22 February 2013
Newsdesk
Gemma Arterton loves it when people think she’s posh as it means she’s perfected her accent.
The British actress grew up in an everyday household; her mother was a cleaner and her father a welder. She makes every effort to speak properly and is always amazed when people think she is aristocratic.
“I’m from Kent, my mum and dad are working class. I take it as a compliment if you think I’m posh, because it means my posh accent is alright,” she laughed to UK TV show Daybreak. “When I’ve had a few glasses of wine, that’s when [my real accent] really comes out.”
Gemma is promoting her new movie Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which also stars Jeremy Renner. The characters are based on those from the well-known fairytale which features a gingerbread house, although now they have grown up and are bounty hunters.
“Training-wise, I don’t know how much you can train to fall on your back and get your face punched in. It’s pretty much what I feel like we did the entire movie,” Jeremy laughed.
Gemma was in awe of how much Jeremy threw himself into the stunts needed for the movie. She admits feeling nervous before shooting began, but soon realised that wasn’t going to help her through.
“Jeremy is the consummate professional and has done all this stuff before but that was the challenge for me, to really become bad and brave and learn how to do all my stunts,” she said. “I had to do a three-week intensive fight [thing].
Stunts are usually - there’s always an element of you could really get hurt - but a lot of it is fear. Once you’ve overcome that, it’s really good fun.”
The actress joked she has “bruises all over her arms” from the amount of times she pinches herself to check her life is real.
She can’t believe how successful her career has become, although that doesn’t mean she has no fears. Gemma can’t help being concerned by the state of modern society.
“Domestic crime,” she replied, when asked what scares her. “We had these riots in London last year and I just think about how our society is so fragile and things can happen in very developed countries. I think that’s very scary. There are many other things that worry me, but that’s the main one.”
