Ballerina

[Drunk Monk]

Ana de Armas breaks down 'really emotional' flame thrower scene in John Wick spinoff Ballerina: 'I started crying'
"I've never seen anyone burning," the actor tells EW.
By Sydney Bucksbaum
 
Published on May 1, 2025 10:00AM EDT


Ana de Armas as Eve in 'Ballerina'.Credit: 
Larry D. Horricks
When Ana de Armas joined the John Wick universe to star in the spinoff Ballerina, she knew she had a lot of fighting in her future. But she didn't expect how much emotion she'd have to battle as well, particularly during the film's hottest stunt sequence.
Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive sneak peek of the action sequence, which sees de Armas' new character Eve, an assassin trained by the Ruska Roma, wielding a flamethrower against some unlucky henchmen as she seeks vengeance for her father's murder.
Director Len Wiseman tells EW that the scene was "90 percent" practical and that de Armas did most of her own stunts, which meant she had to use an actual flamethrower to (safely) burn a man alive on camera. The first time she tested out the weapon, she broke down crying on set.
"I remember the first day the stunt team was practicing with the fire, and they told me to go do it before the shoot, and I said, 'No, no, no, I'll be fine,'" de Armas recalls. Fortunately, the stunt team insisted she try it out first without the cameras rolling. "They got the main fire guy that gets burned, and he's all covered in this sticky grease or whatever they put for protection, and they're like, 'Okay, go ahead. Just burn him.' And I did, and I started crying."

Ana de Armas as Eve in 'Ballerina'.
Larry D. Horricks

Both de Armas and the director describe that moment as "so intense." "It was really emotional," de Armas adds. "I've never seen anyone burning, even though it's fake."
After that emotional practice run, de Armas was able to shoot the scene tear-free. "Then I was fine," she says with a laugh. "Then I burned like a hundred people. I'm glad I practiced the day before, and I cried the day before. But it's amazing to see what [the stunt performers] do — I can't believe you guys put yourself through this. It's unbelievable."
The director was also shocked by the flamethrower's power, even in the safe, protected environment on set. "I had never actually shot a flamethrower in my life before," Wiseman says. "It was just horrifying, actually lighting somebody on fire with a flamethrower, even though they're acting. And it was a long sequence. It was very, very brutal."
Learning how to wield fire as a weapon for the fight scene was quite different from the other weapons training de Armas went through before filming began (more on that in a bit). Aside from dealing with the obvious dangers of handling fire, the actor was surprised by the way the flames seemed to have a life of their own.

Ana de Armas as Eve in 'Ballerina'.
Larry D. Horricks

"It moves. It's not a stick that, if you move your gun, it moves with you," she explains. "It has a little delay, especially at that length. The fire would shoot out really far away, and it kicked back. They had to put something in my lashes, on my hair, so that it wouldn't burn them. It was something to get used to."
Looking back on one of the film's biggest and most challenging action scenes, de Armas is proud of how the entire production ultimately pulled it off. "The fire scene was risky, but we did it," she says. "It was all done the right way, and everyone was super careful, and it turned out to be an amazing experience."
The female-fronted spinoff takes place during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and expands the world of the ballet-centric Ruska Roma, one of the 12 criminal organizations with a seat at the High Table. The dance/assassin training academy was first glimpsed in that movie when Keanu Reeves' eponymous killer visited the Director (Anjelica Huston). De Armas' Eve Macarro is a graduate of the Ruska Roma, looking to avenge her father's brutal murder, which she witnessed as a child.
"There is a lot about her past that she doesn't know," de Armas says. "She experienced something really horrible when she was younger — she saw some men killing her father — and when she starts working for the Ruska Roma, she finds some clues that will lead her to the people that killed her dad, and she goes rogue."
After taking on roles in the action genre before, most memorably in the James Bond film No Time to Die, de Armas was thrilled to finally lead her own action movie. She was first approached to join the John Wick franchise before the script for Ballerina was even finished. "But it was a good start," she says. "I could see the potential for it, and I was so excited to jump in."

Ana de Armas in 'Ballerina'.
Larry D. Horricks

Despite everyone in her life pushing Eve to abandon her quest for revenge, she can't bring herself to let go. "It's just bigger than her and she can't control it," de Armas says. "One of the things I like the most is that [she's] opposite to John: he wants to get out of the Ruska Roma, and she wants in."
That's just one of the reasons why Ballerina is not simply "a female John Wick," which is exactly what de Armas and Wiseman loved about the script. "What I was really set on is I would love to do a movie that is actually not a female John Wick," Wiseman says. "She is actually a character that is, in her own right, a complete badass, but a very different story than John Wick."
Another way that Eve is different from John is the way she fights. "I'm a woman in a man's world," de Armas says. "These assassins that I fight in the movie are huge guys, and I want to feel that; I want the audience to feel that every punch, every kick, anything that I get, it hurts. I want to translate that into the physicality of it. I want people to feel like she is barely getting out of it. She's overwhelmed, she's tired."

Ana de Armas getting her Ruska Roma tattoos in 'Ballerina'.
Larry D. Horricks

Portraying Eve's journey for revenge was "the most physical role" de Armas had ever done. "It's a lot to take in," she says. "All the other action things I did before that were a little smaller helped me."
The actor spent four months training before filming, starting with an hour and a half in the gym with her personal trainer, followed by five hours of stunt training, and concluding with sessions at the gun range, where she learned to use all the weapons in Eve's arsenal. And when filming began, she continued training in Prague whenever she wasn't in front of the camera.
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"It was intense, I have to say," de Armas says. "It was very physical, and my body was hurting most of the time, but the mental power that you have to have to just keep pushing through and overcome the pain, the tiredness, the bruises, the blisters in your fingers from the guns, or the broken nails, all those little thing. I felt like I was in the Ruska Roma."
"She was kind of beat up every day," the director says of de Armas. "She handled it wonderfully."
The actor laughs before adding, "But I could also feel the change. I could feel myself getting better, more comfortable. It's a good feeling."
John would be proud.

90% practical and now I want to see that flamethrower duel again. That was brutally good. 

I'm resisting the temptation to say it was 'fire!'

But it was. It was so fire! It was the firest!

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I had several of my ultravi chuckles and one gasp at the sheer violence of one kill. 

My editor just reminded me of one of the ultravi chuckles and I'm chuckling again. The plate scene.

The Wick World is the stuntpersons' wildest playground right now. 

Definitely D00M recommended.