Lara Rossi stars in Timo Vuorensola’s sequel film Iron Sky: The Coming Race and I was given the chance to speak with her about it. She plays the character of Obianaju ‘Obi’ Washington who is an absolute badass…but when you are up against Hitler riding a Tyrannosaurus Rex, you kind of have to be.
Besides Iron Sky: The Coming Race, you can also find Lara Rossi in a number of other projects like the latest Robin Hood film starring Taron Egerton. She also voiced Vanasha in the hit video game Horizon Zero Dawn.
She also has a TV mini-series she is currently filming called Flesh and Blood. So stay tuned for that also.
RONNIE: You star as Obi in Iron Sky: The Coming Race, so first tell me about your character?
Lara Rossi: Obi is a bit badass, she’s the chick that keeps the moon base going and she’s got a massive heart but she’s also hard as nails, she doesn’t take any shit. She’s got a mission, which is to basically try and fix this gigantic spaceship, which will save what’s left of humanity. She can’t believe that no one else is as worried as she is, basically.
RONNIE: I’m curious as to what the audition process was like. Did you audition or were you called in?
Lara Rossi: I was sent the script and I was on holiday. Initially, the script had a whole bunch of aliens talking to each other at the beginning for, like, loads of pages, and I was like “what the hell is going on?” It was basically the story of how the Vril came to be. And then when I got to the nooks and crannies of it I just fell in love with (Obi) straight away, and I’ve always wanted to play a character like that. I was excited about actually auditioning for it and I did a tape for the casting director, but I didn’t think I’d done a good enough job on my tape, so I got back home and retaped it, then sent it again. Timo told me if I hadn’t redone it, I never would have got the role, so it was right to go home and do it again. I think I was nervous, I think I just wanted the role a bit too much so I didn’t quite deliver. So when I eventually got to know Timo he was like “it was your second tape that got you here.” And then I did a chemistry read with Vladimir, and also with Timo. Vladimir was already cast, from Germany, and then the rest just happened and I got the role and I was screaming and very excited. [Laughs]
RONNIE: So you got the script before you auditioned. I’m curious as to what you thought when you read the script and the overall audacity of the film. Or maybe not audacity–
Lara Rossi: I think that’s a good word. *laughs* So, I hadn’t seen the first Iron Sky and so when I first read it, I read it cold and I didn’t really understand the backstory of it. But I fell in love with the character and also with the central relationship between Obi and her mum. I just loved the emotion of it. It had that heart in it, at the core. And then obviously when I got back to London and watched Iron Sky One, then it all made sense and I realized, I understood the comedy aspects of it, I understood the wackiness and the satire aspect of it, too. And I thought actually “this is got a lot more than I realized.” It’s playing with conspiracy theory and how the world was formed and all that sort of stuff. It threw a whole bunch of stuff into it that I really felt would be quite fun. I really enjoyed it.
[Related: Iron Sky: The Coming Race is finally coming to the U.S.! Get Happy! – Trailer]
RONNIE: You have a lot of action scenes in this film. Did you have to do a lot of preparation for this film beforehand?
Lara Rossi: Yes. As soon as I got the role and realized it’s essentially action-packed I got myself ready physically. I got myself into a regime and got myself as fit as possible. I also had a stunt double but she didn’t end up doing that much in the end because I was like “I wanna do it!” I was like “how dangerous is this, I’m pretty sure I can do this” so in the end (she) actually didn’t do as much as she signed up for, but it was pretty fun. I always wanted to do my own stunts. There weren’t that many, but it was fun climbing and hitting people. It was a lot of fun.
RONNIE: I’ve seen the film and the sets, the designs look so amazing. How much of it was real and how much was greenscreen?
Lara Rossi: So the moonbase was completely built. When I first got there–it was built in Antwerp, in Belgium–when I first walked around on the set, they took me on a tour, I was like suddenly I actually got goosebumps. I realized the scale of it. It was enormous and incredible. There were bits of it that weren’t even used in the end. And then when we moved on to, obviously, when we were in spaceships, those things were being shaken by men from side to so, so you had to imagine things like stars, that was all green screen. And then when we got to the center of the, like Middle Earth, that was like half green screen and half not. I have to say hats off to our arts department because it was completely incredible. I was blown away and really, really excited. It made my job like twenty thousand times easier. So it was very cool.
