Leather jacket, piercing blue eyes… In 5 films and almost 10 years, she has established herself as an iconic heroine of action cinema

If you were asked to name a powerful vampire fighter, the star of five feature films spanning nearly a decade, what would you say? Fans of action/fantasy movies don’t have to wait long to answer and immediately mention Selene, the badass character played by British actress Kate Beckinsale in the spectacular Underworld saga.

With her latex suit, leather jacket and piercing blue eyes as she transforms into a vampire, Selene’s character is one of action cinema’s most iconic heroes (along with another character, the star of a six-film saga). It was in 2003 when he first appeared on the screen, in the first Underworld, where the public discovered his fight against the Lycans, the werewolves. One day Selene will fall in love with a man who was bitten by one of the wolves, will become one of them…

With nearly $100 million worldwide (and 620,000 admissions in France), Underwold, directed by Len Wiseman, is considered a success, and sequels are on the way. There will be four: Underworld 2 – Evolution (2006), Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans (2009), Underworld: New Era (2012) and Underworld – Blood Wars (2017). Five fantastic adventures with a strong core of fans that collectively brought in more than 550 million greenbacks at the worldwide box office.

“I didn’t imagine that I would be most known as an action hero“, said Kate Beckinsale in 2018 on the microphone of AlloCiné, when she was invited to Deauville to receive the talent award. It must be said that the career of the actress is not necessarily limited to the films of the underworld. If she once again touched the fantasy genre with Van Helsing, the one who showed that she showed, a. Over the years, the wonderful variety of her roles that appeared in Martin In the credits of Scorsese’s Pearl Harbor, Un love in New York or The Aviator.

“I was afraid of making an action film. I was also intrigued…”

But make no mistake: Kate Beckinsale loved taking on the challenge and slipping into the guise of a villainous hero. “I’ve always wanted to do things I couldn’t do without a camera”he told us. “And because I couldn’t catch a ball, I was afraid to do an action movie. I was also interested because it makes you more muscular to do things outside of your comfort zone. But I really didn’t expect the weight of the franchise that a woman in latex would carry.”

Better yet, Kate Beckinsale is happy that she may have paved the way. “During the first Underworld, the producers were worried because they didn’t think a female-led action franchise would be successful”– the actor told us. “Before, it was just Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton And that’s it. It worked sometimes, but it was rare, and it’s a little more common today, and it’s nice to be a part of it, to see that my daughter’s generation doesn’t think it’s weird to see a female action hero. “

“Underworld” trailer: