Yesterday, we heard from Jake Gyllenhaal talking about the physical aspects of starring as Prince Dastan in Disney's upcoming action-adventure movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and his preparedness to film a sequel. Now, his Sands co-star, English actress Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace), chimes in.
Arterton, who plays Princess Tamina in the film, says she didn't allow herself to be star-struck when working with Academy Award-winner Sir Ben Kingsley.
"I tend to go into things head first, not really thinking about what I'm doing, which is sometimes better, then going, 'Oh My God, I'm about to act with Ben Kingsley!' because then you're all yourself, and that's what they want ultimately anyway, and you're just another actor working with them on this film ultimately, so that is brilliant, but I don't really get to worry about it. I probably should. (laughs) I probably should when I'm being all cheeky and campy with Sir Ben Kingsley, but no, it's brilliant and an honor." Like Gyllenhaal, who spent months weight training, practicing Parkour and learning to sword fight, Arterton had to learn some new skills to star
Sands.
" I had to learn how to horse ride 'cause I'd never done it before in my life, and it's kind of become a real new sort of passion for me. Pretty much the whole cast went to Spain and learned to horse ride for 2 weeks, which was incredible to have that opportunity and then we all kind of continued it. Then I have to do loads of fighting but there isn't a particular style to my fighting. It's quite wild 'cause she's never really been trained to fight so it's just kind of go 'aaaagh!' like that, but just doing it with some sort of skill. Where I went to drama school I trained in stage combat quite heavily so I had quite a bit of experience before.
"I love all the action stuff. I think I should have really been a stuntwoman. I really enjoy it even though sometimes you think, 'Oh, God, there are actually people that are trained to do this and they're trained to get battered and bruised,' but I've loved doing all of that and the fighting. It's gobsmacking the sets and the costume and the sheer scale of this film and then you're kind of put into into this completely different world and that is really, really fantastic. You don't have to really imagine much 'cause it's there designed right in front of you, and so that's been brilliant as well." Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is produced by
Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by
Mike Newell. The film also stars
Toby Kebbell, Alfred Molina, Reece Ritchie, Richard Coyle and
Steve Toussaint. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opens May 28, 2010!
Click HERE for pictures from the set!
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