Alia says sudden transition to full English in 'Heart of Stone' was weird

NEW DELHI: Actor Alia Bhatt has now finally made her transition from Bollywood to Hollywood with her new spy-thriller-action film 'Heart of Stone', where she stars alongside popular Israeli actress Gal Gadot.

Speaking about her transition, Alia said that suddenly doing a movie in full English language was a bit weird for her, but overall it was a great experience for her.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun, Alia was asked about her transition where she said: "You know it was a bit awkward for me speaking in English all time, because I'm so used to speaking in Hindi even though I use English half the time, suddenly acting in English was a bit weird."

"But apart from that, day one… kind of awkwardness, I really really felt that it was the same. The process of a film set world over is exactly the same," she added.

Talking about filming the action, Gal Gadot, who plays the role of Rachel Stone, said: "It took months of prep time, different workouts and training. But we all knew what was gonna be the case. You know it is such an intense action packed film that we knew we were going to have to be as prepped as possible (sic)."

Gadot, who serves as producer, said that she really wanted to make this film.

"After the success of 'Wonder Woman', I realised that there was a lot more space for female led movies in the action genre and we just went for it. We realised that there was an audience for these types of movies, and as long as you create a story which has all the elements with a good balance, then it has the potential to be a success," she said.

Talking about entering the spy-genre given its popularity, Gadot said: "I think, first of all, I'm a big fan of this genre, 'Bond', 'Mission Impossible', 'Bourne Identity', 'Die Hard', all these films. I love them."

"I love the suspense, the twists and turns, the drama, the scope, everything about them. I love getting into a movie and going through a journey, and feeling like I've been all around the world and come back, closer than being delivered or in the theater," she added.

When asked what goes into playing a good villain, Alia, who plays the antagonist in the film Keya Dhawan, said: "Belief..in your purpose. Because I think there are two sides to a story right and sometimes you are on the right side, sometimes you are on the wrong side or sometimes you are just on opposite sides. So as long as you deeply believe that your side is truly the right one, you know the other side is the villain, you are not the villain."

The topic of artificial intelligence is something that everyone these days are talking about and much of the spy-genre films these days ranging from 'Spectre' to 'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning' all deal with it.

As AI plays a key role in the movie, both the actresses were asked about their thoughts on AI, to which Alia said: "I think anything in excess is not really great, and I definitely feel that there are a lot of benefits of technology."

"I think there is an excess of this invisible force, that you know we believe we are leading, but it is in fact leading us. So I think it is really important to just find the right balance and know what you are getting into," she added.

Gadot said: "I think AI was always a hot topic and we didn't anticipate it. Certainly not when we conceptualised the script and began working on the story, we didn't realise it was going to be such a hot hot topic."

"I think it’s fascinating, AI is an incredible power that could be incredible on the one hand, and could be very dangerous on the other hand. I think a lot of people saw the Chat GPT CEO talking about how there should be some regulations and make sure we slow down, so I think we should be very careful on the way we handle that," she added.

Spy-thrillers are becoming very popular not just in Hollywood but even Bollywood and Tollywood, each coming out with their own spy movies ranging from 'Ek Tha Tiger', to 'War', 'Pathaan', 'Vikram', 'Vishwaroopam' and others. For Alia also this won't be her first entry into the spy-genre as she did play one in 'Raazi'.

'Heart of Stone' is a Netflix film directed by Tom Harper and will begin streaming on August 11, 2023.