Director John Woo’s remake of his action classic The Killer ticked off several career bucket list moments for stars Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy. It really hit home when the pair experienced their own trademark bird moment—a trademark visual motif of the filmmaker where the creature is in flight during an action sequence.

“I feel like I may or may not have messed up a take in that because I had that ‘I can’t believe this’ moment as it was happening,” Emmanuel laughs as we chat in a suite in Beverly Hills. “I was like, ‘I’m not supposed to be smiling, but I know I am.’ It happened, and the penny dropped. You’re in a John Woo movie, and the birds were there in flight, and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is amazing.'”

“You just said it perfectly. It’s on the bucket list,” Sy added. “While it was happening, you can’t help but slip out of character for a moment. Inside, you’re like a little kid, jumping and screaming. It’s amazing to have that experience.”

Here’s What ‘The Killer’ Is About

The Killer sees Woo reimagine his 1989 Hong Kong classic. In the role previously owned by Chow Yun-fat, Emmanuel plays Zee, an assassin who is given the job of killing a young blind singer. She refuses and instead catches the attention of Sy’s police investigator. Before too long, Zee has the cops on her tail, as well as her shadowy mentor and handler. The Killer is now streaming on Peacock.

“It was a safe bet because if you go with the director who did the previous movie, and he took a long time to think about remaking it, you feel very safe following him without any safety net,” Sy enthuses. “He knows the previous one better than anyone. He knows exactly where he wants to go now. It was safe for us to watch and rewatch the original movie again and again because we were sure this was going to be different.”

“Of course, part of that is because of Nathalie being the killer this time. That was going to change the story, and she would add what she brings. Also, this version takes place in Paris. Even though the original movie is a classic, and we almost know it by heart, we knew we would go somewhere else with it.”

Emmanuel continues, “It speaks to John wanting to explore a completely different energy this time around. The fact that I am obviously a woman and that changes the energy immediately. Even the way that she does her killing and how she lives her life is very much informed by that. With the original being such a classic, so iconic, we could enjoy it as it is, and then take everything that we love from it and be inspired by that.”

“I knew that’s what I wanted to do when I watched the original film. I love Chow Yun-fat’s performance and wanted to be inspired by it. I also wanted to bring everything that we love about John Woo because he inspired a whole genre of cinema. Without John, the action genre wouldn’t be what it is, so I wanted to take all that in. I also wanted to think independently about who Zee is and who I wanted her to be.”

John Woo Wanted To Make ‘The Killer’ More Human

Something Woo wanted to do this time around was explore Zee as a human being.

“She has a lot of emotions,” Emmanuel enthuses. “With many of the classic action stereotypes, everyone’s very steely, and they have this sternness, and he was like, ‘I want vulnerability and that conflict in her to be really evident.’ I loved that he wanted to approach it in that way.”

Both Sy, known for Jurassic World and Lupin, and the British actress, known for Game of Thrones and several Fast and Furious movies, have been lifelong fans of their director.

“The first John Woo I ever watched was Face/Off, and then I went backward in his catalog to The Killer,” she recalls. “I am trying to remember what the next one was. The Killer came out the year I was born, so I had to wait to watch that.”

“It was The Killer for me, but I remember I didn’t see it in the theater,” Sy adds. “I got it from one of those rental places, and it was on VHS. I remember watching it with my friends almost weekly because it was like something new for us. We had never seen anything like it, so we watched it frequently.”

‘The Killer’ Is Packed With Jaw-Dropping Action Sequences

As with the original vision, Woo’s new take on his source material is action-packed. Both Emmanuel and Sy are no strangers to physical roles; however, The Killer was a whole new experience.

“It’s pretty intense. The training was quite extensive, and it evolved and changed a lot because John was very involved with that process. He’s collaborating with the stunt team, the choreographers, and coordinators, and John is also very open to how the actors feel about how that character might fight or do things,” she explains. “It’s a real collaboration. It’s very balletic and almost like a dance in how you interact with the camera when you’re shooting. It’s very technical, specific, and quite intimate with the camera. If you’re kicking, punching, rolling, and spinning, you would think the cameras would be a safer distance away, but he’s right in there. Honestly, it’s often the case that your move dictates what the camera does, not vice versa. It’s crazy.”

However, there were several moments when the action was so precise that both Emmanuel and Sy thought it might take forever to capture the shot. One such sequence involved a gun on a bench that got flipped into the air, and the actress needed to catch it.

“I was so nervous about that,” she recalls. “It was practical, so they rigged a table to throw the gun. I feel like I can either do it or it’s the opposite, and I fumble it, but I got that quite quickly. I was like, ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe I did that.’ For example, I’m not a good bowler, but I hit a strike, and I’m like, ‘Did everyone see that?’ It was like that. On a set like this, you can’t dictate where the gun’s going to go because there was a man falling on it to cause the actual thing to flip. It was surprising because we weren’t on take 15 or 20. It happened in much fewer takes, and that was a surprise to everybody, especially me.”

Sy adds, “The one that was a bit complicated for me was the stunt in the police station when we grabbed the big banner and had to slide down. That was actually really complicated, so when we had one good take, we were happy. The gunshot with the motorcycle was also complicated, so when we had one good one for that, too, we called it.”

“The timing of that was very hard,” Emmanuel continues. “I spent quite a while thinking that was actually a real graveyard, and we might be disrespecting the people who were laid to rest there. I felt a bit weird about that, but then someone said, ‘It’s not real, Nathalie,’ and that made me feel better.”

‘The Killer’ Is Not Short On Icons

Something else that made the actress feel good was a nod to her British heritage in the form of a mention of legendary British retail giant Marks and Spencer.

“It was written in the script; I loved that,” she laughed. “As a British person, I felt like, ‘Yes, this is hilarious, but also, it’s a really solid store to go get a suit from.’ So, I was like, but, you know, obviously, Tessier, the character in the movie, is a specific, very high-end tailor in Paris, so that line really made me laugh. I loved that I got to say it because it brought my Britishness into the movie.”

In addition to Sy and Emmanuel, The Killer boasts a cast that includes Sam Worthington, Saïd Taghmaoui, Tchéky Karyo, and soccer legend turned actor Eric Cantona, who plays a crime boss. Rarely starstruck, both actors relished getting to be in the same room as the sporting icon.

“We didn’t have any scenes together, but I went on set to see him because I wanted to have that picture and be like, ‘I’m in the movie with him.’ I couldn’t wait for the movie to come out,” Sy admits. “He’s a legend, and I’m a football fan, so I love Eric Cantona because of that, but he’s also now an amazing actor. I was so happy and proud to be in a movie with him, so I had to go and meet him.”

Emmanuel concludes, “I definitely get a lot of street cred when someone’s like, ‘Wait, Eric Cantona is in your movie?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course he is.’ He’s this legend. He’s not just in the film; he’s really great in it.”