Action flicks are Hollywood's bread and butter, but it's not enough for these female heroines
to be talented and beautiful — they also have to kick ass.
From soldiers and spies to psychotic ballerinas, these women put in maximum hustle before the
cameras ever started rolling.
Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot already had the face to play Wonder Woman in Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice
— but it took some serious working-out to turn her runway model-body into an Amazonian
temple of power for Wonder Woman's stand-alone flick.
Gadot, who was unable to do a single pullup at the start of her training, spent nine months
bulking up for the role.
"They cast me when I was super skinny and I never knew how it feels to be built and
to be really strong and it felt really good."
By the time she was in front of the cameras, she'd gained seventeen pounds of muscle, while
learning to ride horseback and sword fight.
She told Glamour,
"When you feel strong, it changes everything — your posture, the way you walk.
I look at photos from five years ago and think, Whoa, I was too skinny."
Scarlett Johansson
Between playing Black Widow in the Marvel Universe, and a cyborg assassin in Ghost in
the Shell, Scarlett Johansson has had to stay in constant peak physical condition since
2010.
But for the latter, she had to wield a wide variety of lethal objects, too.
Johansson described her training regimen for Ghost in the Shell as,
"...A lot of tactical training, which I'd never done before — with room clearing and
all that stuff, to just be as efficient with the weapons as possible."
"I can pick up fight choreography with much more ease now than I could 10 years ago."
"I try to train self-defense on my own."
"I can tell I'm scared of you."
Alison Brie
Until recently, Alison Brie was best known for playing the delicate Trudy on Mad Men.
So when she landed a starring role in Netflix's GLOW, she had to train like a madwoman to
get in literal fighting shape.
"I feel just much stronger than I ever have."
Brie's knockout workout involved hurling weighted objects onto the gym floor; or lugging 3 times
her body-weight across the room.
Trainer Jason Walsh said his goal was to turn Brie into someone who could both dish out
and take a hit, saying,
"Alison would be jumping off ropes and landing on people and flipping.
I wanted to get her resilient so she didn't run the risk of injury."
"There's a lot of crotch to face!"
Zoe Saldana
Even though she never appeared onscreen as herself, Zoe Saldana endured a killer training
regimen for her performance as Neytiri in Avatar.
Not only did the actress need to learn archery, martial arts, and how to ride a horse bareback,
she also had to learn Na'vi, the fictional language featured in the movie.
And then she had to do it all, while wearing a motion capture suit and head camera.
All together, Saldana spent a whopping eighteen months preparing for the role.
Natalie Portman
How intense was Natalie Portman's training regimen for Black Swan?
The actress herself probably sums it up best, telling Entertainment Weekly,
"There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die."
To prepare for her role in Darren Aronofsky's thriller about a mentally unbalanced ballerina,
Portman spent a full year developing the ballet skills required to execute the film's choreography
— dancing for five hours a day, every day.
"Six months before shooting started, I started serious ballet training with Mary Hellen Bowers
who was in NYC ballet for a really long time."
But once production kicked into gear, those five hours turned into sixteen, which, in
combination with an ultra-restrictive dancer's diet, saw Portman shed twenty pounds from
her already-thin frame.
Fortunately, the actress' misery had company; her co-star Mila Kunis had to endure a similarly
grueling routine.
Daisy Ridley
In the years since Star Wars: The Force Awakens made Daisy Ridley a mega-star, nasty internet
trolls chased the actress off Instagram, where she used to diligently document the workout
program that helped her get into Jedi condition.
But thankfully, Ridley's newer training clips are popping up everywhere — and her awe-inspiring
training sessions are even more intense than before.
Sofia Boutella
After cutting her teeth as a backup dancer for Madonna, Sofia Boutella was no stranger
to working hard and getting sweaty.
"I don't have anything that hold me back when it comes to try something new.
When it comes to taking risk, I just love to do that."
But she took it to a whole new level when she was cast as the amputee assassin Gazelle
in 2015's Kingsman.
Along with training in taekwondo every day for six months, Boutella explained her approach
to leg day, telling Coach,
"[It's] about performing one movement over and over again for long enough until the muscle
goes numb — that's when I know it's working."
"It's hardcore, but it's worth it.
The feeling of being able to kick with greater strength each day is empowering."
"There is no secret, it's just repetition.
You have to try different things and do it over and over again."
Maggie Q
It might be hard to believe, but Nikita and Mission Impossible III star Maggie Q didn't
start out as a martial artist.
She told Collider,
"I'm half Asian, so people immediately go, 'Oh, you do kung fu,' like that's what we
do.
We wake up, we do kung fu."
"I was an athlete when I was a kid.
I was a swimmer and a runner, but all this action stuff is such a challenge."
When she was 17, then-model Maggie Q was recruited by martial arts icon Jackie Chan to be part
of an elite club of new action stars.
Since then, she's gone from being a girl who'd never thrown a punch in her life to one of
the few actresses in Hollywood who does all her own stunts.
Taraji P. Henson
Taraji P. Henson might be older than other actresses on this list, but that didn't stop
her from going all in for her role in Proud Mary.
"You a cop?"
"Not exactly."
In order to play this hardcore professional assassin, the 47-year-old Henson committed
to grueling workouts, combat training, and a crash course in aggressive stunt driving
— all to make it look real on screen.
In an Instagram post promoting her film, she wrote,
"I can NOT BELIEVE I am doing most of my stunts in this BADASS FILM...I amazed my dang on
self on this one!!!!"
"I tell you what if you see Mary, you better run the other way."
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