Hollywood star Ana De Armas has spoken about her love of Rihanna and the pop icon’s 2016 album ‘Anti’ – check out the full video interview above.
Rihanna’s eighth studio effort was more soulful and lo-fi than the swaggering radio-friendly pop anthems she’d become known for. This evolution divided Riri’s fanbase when ‘Anti’ was first released but the record has since gone on to become a cult favourite.
Asked about her most-treasured albums during an interview on the Ballerina promo tour, Ana De Armas told NME that she’s a huge fan of everything Rihanna has released but ‘Anti’ is her go-to. “I love every song on that album, it’s just so good.”
She also praised R&B singer Leon Bridges and Donald Glover’s Childish Gambino: “He’s so wonderful and is such a great artist in every way.”
De Armas was joined in the interview by Ballerina director Len Wiseman, who revealed they share a love of indie goth rockers The Cure. “Their music has a mood to it but it also picks your spirits up a little bit,” said Wiseman, who saw the band on their 2023 Shows Of A Lost World tour at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. De Armas’ last gig experience, she revealed was seeing Lauryn Hill at a recent show in LA.
Elsewhere in their chat with NME, De Armas praised the “wonderful, incredible” Netflix show Adolescence before she spoke about the gruelling process of doing one-shot takes in John Wick spin-off Ballerina.
The longest single-take in the film sees Ana De Armas’ assassin-in-training Eve Macarro fight her way through an entire house. “I had to do that quite a few times. Len kept saying ‘just one more!’” In total, they filmed eight different versions of the action scene. “Trust me, eight is a big number when you’re doing all that fighting.”
“I wanted to keep refining things,” added Wiseman. “Everything would be working but there might be one thing that could be better. What’s great about Ana is that just as I was about to point to the screen [to flag an issue], she’d be saying: ‘I’m on it’. We had an [unspoken] language.”
“Those longer shots aren’t me showing off,” the director continued. “There’s an energy behind a one-shot take and it creates a different relationship with the audience. The longer the take, the more tension you build. Instead of viewers just thinking ‘oh, that’s cool’, you create more tension [without cuts]. Then when it’s done, there’s a release that you couldn’t get otherwise.”
“That energy is real because you’re actually doing [what they see on the screen]. You can feel the tension and the energy that everyone is putting into the shot,” added De Armas. One of the hardest things she had to do in Ballerina, De Armas confided, was wielding a flamethrower during a shocking sequence in which her character lights several enemies on fire.
“That was really intense,” she said. “It’s one of those things I never thought I’d have to do but I had to carry it with me through that long scene in the tunnel, hitting people with it. The flames have such a powerful kick and the heat…”
“It was horrifying because it was all really happening. We had people screaming while on fire,” Wiseman added, with the crew using practical effects in the main. “It’s really impressive what they do,” said De Armas.
Last month, Rihanna shared her first new single in three years. ‘Friend Of Mine’ was recorded for the new Smurfs movie, with Rihanna voicing Smurfette in the animated adventure. The singer has also given an update on the follow-up to ‘Anti’. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she explained that the new album is “not going to be anything that anybody expects”, though declined to confirm even a rough release date.
“It’s not going to be commercial or radio, digestible. It’s going to be where my artistry deserves to be right now,” she added.
‘Ballerina’ is in UK cinemas now