“I ran like a girl”: Kate Beckinsale Went Through Hell to Prepare for ‘Underworld’ That Made Her an Action Icon
English actress Kate Beckinsale is one of the most popular actresses of her generation. She is most known for starring in period dramas, action films, and romance movies. She was a student at the University of Oxford when she made her film debut in Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 romcom Much Ado About Nothing.
Kate Beckinsale gained recognition for her lead roles in period dramas. It got to a point where people started stereotyping her as an actress who could not play roles that required action. The Emma star refused to back down as she kept auditioning for tough roles and eventually managed to do several action movies such as Van Helsing, and Jolt.
Kate Beckinsale Was Not Sure About Starring In Underworld
Underworld showed a version of Kate Beckinsale that the world was not familiar with at the time. The actress herself was not sure about the role because she had not done anything like it before. The film revolves around a death-dealing vampiress Selene who hunts Lycans (werewolves) to save her ageless breed.
The Aviator actress was not sure if she would be able to portray the assassin vampiress. During a Role Recall interview with Yahoo! Entertainment in 2016, she expressed her initial reservations regarding the role, saying:
“And then suddenly I got sent this script and I also thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I could do that. I’ve never even thought about being that sort of person. It was really frightening because I had never fired a gun before. I ran like a girl. I mean, it was a disaster. I really had to be mentored into that. I remember the stuntmen being super horrified.”
Beckinsale then showed the way she used to punch before becoming an action star and it was concerning. The stuntmen had to help her through the process. The end product was quite satisfying given the movie grossed $95 million against a production budget of $21 million which was very surprising.
Kate Beckinsale Is Up for Another Sequel Of Underworld
Kate Beckinsale’s performance in Underworld not only established her as an action star but also earned her nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror’s Saturn Awards and the Teen Choice Awards. The movie even spawned an entire franchise which consists of 3 sequels and 1 prequel.
In 2017, Beckinsale told Yahoo! Entertainment that she was not too sure about another sequel after the last one, Underworld: Blood Wars, but it was not completely unlikely for her to do it. She said:
“I never felt there’s a sequel coming, ever. So I feel exactly the same as I always do, that Underworld is in the past, I’ve felt that way since [after] the first one. I suppose I still could. I highly doubt I would do another one. I feel like I’ve played that character a lot of times, so I highly doubt I would do that. But again I’ve been saying that since the first one. So, I don’t trust myself.”
It has been six years since the release of the last Underworld movie and there is no news about another sequel being in the making. Allegedly Beckinsale’s ex-husband Len Wiseman has been working on a spinoff series so there might be hope for the franchise’s fans after all.
