Has anyone got a better career going than Sofia Boutella these days?
The former Nike ad star and Madonna/Rihanna backup dancer got a lot of attention for her blade-legged “Kingsman” assassin Gazelle and scene-stealing alien Jaylah in “Star Trek Beyond.” Now this summer, the Algeria-born French citizen is re-imagining “The Mummy” (June 9) and melting down the “Atomic Blonde” (July 28).
“It’s pretty cool,” the 35-year-old says about this female take on the character – and the chance to make co-star Tom Cruise’s life miserable.
“The fact that she’s a woman is a really big part of why I wanted to do it. The psychology of why she ended up doing what she did was interesting to me, and I thought it would be fun to play. And it was a lot of fun, though it was a lot of work, intense at times. It was quite a process but it was all worth it.
“Ahmanet was an Egyptian princess who was promised she’d become pharaoh and trained really hard for it, then circumstances led to her not becoming pharaoh,” Boutella continues. “So she summoned the gods, which she’d been trained to do, but having nothing to do at that point, she just went ahead and summoned the wrong god in order to get what she deserved — you know, like we all do in real life!”
Mummy makeup applications initially started six hours before shooting got underway each day in England and Namibia, a process eventually streamlined to take a mere four hours each morning. But it was more than worth it to present a powerful, if dangerous, North African woman to the world.
“It was foreign, but it’s special because it’s near where I was born and grew up,” Boutella, who moved from Algiers to France with her parents when she was 10, says of the film’s Ancient Egyptian settings. “Nowadays, the cultures are more similar, but at the time it was slightly different. Egyptians are very particular and unique in their history, but there is something about being from Algeria and getting to play this role. It’s cool virtual reality in terms of ethnicity and background.”
Universal hopes this latest revival of its classic, 1930s Boris Karloff chillers and popular action franchise of a decade-plus ago will lead to a kind of monster cinematic universe. The studio may also be hoping for an “Atomic Blonde” franchise, that is, if star Charlize Theron, who had to undergo dental surgery due to the film’s brutal stunt fighting, agrees to return.
For a change, Boutella didn’t do any fighting in that Cold War espionage actioner. You might describe her character Sandrine as the Blonde’s version of a Bond Girl.
“I play a French spy who happens to do her job in Berlin,” the actress says. “She’s quite naïve and also exploring her youth. I loved playing that role. It will show me in a different light than most people see me. I don’t have any action sequences at all in ‘Atomic Blonde,’ which is in my opinion very exciting!”
As exciting as kissing Charlize Theron?
“Of course!” Boutella proclaims. “Didn’t you see her? She definitely is a good kisser.”