Three of today’s biggest stars, Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and Gal Gadot, are brought together for a globe-trotting heist adventure in Netflix’s new film Red Notice, premiering on November 12!
The film stars the trio as the biggest rivals– Johnson as FBI’s top profiler Agent John Hartley; Reynolds as the world’s greatest art thief Nolan Booth; and Gadot as the world’s most wanted art thief, The Bishop. After Agent Hartley captures Booth with a tip from The Bishop, he finds himself framed up. In prison, Hartley is forced to join forces with the smartmouth Booth so he can track down The Bishop’s next target, catch her red-handed, and clear his name.
In a recent, back-to-back virtual press conference with Reynolds (Deadpool), Gadot (Wonder Woman) and The Rock (Black Adam, Jumanji: The Next Level), the Asia-Pacific press members were able to ask some questions about their chemistry together, their favorite scene, and more! Check out the highlights of the presscon below:
What made you interested in ‘Red Notice’?
Ryan Reynolds: You know, honestly, this is the cheapest answer, that I was most interested in working with my friends, with my pals.
A lot of the movies I do, I produce and I’m writing on, there’s a lot more responsibility. This one, I got to just kind of jump in the sandbox with some friends I’ve known for a long time and have fun. It’s not every day that you get to do that and sometimes you forget this job is fun, and I never forgot it for a second on the set of Red Notice. It was really special.
Gal Gadot: Dwayne [Laughs]. But to be honest, Rawson Marshall Thurber, our wonderful director and writer, when he first pitched me the idea for the movie, I was blown away by how ambitious and how surprising the story is. And I was also very intrigued to be able to play a character who’s a bit different than what I usually used to do.
Dwayne Johnson: I echo the same thing. As my amazing co-star just said, I love this idea that it was always Gal, who Rawson had in mind and the moment he said her name, I said, “Well, I love her. She’s one of my favorite human beings. She’d be amazing in this!” The idea that she plays the most wanted art thief in the world, that automatically is intriguing to me as a movie fan.
How was it playing the role of a con man?
Reynolds: Well, I mean, when you work in show business in Hollywood, most of what you’re doing or most of the people you around have some kind of a con job. So it’s not that difficult to sort of, get yourself in that mindset. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. I mean, you know the movie was a challenge because we were shooting it in a pandemic, which is, it’s not a situation anyone wants to be in. You know, it was challenging for those reasons.
As someone known for playing Wonder Woman, what is it like to be on the other side and taking up a villainous role?
Gadot: It’s actually a lot of fun. You know, as an actor, you want to be able to explore different colors and different qualities in the characters that you play. And this one certainly gave me this opportunity and I super enjoy portraying The Bishop.
Johnson: Can we just take a moment now and talk about the Evil Queen in Snow White? Let’s talk for just a
moment because that’s what she’s going to play now. And how exciting that is!
Gadot: Red Notice really opened up the appetite to play a villain. That’s the truth.
The film feels like a superhero crossover with Deadpool, Wonder Woman, and Black Adam. How did you feel when you found out who your co-stars would be, and how was the experience working together?
Johnson: How was the experience working together? I thought it was great. You know, we wanted to make a great movie. And I think a lot of times with something like this, the content of the script really will dictate, a lot of times what the set is going to feel like.
And so the movie is big. It’s fun, it’s ambitious, with some twists and turns and surprises, and we had a great time. We also had to buckle down because we shot it during COVID, so that was very challenging. But we all rallied together, including our crew of about a thousand crew members, and we made the best movie we could.
Reynolds: It’s always interesting, you know, working with larger-than-life personalities like this and you never know how it’s going to go. Thankfully, we all knew each other. There wasn’t any of that concern. But you know, I’m also a fan of film and of movie stars. And, you know, people don’t realize that just because I work in this genre or in this industry where I’ve been for almost 30 years now, I still get excited and geeked out.
You know, when Dwayne or Gal walks in the room, my first instinct [isn’t] “Oh, there’s my buddy Dwayne or Gal.” My first instinct is, “Oh my god, that’s Gal Gadot. And that’s Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson just walking in a room right now!” So I get a little sort of starstruck just like everybody else.
For Ryan Reynolds, if you were an accomplished art thief like your character, which piece of famous art would you want to get your hands on and why?
Reynolds: Oh, boy. You know, I probably wouldn’t [try] to steal one of the pieces of art that I’ve always found the most beautiful. I wouldn’t want to steal it. But if I had to steal a piece of art, this would be The Woman in Gold, the Gustav Klimt painting. I did a movie about that exact painting years ago with Helen Mirren called The Woman In Gold, and that’s a beautiful piece of art.
What’s the most interesting scene to film in the movie?
Reynolds: What would I say is the most interesting scene to film for me… I would say probably, there’s a sequence in the prison where we meet Gal’s character, The Bishop, for the first time. And that, I would say, was probably the most interesting scene to shoot for me because it was the first time all three of us had shot together in one room.
That was exciting and a lot of fun for us, and the [whole scene] was like a chess game. Everybody was sort of sizing each other up. And, you know, Gal was so gifted at being so charming and funny and easy in the scene.
When we watched her as Wonder Woman or some of her other roles, she’s usually playing characters that are real– sort of authoritative kind of characters. So to see her kind of be like a Cary Grant at this moment was really fun for me.
Gadot: I mean, there are so many delightful moments and scenes that we got to work on together in the film. One of the most memorable [scenes] for me was the first time that I got to shoot with the boys, with D.J. and Ryan. It was in the Russian prison and it was such a funny day. It was, we were breaking so many takes. I got to say that I feel super grateful and lucky that I got to work with such amazing talents like D.J. and Ryan and enjoy the process throughout. And I just think that it always shows onscreen.
There’s a scene where you’re dancing with The Rock. How did it feel dancing with him?
Gadot: I’ll tell you the truth. I was a bit nervous at the beginning just because, you know DJ is a giant man and I have feet down there, so I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. And I kept telling DJ, we’re going to practice, we’re going to rehearse. And he was super cool, kept on calming me down and saying, don’t worry, this is going to be great. And of course, that just made me more nervous.
But then he showed up, and this guy is a freaking ballerina. I don’t know how it works with like physics rules and all that, but he had– he’s so talented and such a good dancer. And it was so much fun to shoot the scene with [him].
Johnson: It all comes down to the dance partner you have. She was leading and I was, you know, trying to keep up.
Many fans are excited to see your intense action scenes, what makes the action sequences in Red Notice special?
Johnson: I think what makes them special and Red Notice is their intention, and we really intend to try our best to raise the bar with our action sequences. We are all no strangers to action. From Gal, with everything she’s done in her career, myself, Ryan too, as well. So to try and raise the bar in action sequences is not easy to do. It’s challenging. It’s difficult because there’s a lot of great action out there and a lot of great action storytelling.
So it was our intention. I think that really separates us, but also to try to thread the needle of great action with a little bit of levity in every piece of the action. That’s why you’ll see in our movie, as heightened and as intense our action sequences are, there’s a lot of great comedy and…
Gadot: A lot of style that it looks so beautiful.
See the globe-trotting heist adventure of Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson when Red Notice starts streaming on Netflix this November 12!
