We all know Noomi Rapace is one tough chick but her latest role pushed her close to her limits
A rare thriller led by a female protagonist, Unlocked throws Noomi Rapace right into the action as terrorists and spies clash in London over an impending terrorist attack. Rapace has made some big movies before (like Prometheus ahd Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows), but she calls this the toughest shoot she's ever experienced.
Noomi Rapace in Unlocked
"I'm used to being able to just make my mind up and tell myself, 'Come on, no whining, you can do it!' But working on this movie was really pushing it," she admits. "I run around fighting, trying to stay alive, escaping, saving people, hunting people down. On the last week of shooting, one of the camera men said to me, 'I don't think I've ever seen a leading lady look so bad!' I was all messed up and bloody. I don't believe in looking sexy, pretty and polished if you're fighting for your life. I mean, when did you have time to get ready and put on mascara? Everything I do has a basis in reality."
Rapace says that the film's action sequences were like nothing she'd done before. "The last week of shooting I was hanging from a construction site, upside down by one arm, 12 stories up in the air. I wore a safety harness and was about to be sick as I looked down," she laughs. "I am so afraid of heights, but I didn't tell anyone. And they're all, 'You're so cool with heights!' If I admit to being afraid, it would be impossible to go through with the scene."
While that sequence went smoothly, it was a fight with a costar in which she was injured. "It was an accident during one of the action scenes," she says. "I got Orlando Bloom's elbow in my face. He was like, 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I hit her!'"
Bloom admits that he loved making the movie with Rapace. "It was fun, yeah," he says enthusiastically. ''Wherever possible I try and do all my own stunts."
But there was one scene that completely unnerved him. "The most terrifying thing I've ever done was having a 150-pound Rottweiler charging me down," Bloom admits. "The dog handler doesn't really speak English and he was just like, 'Keep your hand inside,' with just cardboard basically protecting my arm. And the dog's locking on to it and shaking like a lunatic. It was very scary. We did it a couple of times and I was like, 'Enough!'"
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