Universal has released a new behind-the-scenes featurette for their late summer action spy flick Atomic Blonde, focused on the fight choreography and physicality of star Charlize Theron.

It's always impressive when you see that a major star can do their own stunts, as it can become a major selling point of the film. The Mission: Impossible series is a great example of this, generating buzz from Tom Cruise's willingness to climb on the outside of the tallest building in the world or grab onto the side of a plane as it takes off. It's not surprising that Charlize Theron is one of the actors who do most of their stunt and fight choreography, as her starring role in Mad Max: Fury Road proved she can handle action extravaganza.

Teamed up with John Wick co-director David Leitch, a new featurette from their upcoming action flick Atomic Blonde celebrates the perfect marriage between the ambition of directing action and a star's ability to fulfill that ambition. In the behind-the-scenes short, posted on Universal's YouTube page, we see how Theron's capability as a performer helped morph the confidence of the production. With original plans to shoot the action scenes in traditional editing fashion, Theron gave Leitch the flexibility to lean on long takes and wide shots to showcase all of the moves in one fluid shot.

We've already seen how badass Theron is going to be as the undercover MI6 agent at the center of Atomic Blonde thanks to a handful of trailers and clips, but this look behind-the-scenes really gives one an appreciation for the attention to detail in each of the action scenes and the practice sessions between the choreographers and Theron needed to achieve this convincing level. It takes a team of extremely talented individuals to bring the whole project together, especially one with this amount of action in it.

The video highlights stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave, whose among many franchises worked on the last two Captain America films and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as The Hunger Games series. The fight coordinator for the film is Jon Valera, who worked on John Wick with Letich and also worked on projects like The Wolverine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok. These talented veterans of the craft give Atomic Blonde even more credibility in the action genre than it already has, leading up to what has become one of the more anticipated action films of the year, when it hits theaters this month.

NEXT: Charlize Theron & Atomic Blonde Head to SDCC 2017

Source: Universal

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