Priyanka Chopra's 'Heads of State' co-star Ilya Naishuller: 'She charmed me in 45 seconds and...'

Priyanka Chopra Jonas was a joy to work with and the only choice for the female lead in “Heads of State”, says filmmaker Ilya Naishuller about his latest action-comedy, which features the Indian actor with John Cena and Idris Elba.

The Russia-born musician-filmmaker, best known for directing Bob Odenkirk in action thriller “Nobody” as well as sci-fi film “Hardcore Henry”, said as soon as they thought about approaching Priyanka for the role of Noel Bisset, an MI6 agent, everything “made total sense.

“She’s the only actress I talked to for this movie, I’ll be honest. I was just like, ‘If the call goes, we’ll be lucky to have her’. And I remember she charmed me in about 45 seconds flat over a Zoom call.

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“She’s wearing a big, homely sweater and just chilling on her couch. And we started talking, and I immediately understood we have quite a bit in common,” Naishuller told PTI in an interview.

The director said he could see parallels between his journey in Hollywood with the way Priyanka, an already established star in India, made a space for herself in the US. “She went from being so big in India to being like, ‘You know what? I want to risk it and see what happens. I want to go out there and be ambitious and try to crack America’. It is a very difficult thing to do. It always is, no matter how big you are at home, and the fact that she went there and started that path, I was like, I deeply respect that and I admire that. It’s courage,” he said.

Naishuller said while he felt good about their shared “commonalities”, he realised that he was charmed by her presence.

“I just realised either she is playing the charm or she is that charming and that’s her. And both things work, because one proves that she’s a great actress, as I already knew, or she can be a great fun person to hang around with… And when we got to work, I was like, ‘That was her.’ She is that charming, fantastically warm person.” The filmmaker said Priyanka was always prepared and curious throughout the shooting of the movie that revolves around a newly-elected US President (Cena) and his more seasoned British counterpart, played by Elba. They don’t get along well but have to unite to fight a common enemy that wants to derail an important summit. They find an ally in Priyanka’s Bisset.

“Every time we finish a scene and there’s a relight, she’d pull up an apple box, sit right and be like, ‘How’s it going? What are you guys doing?’ And that’s the kind of vibe I really enjoy. So to balance out Idris Elba and John Cena, she had to be there. She was always like, ‘Well, I’m a little bit of a third wheel’. I’m like ‘It’s a tricycle’.” Naishuller said grew up on Jackie Chan movies and wanted to bring the same energy to “Heads of State”, currently streaming on Prime Video.

“If you surround violence with comedy, the violence becomes punchier and you don’t need to do that much to elicit a good chuckle. And it’s the first time I’ve been trying to go for a movie that is outright trying to make you laugh because ‘Nobody’ was very reserved.

“There’s a lot of chaos in this movie… I’m just trying to understand how to fit all that together…This is the first movie where I had to cut jokes. We had too many good jokes… When the bullets are flying, our guys are terrified, and that’s actually funnier than them taking bullets over here and just saying wise lines. It’s a ridiculous movie, but I wanted a grounded ridiculous movie, if that makes sense.” “Heads of State” also stars Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, Carla Gugino, Jack Quaid and Sarah Niles.

The movie is produced by Peter Safran and John Rickard. Cena and Elba also serve as executive producers.