Lana Condor, the star of the rom-com \u201cTo All the Boys I’ve Loved Before<\/a>\u201d film series and the voice behind the animated family movie \u201cRuby Gillman, Teenage Kraken<\/a>,\u201d is not one to shy away from a challenge. Though she got her breakout role in romantic comedies, she\u2019s also flexed her genre muscles, leaving her mark on action films such as \u201cX-Men: Apocalypse<\/a>” and “Alita: Battle Angel<\/a>.\u201d However, her latest, the action thriller \u201cPretty Lethal,\u201d taps into specific dance training she first began doing when she was growing up in Washington state.\u00a0<\/p>\n Specifically, her new film is built around ballet and centers on a dysfunctional troupe that finds itself caught in the middle of a bloody \u201cJohn Wick<\/a>\u201d-esque battle on a trip that goes horribly awry. Condor never predicted her experience with ballet would help her with her acting career, but she said that it was nice to dance back to her roots.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up on Whidbey Island, and through the fall, through the winter, I would train, train, train because every spring was when my mom and I would get in the car, we\u2019d go on the ferry, and we\u2019d go to Pacific Northwest Ballet. That\u2019s where they hosted all of the auditions for the summer conservatories,\u201d Condor said. \u201cI was a big dancer growing up and then I quit at 18 when I started acting. So I went back to dance through this film, and that was one of the quiet little blessings of this.\u201d<\/p>\n Condor said her co-stars also had similar dance experience, all of which they put to use in what becomes a balletic brawl in which their characters must band together to fight their way free from a roadside inn run by a former ballet prodigy (Uma Thurman) and her henchmen. It\u2019s another acting experience that Condor said, more than anything, is a privilege to get to do.<\/p>\n \u201cGrowing up, being an actor wasn\u2019t even in my mind,\u201d Condor said. \u201cThe fact that I\u2019m an actor in the first place is something I\u2019m so deeply grateful for. It\u2019s such a difficult industry to be in sometimes and it\u2019s not lost on me how much of a win it is just to even get employed. So the fact that I even, one, have a job, and, two, get to bring in my past experience in dance was definitely a dream come true and not something that I ever expected was even in the cards for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Condor called \u201cPretty Lethal\u201d a great bridge in her career in terms of where she is now and what she wants to do next. That next includes an upcoming film closer to home for Condor: a Pacific Northwest-shot and -set rom-com, \u201cWhodunnit,\u201d<\/a> in which she plays a woman caught between a failed marriage and a rebound, resulting in a pregnancy that becomes a paternity mystery.<\/p>\n \u201cI filmed ‘Whodunnit’ in Portland, which was really nice; very Pacific Northwest vibes. It was great,\u201d Condor said. \u201cThere isn\u2019t action in it, but the mystery thriller aspect of it is that she’s genuinely trying to find who the baby daddy is. \u2026 That film leans more into the rom-com genre, which I love and really hope that I get to continue to do. I love romance and I love comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n