She’s been in the Hollywood game since childhood. Remember that memorable little horror film Orphan (2009)? Isabelle Fuhrman played the titular role for that one (and in the recent sequel, Orphan: First Kill, along with other films like The Hunger Games and Don’t Let Me Go).
And now, she’s all grown up and starring in certain projects that aren’t exactly suited for youngsters. Enter Sheroes, a new R-rated action-thriller starring a gang of four female friends (Fuhrman included) who venture off to Thailand in an overseas getaway-gone-wrong following a luggage mix-up that entwines them with a violence-prone drug ring.
We recently caught up with Fuhrman, who’s currently in Utah shooting back-to-back Kevin Costner “passion project” films, the epic Horizon. She dished on working with him while spilling about her new Paramount film Sheroes, which was written and directed by Jordan Shertner, a producer of A24’s wild ride of a movie that is Spring Breakers. That should help paint a picture as to what kind of shenanigans to expect from Fuhrman’s latest starring vehicle…
A Girls Trip Becomes a Rescue Mission in Sheroes
Great actors are always looking to expand their repertoire, and Fuhrman is no exception. She spoke to us about how it all started for her and Sheroes. “I read the script, and I just felt like it was something different that I had never tackled as an actor before. And I love the whole ‘girls trip-turned-into-let’s rescue our friend’ action movie-type of thing,” said Fuhrman, who continued:
And I loved the character. I felt like Ezra was different than all the other girls in such a way because she was the closest to the audience. She doesn’t understand what happened to her vacation. And it really takes her a while to kind of step into that role of being a ‘Shero’ like the rest of her friends, which I thought was really fun.
Sheroes certainly sets up a cool universe, and it’d be fun to see the gang of four friends venture to another destination city for fun and hijinks. With that would come more juicy action sequences on the big screen, which Fuhrman seems eager to further pursue. “I would love to continue in this genre. I love this role because I felt like Ezra was really funny, and she’s kind of stumbling through this,” said the actor.
“I would love to play someone as badass as Diamond [played by Sasha Luss]. I was watching her all the time, and the movie was cool. But I wasn’t cool. And I was really totally OK with that. But it’d be fun to do another action film, and I would love to do shows, too. I mean, we had so many different ideas of what the next movie would be by the time we had wrapped. And I think it would be that [my character] Ezra was directing a movie, based off of the traumatic experience in Thailand, married to Diamond’s dad. Sh*t goes awry again. A movie within a movie.”
Isabelle Fuhrman Gets Her Hot Girl Dance
Fuhrman’s turn as the ever-conflicted Hollywood hopeful Ezra is definitely the most relatable of the bunch, as she also hinted at earlier in our interview. In rescuing her friend from the Thailand-based drug ring, Ezra is pulled into a handful of outrageous and perplexing situations to save the day. She commented on which scene was her favorite to shoot.
“I love doing the dance in the movie. I thought that was so funny when I read it. And I am not a particularly great dancer. I have a lot of enthusiasm for dance, but the thing is not my strong suit. But I remember seeing the cut and being like, ‘Jordan, thank God for editing. It looks amazing,'” said Fuhrman, who added:
And it really was fun to film that scene and do something like that. I’ve never been the hot girl in a movie. And I was like, ‘Why don’t I get to be like a hot girl in this movie? This is cool.’ And I really just felt like I was pinching myself. I feel like Skai, Wallis, and Sasha are just so much cooler than I am in real life. And I was very honored, and it made me realize, like, I’m pretty cool too!
“A Very Particular Set of Skills”
Fuhrman has perhaps the best line in the movie — which is a quote from an entirely different action movie altogether. In exchanging heated words with the kidnappers in Thailand, Ezra recites Liam Neeson’s epic line from Taken (see above screenshot from Sheroes, for reference) to show the bad guys who’s boss. “I felt like Ezra has so many moments where she pays homage to these great action ’80s, ’90s movies,” said Fuhrman. “I really got to play with all these movies that I really love, through this character in this movie, so it felt very meta.”
Looking ahead, Fuhrman is hard at work in a couple of high-profile projects with A-listers galore. “I’m currently in Utah filming Kevin Costner’s Horizon saga, and I’m just having a blast here,” she told us. “It’s been really such a cool experience, drastically different obviously than Sheroes.”
“And then, I have two films I did last year that will be coming out probably this year next year,” continued Fuhrman, “called Unit 234 that I did with Don Johnson and Jack Houston, that Andy Tennant directed. And then I reunited with Josh Hutcherson, and Dennis Quaid and David Thewlis in a movie called Littlemouth that I did as well last year, that I think will be coming out soon as a sci-fi. So I’m just having a really good time right now.”
Kevin Costner’s on Fuhrman’s Horizon
The Horizon films are reported to be Costner’s longstanding passion projects. Fuhrman commented on what it’s like working with the iconic actor and filmmaker:
I love him. He is wonderful, kind, sweet, generous. I really do think that he is a genius. And he has such a great eye for talent, but also good people, like our entire cast and crew […] He’s put like all of his own money behind it. And you can tell every day, he feels like he’s 23 years old. He has such a happy, youthful energy about his work, and the passiono exudes from every frame of the movie and how he treats everyone on set. He is a wonderful class act, and I absolutely adore him.”
“It doesn’t happen all the time that you work with people that you not only love while you’re working with them, but you keep in touch after, because making a movie is like this big petri dish. And it’s like, you’re there for months, and then everybody goes separate ways. And sometimes people stay in touch, and they don’t. And this is for movies that we’re filming back to back,” continued Fuhrman. “And Kevin has brought together such a great group of people. I think these [Horizon] movies are incredibly special and so well written, and I can’t wait for people to see them.”
Fuhrman won’t have to wait long for people to see Sheroes, though. From Paramount Global Content Distribution, Sheroes will be in select theaters and on digital beginning June 23.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
