an assassin. (She) starts up with the Ruska Roma, train(s), and becomes an assassin. John Wick is really essentially trying to get out of the world. So
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