BoxOffice® Pro - May 2012

the car stunt training, all of the physical acting
and training that it takes to make something
like that work in a scene. And my character is a
physical therapist, so I had to learn a lot about
therapy, specifically for people who had lost
limbs.
Is it true that Peter hid in the bushes and
fired a machine gun just to frighten you?
Yup, it is. One of the things I love most about
Pete is he's an actor's director. He will do
anything it takes to get an emotion from an
actor, and he knew that I was new, so he would
constantly do things to keep me on my toes. If
that meant blasting Pearl Jam in the speakers
or firing off a machine gun in the bushes, he
will do what it takes to get what he needs. He's
willing to completely throw himself on the line
and make a fool of himself to make sure he
gets you where he wants you, and I think that's
why actors trust him so much and love working
with him because he's fun, exciting and a little
bit nutty.
You play Taylor Kitsch's girlfriend, but
Battleship is much more of an action movie
than a romance. Were you disappointed
you didn't have more romantic scenes with
him?
Oh, goodness! That's such a tricky question.
No—I mean, at the end of the day, it is a
summer popcorn movie and we're certainly
not remaking The Notebook by any means. You
want to feel the love story between my character
Sam and Taylor's Hopper because you want
Hopper to get home to her by the end of the
movie. Taylor and I had a few scenes, and that
was plenty for the movie.
Most of your scenes are instead with a
real-life veteran who actually lost his legs.
Tell me about working with him and the
dynamic between your characters?
His name is Colonel Greg Gadson, and he
lost both of his legs in Iraq in 2007, and he
plays that character in the movie. What I love
about Greg is he's a former football player and
a huge guy who's incredibly powerful—again,
an active colonel—and he's coming into this
movie with this predicament where he's making
a movie with this scrawny little actress—me—
who's only on her second movie. It was weird
and kind of vulnerable. We had to get to know
each other in this scenario where the two of
us felt like newbies. He and I really became
friends—we were just texting today, actually—
and we developed this really big bond because
he wasn't used to feeling vulnerable and we
really depended on each other to get stuff out
of the scene. We got close fast, and he was very
open about his injury and the whole process
of coming back from Iraq and the phases that
he went through recovering. And that helped
me so much because that's exactly what my
character is going through: she's trying to help
this guy recover from his injury. Working with
Greg was really one of the most rewarding parts
of the whole moviemaking process for me.
Do you believe in life on other planets?
I do. I'm not saying they're big aliens with
machine-gun hands—they're not our aliens, I
don't think—but we have like, what, two percent
of the entire universe actually discovered,
and to think that we're the only planet with
life feels a bit naïve. I think it's fun to imagine
there's something else out there. Again, not
something deadly that's trying to attack us, but
it's kind of childlike and fun to imagine there's
another Earth out there, another world—it's
intriguing.
If they were the aliens with the machine
guns, though, you do strike me as the type
of girl who would fight back.
I do? Thank you! Because I would. It's funny
because Rihanna and I didn't get to spend a lot
of time together, but both of us have these jobs
where you're made-up and have pretty little
dresses on all the time. It's a very glamorous
job, but I think at the root of it, her and I are
both really big tomboys who like to get our
hands dirty. So, yeah, if this were to happen on
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MAY 2012 BOXOFFICE PRO 101