The 45-year-old Spanish actress plays JJ Collins, a military captain who defends her missile interceptor base at all costs.
Chris Hemsworth has been dethroned as the action star in the family. The role now belongs to his wife Elsa Pataky, but she's the first one to admit that her Marvel star husband did lend a helping hand in her new role as an action star.
The 45-year-old Spanish model and actress spoke to ET's Matt Cohen and dished on the intense training she had to go through for her action film Interceptor, which drops June 3 on Netflix. For starters, Pataky underwent a grueling muscle-building training session six months prior to filming the first scene.
Hemsworth, who knows a thing or two about intense physical training, helped Pataky, who also had to memorize some 800 stunt moves for the film.
"Yeah, it was hard," admits Pataky. "Since I read the script I wanted to get into that physicality that these military women [go through]. Since that moment I was like, 'I just want to create muscle and just start working out.' Of course, Chris was holding my hand 'cause he knows and he's done this before, so he had a lot of advice for me."
Pataky said she switched up her diet and undertook a lot of the same training that women go through in the military.
"We were probably working out every day for like an hour and a half and then we started to prepare for the movie," she said. "We started just getting into all those fights, which is like three hours a day, four months before the movie. We were, like, every day learning all those movies. It's like this choreography that you have to go through."
Despite the grueling sessions, Pataky couldn't get enough of it. She also thoroughly enjoyed the fact that her stunt double and stunt coordinator were also women, which Pataky said "helped a lot 'cause it makes you understand how women move differently in a fight."
Pataky plays JJ Collins, a tough military captain who finds herself in charge of a lone nuclear missile interceptor base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after she is wrongfully drummed out of her dream job at the Pentagon. Luke Bracey also stars in the film as Alexander Kessel, an unscrupulous former U.S. military intelligence officer intent on carrying out an unthinkable plan in coordination with his covert mercenaries. Hemsworth serves as the film's executive producer.
For Pataky, it was important for her 10-year-old daughter, India, to see women can also, as Pataky puts it, "kick-ass" in movies too. Pataky shares India and 8-year-old twin sons, Sasha and Tristan, with Hemsworth.
"In the house, Chris is the action man," says Pataky who has also played officer Elena Neves in several Fast & Furious films. "So, it was good to show both. Especially my daughter. She was pretty shocked when she saw the trailer and was like, 'Wow mom you can do that?' They think they had the idea of like [the action star] being dad. So, showing that women are capable also, not only being a mom and taking you to school but to kick ass too."
RELATED CONTENT:
News
Matt Damon and Wife Show PDA During Vacation with Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky in Ibiza: Pics
