LOS ANGELES _ Shiva Negar is well aware that generally when women are cast in spy stories, they are there more for their looks and less as part of the story or action. In her words, they are usually "eye candy."
The actress, who was born in Iran and raised in Canada and Turkey, easily could have played such a role in "American Assassin" had the character been written that way. But, the film based on the cloak-and-dagger novel by Vince Flynn calls for a lot more.
"The reason I wanted to be such a part of the project so badly is because it wasn't a cliche, a typical story," Negar says.
"American Assassin" follows the recruitment and training of Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) by a super-secret wing of the CIA. Rapp has a great dislike for authority and an even deeper hatred of terrorists. He's teamed with Annika (Negar), a CIA agent who has been undercover for a half decade, to go on a trek around the world trying to stop an opponent known only as The Ghost (Taylor Kitsch).
Negar's character proves that a female in a spy story can be both beautiful and deadly. "American Assassin" director Michael Cuesta saw her beauty as just part of everything Negar brought to the role but also knew she would be able to handle big action scenes.
The team was willing to give Negar the biggest role of her career because as executive producer Nick Wechsler explains, Negar wowed everyone in her audition with the honesty she brought to the role.
"The camera just loves her and we saw behind her beauty a mix of guts and truthfulness," Wechsler says.
Negar was happy she was finally being offered a part that would allow her to show all of her skills.
"I've had so many things that I wanted to be a part of but you sort of get typecast into being the eye candy or the pretty girl in the bar. Starting out with my career, that was something I really had to fight for. I had a lot more to offer," Negar says. "I believe you have to work hard to prove yourself in any field where you want to succeed. I did have to work hard to prove myself so I didn't just get judged by the cover.
"That's what I loved about this script. She's this strong woman in this male-dominated world and she is playing by the same rules as the men are. She's just as tough. I love that equality. She's a team player alongside the other agents. She gets down and dirty. That's very empowering."
Negar's never let anything stand in her way since she was a child performer playing piano and guitar in recitals. Her first film role came in 2010 with the film "Lost Journey" and since then she's appeared in "Alphas," "Covert Affairs," "Hemlock Grove" and "The Art of More." All of those roles have helped her build the career she wants but none were as complex and challenging as Annika.
"There are a lot of layers to her � definitely," Negar says. "That makes the character so much more real. I feel like everyone has secrets. Everyone has backstories. Everyone has so many things you don't know and there is so much more than you see on the outside.
"There is a complexity to the entire film and I love that because it's not just one bad guy and one protagonist. There are a lot of gray areas."
Those gray areas engulf all the characters. Her Annika is a particular puzzle as information about her is delivered in such a way that everything about her is questionable. The real story of her character is never clear until the end.
Negar's role in "American Assassin" is one of the most physically challenging of her career. She started training daily with the stunt team, working on her combat skills, weeks before the filming started. She laughs and says that the preparation was so intense she was able to skip her own workout routine during that time.
"I need that kind of training because basic kickboxing classes are not going to cut it when you are doing what we were doing. There was also weapon training with ex-Navy SEALs," Negar says. "After all of that training, we started getting into choreographing the fight scenes and putting in what you have learned into those scenes.
"It was a good exhaustion at the end of the day."
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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