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Maria Bello on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
By Fred Topel | Image property of Universal Pictures
Maria Bello has always wanted to be an action heroine. It's just that she keeps doing heavy movies like A History of Violence and The Cooler. Even Assault on Precinct 13 and Payback don't allow her to kick ass. Getting the job in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor required Bello to convince studio brass she was a tough chick.
Maria Bello Talks The Mummy 3
"Of course, it was the studio going, 'She is a dramatic actress. Can she do this?'" said Bello. "So we really had to prove it to the studio. I trained quite a bit for that, because I had to work on wires, but it was so much fun. The first time I got on wires, I felt like Peter Pan. It was quite easeful for me. "
It probably didn't help that Bello would have to carry on the character originated by Rachel Weisz. "I was in love with those first two movies. I could never fill her shoes, because she was so brilliant and beautiful, and an ingénue. This role was so different. Like Rob [Cohen] said, if her character was like Audrey Hepburn, my character was more like Katherine Hepburn. You know, with a 20-year-old son, in this marriage, a bit bored and staid, and needing this sort of adventure to get the passion back. So I really did find the characters really, really different. He wrote it differently, and he let us explore this new relationship. It was never about, 'Oh, she did this, so you should do this.'"
 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Finally getting physical with the stunt work turned out to be everything Bello dreamed it would be. "I was really excited to do all of it. The sword fight that Brendan and I do in the end in the desert, the back-to-back sword fight? We worked on that for months with a trainer. I felt so proud of how it ended up because that was one where we had to imagine the mummies, because there were six mummies coming at me, plus the mummies coming at Brendan. So we had stunt people before the scene work it out with us, so we knew exactly where those mummies would be, exactly where our eyelines were, exactly what we were doing to the mummy. That was a bit tricky. "
Her stunt double also helped make her look good. "By the way, I have the most amazing stunt double, called Karine Lemieux, from Canada, who’s doubled me before. There are some things that I can’t possibly do, for insurance reasons but also because I haven’t trained like that. She jumped out of that car, a moving car, onto her knees, did a flip. I would say I did 90 percent of my stunts, because she taught me really well. But there were some things, she made me look much cooler than I actually am."
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is out in theaters now.
For the production blogs, stills, banners, review and more movie info, go to The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of Universal Pictures
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