Halle Berry worked tirelessly with Belgian Malinois dogs for months to perfect her role as a tough girl in the new John Wick sequel.
The actress spent four days a week over "several months" working with Andrew Simpson, a leading animal handler who is best known for training the direwolves in Game of Thrones, getting to know the five dogs picked for the action movie.
"I spent four days a week, three hours a day, going through drills with the dogs to build a close relationship," the Oscar winner tells WENN. "Malinois are super smart and fiercely loyal but, at the same time, they like to play, which made it fun. I'm an animal person. I have two dogs myself, so the sweetest part of my training day was always hanging out with the dogs."
The rest of Halle's training was much more gruelling and centred around martial arts, core strength and conditioning so she could keep up with director and former stuntman Chad Stahelski's touch pace.
"Because of Chad's long takes, it was essential to have really good cardiovascular stamina so I could do lots of moves at once and then do them over and over," Berry explains. "I also really wanted to show I could keep up with Keanu Reeves, which is no easy deal."
But her co-star was very impressed with the actress' work ethic, adding, "She was 100 per cent committed. Not only did she go through months of martial arts and weapons training, she also had the dog training.
"She got to the point that our dog trainer said to me, 'They treat Halle as their trainer now', which is amazing. She showed up in every way. It was great fun for me to be able to work with her dramatically and to have her be such a strong partner in the action."
And Halle also won praise from stuntwoman Heidi Moneymaker, who signed on as the star's personal trainer for the shoot: "Halle’s very athletic, works hard and she picks stuff up incredibly fast."
