'Killer' Nathalie Emmanuel: 'It's hard to not look cool' doing John Woo

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy said director John Woo made them look cool directing them in his remake of The Killer , to be shown on Peacock on Friday.

The actors recreate Woo's iconic moves , such as holding guns outstretched, firing two guns simultaneously, and sliding across the floor.

"It's hard to not look cool when you have two guns and you're sliding or jumping," Emmanuel told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "Getting that right took a lot of practice."

Emmanuel said she also learned the "movie magic" tricks of accomplishing those moves. For example, the floor she slid across was slicked to ensure she could slide into the frame.

"You have to make the floor slippery for that to happen," Emmanuel said.

One action scene involved digital effects Woo did not have available in his 1989 Hong Kong original. Emmanuel runs across a row of church pews, which, in reality, is a green platform placed across pews that can be removed in post-production.

"You still have to run and put your foot on top of the pew, even though you're on a platform," Emmanuel said. "That might not necessarily be a natural way of running."

The church was an iconic set piece in the original film; one in which Woo returned in his American film, Face/Off . Sy said filming a gunfight in a church, with doves flying by, made him feel like he was part of history.

"Until you get there, it's really difficult to imagine," Sy said. "When you get to the set on that church and you see the birds, you're like, 'OK, we're in it for real."

In the new film, Emmanuel plays Zee, an assassin who accidentally blinds the singer Jenn (Diana Silvers) on her latest mission. Zee also forms a bond with French policeman Sey (Sy), who is investigating Zee's last job.

The actors reimagine the roles originally played by Chow Yun-fat and Danny Lee in Woo's original. The 1989 film defined Hong Kong style and made Hollywood producers take notice, ultimately hiring him for American films beginning with 1993's Hard Target .

Emmanuel said making Chow's killer a woman was a natural evolution.

"There are a lot of very dangerous people in the world," Emmanuel said. "Of course, some of them will be women."

The difference, Emmanuel acknowledged, was that a female killer was less likely to overpower men with physical strength. Zee can still use guns, but when guns are not available, she uses swords and preys upon her target's sexist assumptions.

In her first killing of the movie, Zee hides swords in her evening attire at a club at which security frisks her for guns. She literally dances around her target before revealing her weapons, a dance that Woo suggested, according to Emmanuel.

"It's, in a way, like a predator circling its prey -using dance to disguise the fact that she's got very dangerous weapons was a weapon in itself," Emmanuel said.

When Sey and Zee first meet, he tries to arrest her. This allows the actors to recreate the famous The Killer poster, in which they hold their guns pointed at each other with arms outstretched.

With this image, Emmanuel revealed that achieving it requires some movie magic. From certain camera angles, they actually point the guns in different directions to capture the image.

"You have to hold it in a very specific way, and they're quite heavy," Emmanuel said.

Zee and Sey look the parts, too. For most of the movie, Zee is adorned in black leather pants. Sey wears wool suits, and both actors agreed that the only drawback was wearing those clothes during the Parisian summer.

Sey was willing to endure because Woo was referencing the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, the star of influential cop movies like Le Circle Rouge, a movie Woo frequently calls a favorite and whose 2003 rerelease Woo presented.

"I was so happy to have those clothes and be a reference to this amazing actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo," Sy said. "I was happy to wear that."

Zee and Sey become allies when Zee decides to protect Jenn from more assassins who want to eliminate any witnesses to Zee's mission. Emmanuel said Zee's relationship with Jenn is different from Chow's character.

Chow's character tries to earn enough money from jobs to pay for his Jennie (Sally Yeh) to have a corneal transplant. Emmanuel saw Zee as more of a sibling to Jenn.

Even though Zee feels guilty about blinding Jenn, she also wants to help Jenn stay away from the criminal element that put her in Zee's way.

"I think she has a future to be saved," Emmanuel said. "I think the real thing is, 'You don't have to end up like me.'"

Although Emmanuel said she felt very cool on screen, she admitted she indulged her admiration of John Woo on the set. Emmanuel said her behavior behind the scenes was not as stoic as Zee's.

"I felt nerdy," Emmanuel said. "I was geeking out."