The Protégé’s Martin Campbell: ‘I like live action and not visual effects’

In an era of action movies defined by hand-to-hand combat, pure physics, and choreographed gunfights the way John wick, logic would dictate that Maggie Q have her own stunt show. The Nikita star has been one of Hollywood’s favorite action players for almost 20 years; after breaking in with 2001 Rush hour 2, has been featured in everything from the Hollywood blockbusters (Mission: Impossible 3, Live free or die hard) to Chinese action dramas.

Luckily, director Martin Campbell (Royal Casino) made it possible: in The protégé, which hits theaters on Friday, August 20, Q plays Anna, a murderer caught in a game of cat and mouse with a charismatic murderer, played by Michael Keaton. The movie puts the actor front and center to flex every muscle. Maggie Q is the movie.

“It’s really exciting to have a vehicle that you can put your heart and soul into,” says Q by email. “I can’t think of one aspect of this movie that was not a huge challenge for me. I will say that the support and the challenge were equal. ”

For Campbell, Q was the rare multifaceted performer who could keep up with Keaton and quickly develop a meaningful relationship with Samuel L. Jackson’s mentor character, but he fused characterization directly with fight choreography.

“She has this wonderful combination of her acting skills and her ability to do action,” Campbell writes by email. “The moment she jumps off the balcony and falls 3 or 4 floors she did it herself. She was trained by Jackie Chan, so that’s a huge bonus. She is extremely good at action and timing and was barely duplicated in the movie. We were very lucky to have her […] she did it all. “

Campbell says his team did their best to run The protégéIt is the game of pieces in the most practical way possible. Visual effects were used to enhance environments and eliminate wires here or there, but knowing that their leader was fully capable of performing on any stage gave the conductor the freedom to orchestrate bigger stunts on set.

“They’re all real and a lot of times it’s the actors who do it themselves, which is what I like,” says Campbell. “The truth is that I like it true action and non-action visual effects, which I think in many cases takes you out of the movie. Action is possible in this movie. “

“Every action role is different for sure, especially since no matter what kind of experience you’ve had in the past, you’re usually always working with a different action team,” says Q. “It’s really about taking the knowledge that I’ve built in all these experiences and hope to have chemistry with the action coordinator / fight coordinator so that we can produce quality with confidence. If I don’t trust them, the game of what we can achieve together is over. That has happened to me, but very rarely, in this case I was lucky enough to work with people that I really respected. “

For Q, the “biggest mountain” to climb The protégé he was going face to face with Keaton. “He is so incredible, an actor of different caliber. Our chemistry mattered a lot and I wanted to be able to create something unexpected with it, ”he says. “[Anna] he’s surrounded by older men in this movie who have unique experiences under their belt. Certainly your mentor is the person who taught you everything you know. It feels like it’s an amalgamation of her teachers and challenges, who are influenced by men. Then it becomes a unique product of its environment, keeping everything that is as its closest asset. The story stems from a deep loss that I think is a great equalizer in many ways. No one is immune from that. “

In the end, all of Q’s choices, from intimate to action-driven, worked for Campbell. “She is so good, which means my job as a director was so much easier. In fact, she’s the only female action character I’ve ever worked with and she makes my life so easy. “

The protégé it’s in theaters now.