A lot of the focus of the new Netflix film The Gray Man has been on the directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, or on the male leads, Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling. So that it might be easy to not even realize that the movie also co-stars the great Ana de Armas. Following on her scene-stealing turn in No Time to Die, de Armas is back doing some incredible action, and based on these behind-the-scenes clips, we’re ready for her to take center stage in John Wick spinoff Ballerina.
Ana de Armas has shown recently that she can hold her own with the guys when it comes to action cinema. The actress herself showed off some of her stunt training for The Gray Man in a post to Instagram where she thanked the team for all their work in getting her ready for production. She also says she really enjoyed it. Scroll through the gallery below to see not only images of de Armas on set but a few different videos showing off her training.
For fans of action movies or fans of Ana de Armas, this is only appetizer, because the main course is that de Armas has been cast in the lead role in Ballerina, the spinoff of the John Wick franchise. And considering just how seriously the main series takes action, the spinoff will have a high bar to clear. But this actress looks like she’ll be more than capable of clearing it. Underworld director Len Wiseman was previously reported be on board to direct the film, and despite the fact that was three years ago, it still appears to be the case.
The John Wick spinoff has been around nearly as long as the franchise itself. The script to Ballerina was sold back in 2017, shortly after John Wick: Chapter 2 had been released, for a long time the movie was seemingly in development hell. Although, part of the reason for that may have been that the plot was pretty closely tied to the events of the third film.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, introduced several new elements into the underground world of assassins, but one of them was a school, taught by a character played by Anjelica Huston. Simply known as The Director, she taught a school for Ballerinas, who did in fact learn to dance, but were also highly trained killers. The new spinoff will apparently follow a member of this school.
We’ve seen lots of clips over the years of Keanu Reeves going through significant training to get ready for the several John Wick movies over the years, and watching Ana de Armas in these Gray Man clips, you can just feel what the Ballerina training is going to be like.
During the recent San Diego Comic-Con we got our first look at John Wick: Chapter 4 and between it, the fact that we know John Wick: Chapter 5 is already coming, and Ballerina, fans of this franchise are going to have so much action to enjoy for the next several years.