RONNIE: Yeah, visually the film is, I was amazed. Like “are you sure you guys didn’t have more money?”
Lara Rossi: Right? They did so much. They really used their creativity to an extreme. It was amazing.
RONNIE: So there’s one scene at the beginning when we first get introduced to Tom Green’s character when he first excommunicates someone, and then you have a scene–sorry for the spoilers, people–where you threw a hammer through a glass door and then you walk through it. Was that glass actually falling on you?
Lara Rossi: They were like little pieces of gel. It’s pretend glass, but actually, it’s, it kind of felt like just wet gel. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. It took so long to actually realize–there was one person on set, thankfully, who was a friend of mine that had thrown a hammer before. It’s really difficult to realize when you’re supposed to let go of the hammer for it to go straight ahead of you. And so thankfully, because we were all going like “how–why is this hammer not going straight when she’s like doing the thing” and so then I realized you have to let it go when it’s like, diagonally across your body and pointing downward. It’s really counterintuitive. It takes on the centrifugal motion because you’re turning. If you let go when you think you should let go, it’s going to go to the left or behind you, so you’ve got to let go a lot sooner than you think. So that took a long time to figure out. It was a lot of fun. It was cool.
RONNIE: So much science just for throwing a hammer.
Lara Rossi: I know, right? *laughs* But I guess it’s sci-fi, so… There were some calculations that we had to come up with.
RONNIE: So Tom Green is in this movie, Udo Kier, Julia Dietz, and– I just feel like you guys must have had a ton of fun hanging out on the set when you weren’t actually filming.
Lara Rossi: It was. *laughs* I think that by far–we all made friends for life, but Vladimir and I are still really, really close friends. Udo, I think, should just be a standup comedian, he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He’s one of the wackiest, most incredible man ever, and obviously Tom Green is hilarious. And then also our director is one of the most eccentric, gigantic men I’ve ever met in my life. So, yeah, the whole set was packed with a bunch of characters and I have to say I’ve not had that much fun in–it was a pretty special job.
RONNIE: Besides having Iron Sky out, I know that you just did Cheat and Flesh and Blood. Do you have any other projects that you’re working on?
Lara Rossi: Yeah, I’m working again with the same director that did Cheat. We’re doing a TV show called Flesh and Blood, which is TV, so it’s like the UK title. It’s a thriller. I just finished about six months of theatre, and did two shows consecutively, which is great, but, as any actors out there know, is absolutely exhausting, so I’m glad to be back on set where you just do things like once today, and not every day for a month. So yeah, back on set now and it’s nice.
RONNIE: Do you have a higher love for film-making or theatre?
Lara Rossi: They are kind of incomparable. Of course they are because you’re doing the same thing, you’re acting, but the kind of discipline that you need for theatre and the unique, the immediate response that you get from the audience being there with you, there’s something really quite magical and special about that that I don’t think filming gives to you. But filming has a whole other energy and another magic that I can’t describe. Hopefully, I’ll continue to do both until I’m too old to speak.
RONNIE: And then you can do silent roles.
Lara Rossi: Exactly!
RONNIE: Is there a role out there that, perchance, you might get to play one day like a drama, or a superhero role–is there one that you would love to play overall?
Lara Rossi: You know, not long ago my answer would have been James Bond, but that’s gone. I would actually love to play Hamlet. That would be theater. I don’t know, anything powerful and vulnerable at the same time. I love that break. I’m always attracted to characters like that. Fingers crossed it will continue.
Many thanks to Lara for speaking with me. Make sure to go check her out on Instagram and make sure you see Iron Sky: The Coming Race.
*Special thanks to Katrina Wan PR and Cheryl Dyson.
Iron Sky: The Coming Race is available via VOD at places like Amazon and Itunes!
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