For Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves' co-star 10 years ago and once again, 'Ballerina' is a pirouette

NEW YORK -- Years before Ana de Armas was using an ice skate to slice a neck in “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,” she co-starred with Keanu Reeves in a much different film.

The erotic thriller “Knock Knock,” released in 2015, was de Armas’ first Hollywood film. De Armas, born and raised in Cuba, had just come to Los Angeles after acting in Spain. English was new to her, so she had to learn her lines phonetically.

“It was tough and I felt miserable at times and very lonely,” she says in an interview. “But I wanted to prove myself. I remember being in meetings with producers and they would be like, ‘OK, I’ll see you in a year when you learn English.’ Before I left the office, I would say, ‘I’ll see you in two months.’”

Since “Knock Knock,” her rise to stardom has been one of the last decade's most meteoric. She was radiant even as a hologram in “Blade Runner 2049.” She stole the show in Rian Johnson’s star-studded “Knives Out.” She breezed through the Bond movie “No Time to Die.” She was Oscar nominated for her Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde. ”

And now, 10 years after those scenes with Reeves, de Armas is for the first time headlining a big summer action movie. In “Ballerina,” in theaters Friday, de Armas’ progressive development as an unlikely action star reaches a butt-kicking crescendo, inheriting the mantle of one of the most esteemed, high-body-count franchises.

“It’s a big moment in my career, and I know that. I can see that,” she says. “It makes me look back in many ways, just being with Keanu in another film in such a different place in my career. It definitely gives me perspective of the journey and everything since we met. Things have come far since then.”

While de Armas, 37, isn’t new to movie stardom, or the tabloid coverage that comes with it, many of her career highlights have been streaming releases. “The Gray Man” and “Blonde” were Netflix. “Ghosted” was Apple TV+. But “Ballerina” will rely on de Armas (and abiding “John Wick” fandom) to put moviegoers in seats.

Heading in, analysts expected an opening weekend of around $35-40 million, which would be a solid result for a spinoff that required extensive reshoots. Reviews, particularly for de Armas playing a ballerina-assassin, have been good.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” says director Len Wiseman. “It’s a lot to carry all on her shoulders. But she’ll be the first person to tell you: ‘Put it on. Let me carry the weight. I’m totally game.’”

De Armas, whose talents include the ability to be present and personable on even the most frenzied red carpets, has done the globe-trotting work to make “Ballerina” a big deal: appearing at CinemaCon, gamely eating hot wings and cheerfully deflecting questions about her next film, “Deeper,” with Tom Cruise.

Yet for someone so comfortable in the spotlight, one of the more interesting facts about de Armas is that she lives part time in that bastion of young A-listers: Vermont.

“Yeah, it surprised many people,” she says, chuckling. “As soon as I went up there, I knew that was going to be a place that would bring me happiness and sanity and peace. But I know for a Cuban who doesn’t like cold very much, it’s very strange.”

Winding up in northern New England is just as unexpected as landing an action movie like “Ballerina.” She grew up with the conviction, from age 12, that she would be an actor. But she studied theater.

“I never thought I was going to do action,” de Armas says. “What was relatable for me was watching Cuban actors on TV and in movies. That was my reality. That’s all I knew, so the actors I looked up to were those.”

De Armas also had bad asthma, which makes some of the things she does in “Ballerina” — a movie with a flamethrower duel — all the more remarkable to her.

“I couldn’t do anything,” she remembers. “I couldn’t run. I sometimes couldn’t play with my friends. I had to just be home and be still so I wouldn’t get an asthma attack. So I never thought of myself as someone athletic or able to run just a block. So this has been a surprise.”

At 14, she auditioned and got into Havana’s National Theatre of Cuba. Four years later, with Spanish citizenship through her grandparents, she moved to Madrid to pursue acting. When she arrive in LA in 2014, she had to start all over again.

Now as one of the top Latina stars in Hollywood, she's watched as immigrant paths like hers have grow increasingly arduous if not impossible. The day after she spoke to The Associated Press, the Trump administration announced a travel ban on 12 countries and heavy restrictions on citizens of other countries, including Cuba.

“I got here at a time when things were definitely easier in that sense,” says de Armas, who announced her then-imminent U.S. citizenship while hosting “Saturday Night Live” in 2023. “So I just feel very lucky for that. But it’s difficult. Everything that’s going on is very difficult and very sad and really challenging for many people. I definitely wish things were different.”

Chad Stahelski, director of the four “John Wick” films and producer of “Ballerina,” was about to start production on “John Wick: Chapter 4” when producer Basil Iwanyk and Nathan Kahane, president of Lionsgate, called to set up a Zoom about casting de Armas. He quickly watched every scene she had been in.

“How many people would have played the Bond girl kind of goofy like that?” he says. “I know that I can harden people up. I know I can make them the assassin, but getting the charm and the love and the humor out of someone is trickier. But she had it.”

In “Knives Out,” Stahelski saw someone who could go from scared and uncertain to a look of “I'm going to stab you in the eye.”

“I like that in my action heroes,” he says. “I don’t want to see the stoic, superhero vibe where everything’s going to be OK.”

But it wasn’t just her acting or her charisma that convinced Stahelski. It was her life story.

“'John Wick' is all hard work — and I don’t mean just in the training. You’ve got to love it and put yourself out there,” says Stahelski. “When you get her story about how she came from the age of 12, got into acting, what she sacrificed, what she did, that’s what got my attention. ‘Oh, she’s a perseverer. She doesn’t just enjoy the view, she enjoys the climb.’”

When that quote is read back to her, de Armas laughs, and agrees.

“Being Cuban, and my upbringing and my family and everything I’ve done, I’ve never had a plan B,” she says. “I’ve never had that thing of, ‘Well, if it doesn’t work, my family can help.’ Or, ‘I can do this other career.’ This was it. And I also knew, besides being the thing I loved the most, this was my survival. This is how I live. This is how I feed myself and my family. So it’s also a sense of, I don’t know, responsibility.”

That makes her reflect back to when she was just trying to make it in Hollywood, sounding out words, trying not to disappoint directors whose instructions she could barely understand, trying not to be intimidated by the action star across from her who had just finished shooting the first “John Wick.”

“I was so committed to do it,” she says. “I was so invested in the trying of it, just giving it a shot. When I give something a shot, I try my best, whatever that is. Then I can actually say: I gave it a shot.”