Eiza Gonzalez stars in Guy Ritchie’s new film, ‘In the Grey’, marking her third collaboration with the British director in which she plays a dangerous and determined negotiator.
“I’m always going to be very grateful to Guy because he saw something in me that many people didn’t, and he has always allowed me to step out of my comfort zone with characters,” says the Mexican actress in an interview with EFE.
When Gonzalez met Ritchie (‘Snatch’) the performer recalls “brainwashing” him with the idea that she could speak with a British accent.
“I don’t know if I had a chance at the time to really speak with a British accent, but I made it,” he recounts.
Since then they hit it off and forged a friendly and professional relationship, which made the ‘Baby Driver’ actress a regular collaborator in the most recent stage of Ritchie’s filmography.
González entered the director’s universe playing a World War II spy in ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ (2024), alongside Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson; and a year later she joined ‘Fountain of Youth’, in which she shared the cast with John Krasinski and Natalie Portman, as an agent of a secret sect.
This Friday she arrives in theaters with ‘In the Grey’ in the role of Rachel Wild, a determined negotiator who will have to get out unscathed from a dangerous feat, consolidating herself as one of the few female protagonists under British direction.
“I feel like (Ritchie) always has at least one very, very strong female character” in his films, the actress explains.
For that reason, and for the versatility and challenge that each role brings him, he says he enjoys working with the author of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’.
“Rachel Wild is an extremely different character than anything else I’ve done (…) she’s capable of doing whatever she wants,” he says.
“Many times women are not allowed to be like that, and the fact that I can be free in that way in a scene or with a character (…) are challenges that I find interesting,” she adds.
Eiza Gonzalez in the lead of Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill
Wild will have to recover a multimillion-dollar sum of money from a dangerous tyrant and, to do so, he will call on a competent team with a criminal past who have a special devotion to him.
“It’s not every day you can be bossing around Jake (Gyllenhaal) and Henry Cavill. It’s kind of surreal, but they’re great scene partners,” she says.
Although he had already worked with Gyllenhaal on 2022’s ‘Ambulance’ and with Cavill on 2024’s ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,’ Gonzalez explains that this project allowed him to get to know the ‘Superman’ actor more personally.
“I came out of that process just thinking how talented, what a good actor and what a great partner he is, everyone in general. I already knew that from the others, but I learned a lot, Henry,” he says.
Gonzalez has forged her career playing predominantly smart, tough and confident women, and has become a recurring face in action films.
The actress confesses that it is not something she consciously sought out and considers that much of her work actually portrays what “a contemporary woman” is.
“At the end of the day I have a lot of vulnerable characters, in ‘3 Body Problem’ or ‘I care a lot’ (…) I feel more like women who are unashamed, clear and confident in who they are as people. And I think that feels like the contemporary woman,” she explains.
In addition to ‘In the Grey’, Gonzalez will release next week ‘I Love Boosters’, alongside Demi Moore and Keke Palmer, and is currently preparing to shoot ‘Iron Jane’, a film in which she will play a bodybuilder, reported Agencia EFE.
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