Yahoo News Cobie Smulders "lucky" female action roles exist today
If you caught Tom Cruise's action blockbuster sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, you'll probably agree that Cobie Smulders's Major Susan Turner was one of the very best things about it.
Susan was so kickass throughout the movie, that you could probably remove Jack Reacher entirely and she would have completed the story on her own. And it turns out that the How I Met Your Mother star had to get through A LOT of training to keep up with Cruise.
"The issue for me, is that I had just come off of a broken leg and I was just re-learning to walk, so I was in a very weak place," she told Digital Spy.
"For six weeks, we trained pretty extensively. If you've seen the movie, we run a lot! Hopefully we have some muscle to show for it at the end of the day.
"For me it helped in terms of getting into character, because one of the things that was really interesting in shooting this film is that we decided to make her a ranger school graduate, which is one of the hardest programmes to go through within the army.
"When we decided that, there weren't any women who had gone through it, and then that month there was the first female graduate [Kristen Griest]. So I was like, 'If they could do that, and my character was someone who got through it, I think I can handle working with Tom Cruise!'"
Cobie told us that she hugely enjoyed working with Tom, and she'd love to find out more about Susan in a potential third movie.
"He was a dream, truly," she said. "This is a man who's done this type of film [for years]. He knows how to make movies, and how to make them interesting.
"He's a producer on this film as well. To my benefit, not only because I gained him as a friend, but also he is so knowledgeable when it comes to stunt training and has an amazing team in place.
"I was like, 'If I ever do a movie like this again, I just want to do it with him'. And also, he's such a great guy. He's Tom Cruise! It was just an amazing moment to work alongside him. It was pretty wonderful.
"I think there is a lot of story there. I'm always interested when I jump onto a film, 'What is the prequel? How did these characters get to be where they are now?' Especially in our film when you're dealing with a woman who had to struggle and fight to get where she is, and that's a story I'd like to see.
"There hasn't been any conversation about [a third movie], but of course, especially if I get to work with Tom and everyone again, I'd love to."
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back achieved a worldwide box office of over $160 million on a $60m budget, so there's every chance of another instalment.
Cobie also revealed to us that she was glad to be working in a time where female action roles were more readily available than when she grew up.
"I'm trying to think if I ever watched anything that would have inspired me to do this, but unfortunately there weren't a lot of female action stars when I was a child," she noted.
"I've always just been a competitive person. I played soccer for 12 years, so I've always been a very active person, and I had a lot of brothers. So I was always a physical person, and I just lucked out to be where I am in the same age where these roles are becoming more available to me."
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is available on Digital now and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD from February 27.
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