I had to learn martial arts.

I don't really embrace femininity.

Stunt people are amazing at what they do, but they're not actors.

I feel myself in ways to be the product of internalized male gaze.

Even the basics of learning how to throw a good punch is very hard.

What my parents have given me is what I would call a healthy entitlement.

I definitely struggle with a disillusionment towards my body and my gender.

What was really special about 'Hanna' as a character is her pursuit of agency.

Sometimes punching a bag for half an hour was pretty cathartic and pretty necessary.

I was never a sporty kid. Then I discovered my physicality and running and endorphins.

I never wanted to be an actress. Acting wasn't in my mind. It wasn't in my calculations.

It's frustrating to see that people still get shocked when they see a woman doing action.

The hardest part is the nature of working in film and television; the hours are very tough.

It's lovely to escape myself and play someone who actually inspires me and gives me strength.

I want to be involved in lots of different things. I want to write and direct, and I make music.

In my screen test for 'Hanna,' I sort of pretended I was this sporty person when I really wasn't.

Women should not only be doing action on-screen but should be a part of every other aspect of filmmaking.

Young action heroines feel in service of male gaze, rather than being the full complexity of a human being.

I don't really leave my house. I'm a very introverted person. I don't like going out. I don't like parties.

Fight prep, boxing, cardio, stretching. It's almost like dancing, you have to learn to dance and keep practicing it.

As a young woman, my own experience of looking at myself in the mirror is something that's plagued me in lots of ways.

I believe in assigned sex but not necessarily gender. Gender is a learned construct that is detrimental to both sexes.

What is special about 'Hannah' is she's complex. She takes risks and she's smart, and she has a lot of love for people.

I wish we did, in a way, grow up in the forest and we didn't all just post bikini pictures and work out just to look good.

It's so liberating to just have absolutely no filter and say exactly what's on your mind because you don't know otherwise.

'Hanna' doesn't maintain social norms. She doesn't have those boundaries. She speaks her mind and is very physical and funny.

I thought 'Hanna' was an opportunity to explore a character whose femininity was so raw and unconditioned by the modern world.

It was so cool to be listening to, I don't know, some Cocteau Twins song while I was running through the Slovakian wilderness.

'Hanna' has grown up in wilderness. It highlights humanness and animal-ness in humans. She has an interesting take on gender and love.

Even as a kid I remember seeing 'Minority Report' and just crying my eyes out. It was horrible what was happening to her. That was my mum!

I was thrown into this world of training, and weightlifting, and boxing, and cardio. It's amazing to feel your body being capable of that.

It's really tough, it's a very kind of cutthroat industry and you have to be prepared that you're not going to get the parts that you want.

I just love listening to music and talking about it, so my social media is mostly dedicated to talking about songs and stuff that interests me.

Even if an actor might not nail the moves in a way than a stunt person might, I wanted to bring the character of 'Hanna' into everything that she did.

If I'm being honest that's something that I think to myself every time I go on Instagram - 'Look how skinny she is, I wanna be that skinny', and it's horrible.

Now I'm strong: I can run fast, I can lift weights, and that in itself is quite empowering, to have that physical strength. It changes my whole mental attitude.

The way that I work is I didn't go to drama school or anything like that so I have no choice but to be instinctual because I don't have a tool kit in the same way.

I actually did a lot of yoga because I found it helped with my core strength and flexibility, which are two things you absolutely need when you're doing martial arts.

Everyone else went to drama school, and that teaches you how to dissociate from your character. I don't know any technique! I'm just acting by chance - and by connection.

The way I feel seen by the opposite sex is sometimes really detrimental to me. I'm very aware of how I'm constantly being sexualized and objectified in their eyes which makes me feel worthless.

I always found growing up that, even inspiring female characters or complex female characters in TV and film... I often found that their complexity was actually just another facet of their sexuality.

'Hanna' has grown up in mother nature's beautiful wilderness and that's what she knows. So for someone like me who has always had a life in the city, it was a chance to look beyond social conventions.

In terms of actors and roles that I want to do in the future, most of those have been played by men. I mean Robert De Niro is my favorite actor of all time. That's the thing, it's not a woman, it's a guy.

The idea of women having a complete hold on their lives is still alien in a lot of places. So, it is important that we keep telling such stories where women are shown both physically and mentally powerful.

Obviously, in different circumstances, I definitely related to this idea of feeling claustrophobic and wanting to discover things for yourself. I think that's something that all young people can relate to.

The whole thing of sexually objectifying yourself is really demoralizing and degrading as a human being, and it's something that men have never had to do, and it's something that 'Hanna' has never had to do.

Obviously, for safety reasons, there's some stuff I can't do, but fighting is more than just about nailing the moves accurately, to sort of pull off the stunt sequence. It's also about bringing emotion to it and character.

My parents are really, really talented and really good at what they do, so I've always learned from watching them. But their style is something that you can't really learn. They never went to drama school and neither did I.

I discovered my physicality, I discovered running, and endorphins, and the sort of amazing way that people are meant to move. And that's what's great about 'Hanna,' because she moves. She's human and she embodies all of that.

I had a few months of physical prep where I was training six hours a day - I was doing an hour and a bit of yoga, I would do a couple hours of cardio and weight-lifting, and then I would do an hour or maybe two of martial arts training.

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