"Kicking ass on the big screen"

Initially known for bit roles in films like Down with Love, 50 First Dates, 13 Going on 30, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Lynn Collins is best known as Dawn Green from the first season of the HBO series True Blood. Now the 34 year-old hopes to make a big mark on Hollywood as Dejah Thoris, the Martian princess of Helium, in the science-fiction adventure John Carter.

Co-starring with Collins is the film’s star Taylor Kitsch, who plays the titular character. However, this was not the first film they have worked on together.

“Taylor and I have known each for seven, eight years, so of course we were like we’re getting this movie and we did,” Lynn says, “We did Wolverine together and then he did a movie called The Covenant that my husband, Steven Straight, was in. So we’ve known each other since back in the day.”

In the film, Kitsch’s John Carter is a Confederate veteran who ends up on the planet Mars. Lynn talks about how she approached playing a scantily-clad princess.

“[Director] Andrew [Stanton] was sort of the leader of that, of course, and you don’t see her at the beginning as a sex object,” Collins says, “She doesn’t see herself as a sex object. She is a Martian woman who kicks ass as much as the men do. She is equal. So we wanted it to be not distracting and then through John Carter she starts discovering love maybe, sexuality, her own body as being something that could change.”

“He, as John Carter, he isn’t used to all these women running around like this,” she adds, “So he notices her in a different way and that is her reaction to that, she starts growing and maybe in two when that’s done there’s going to be more of that opened, more possibly less is what I mean actually. There’ll be less.”

Collins talked about how she and others reacted to her look as Dejah

"Kicking ass on the big screen"

Thoris, which is a look sported with jewels and tattoos all over the skin.

“Ahh, I wanted to take it for a walk and I did, all around that green screen,” she says, “The biggest reaction was the makeup artist Bill Corso, he was like you come in and you’re white and freckly, and my hair was dark at that point because it was my hair and he goes its like you leave and you’re a different human being. “

“As I was in the make up chair, I was like I’m going to use these five hours to get into whatever energy I need to get into,” Lynn continues, “So by the time he was done, I was like ahh and he was like, this is creepy but I think that that outfit is, if you remember in the movie it’s meant to be zandangan wear. It’s not heliumnite. She would never be that exposed. Her outfit is at the beginning when you see the father fight, the beautiful covered heliumnite. So for her it’s like ughhh and for me at the beginning that’s how it’s was too until it was like, whatever, everybody’s seen boobs.”

Lynn talks about how Dejah’s character evolved as the script did.

“She began, there was two punches that I had, punching John Carter and they took them out and then there was a slap and they took that out,” she says, “And there was just a whole – the change was she’s so powerful they wanted her to be in her skin, they wanted her to be a warrior, that’s what I wanted to but she has to be accessible and that’s really difficult, a fine line.”

“Because even in today’s age like it’s a fine line, lets be honest, so my hopes is that there’s enough esthetic visual stimulation for men and intellectual emotional women,” Collins continues, “And for these who can connect the two then hopefully they

"Kicking ass on the big screen"

explode with delight.”

Collins talked about the wire work involved during the shooting of John Carter.

“The first time there high, high jumps,” Lynn recalls, “he first time , well let’s not talk about the first time, lets talk about the last two times I did the jump. I did them by myself. It’s when I’m falling and they raise me all the way up, oh, what’s that? All the way up, all the way up to the top of this building as far as they can get me to where literally I’m at the top of studio like this. And then just drop me as fast as I let them and I said drop it as fast as you can just don’t make me the judge, just drop it. I got crazy by this point. They drop me and I was like oh my God now they’re going to keep doing this.”

“My adrenaline was so high,” she continues, “It was like a drug surging through your body and so I was like ugh I don’t know if I should do another one because I’m already so shaking. I did like six then I was just like let’s do it on the other side. So we flipped over, changed the costume and did like a couple of them. It gets fun but it you know the fear factor, the fear energy, you have to mutate, you have to transform it. Like boxers that white light of fighting you know you have to flip it and make it work for you. Not in your face against you, hard to do. So hard to do and its like begging in a ring when you’re doing, when you’re confronting things like that it is a fight, I think.”

Lynn was asked if she had any physical injuries.

“No physical injuries,” Collins says, “It was the movie that I did after where

"Kicking ass on the big screen"

I was on a horse, this is easy, I’ve jumped and got hurt after John Carter but that’s a lesson in itself. Like once you do movies in this kind of stunt work. You then have to go into other projects with a lot of discernment you know different productions have sort of different qualifications of safety and I was sort of thinking that everyone had John Carter safety.”

“I mean is, this stunt team was unbelievable, had me doing things that I would never do,” she continues, “Like six stories up full platform facedown fall, suicide fall, I was like what am I doing? And then I raced back up to do it again, I’m like what?”

Collins talked about how her background in theater contributed to her performance in the film.

“Andrew Stanton and Michael Chabon wrote a sort of rhythm for me,” she says, “I think they did for everybody really but let’s just talk about me, he wrote in a rhythm because that’s what I know when I’m working emotionally because of the way I was trained, heightened texts and emotion to me connect very quickly and easily which is interesting because of the accent, too. I go like it just happens in my own life try to get me to cry I can’t ugh it’s impossible.”

“I also think that why I connected to it and why I kept going when it was hard is because of this scope of Greek tragedy, it is the extremes of Greek tragedy, the planet is dying,” Lynn adds, “We have to save the planet, the father, you know all of that. So a lot of my theater training went into this for sure. I think also the physical work that I had to do, at Julliard, they’re incredibly physical, I had many different types of physical training and that really helped to do something even like working with the train or even

"Kicking ass on the big screen"

how to hold in your center when you’re on these wires. You know because sometimes people have to be taught that you have to sort of know that in a different way.”

Lynn also talked about how her martial arts background also contributed to the development of her performance.

“I spent my summers in Japan where my parents were getting their fourth and fifth and sixth dawn in Shitaru, which is in Okinawa-style Karate,” Collins says, “And my father had a ton of samurai swords and I just remember playing with one of them and they say that your soul is in soul of the samurai is in the sword and I was like, wow, this would be amazing. This would be amazing to know how to move this, how to work with this.”

“So I had this sort of childhood thing that I was going to be a samurai warrior,” she continues, “And then karate fizzled out because of acting and this is the first time that the two have married and it was really emotional at the beginning, really emotional. Hard to bring it up and the memories of it and the child, it’s like it was a childlike feeling to turn that into something forceful, feminine and adult and not hurt people was a real challenge but you know what once you do it? Once that stuff is married it’s there. It’s completely a part of me now.”