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Gina Prince-Bythewood has been quietly kicking ass in Hollywood for decades. Spike Lee even dubbed the Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights filmmaker "The Quiet Storm". But with her latest film, the new Netflix Original The Old Guard, the filmmaker brings the ass-kicking to the forefront in an action-packed adaptation of Greg Rucka's comic series of the same name. Starring Charlize Theron and Kiki Layne, the film centers on a group of immortal mercenaries doing their best to fight for the greater good over the millennia while fighting the existential ennui that comes with waging an endless war.

With The Old Guard now available on Netflix, Prince-Bythewood joined me for the latest episode of Collider Connected to discuss making the Netflix action movie, why she loved the source material so much, and why a surprisingly sad movie about the cost of killing and the perils of immortality turned out to be the perfect project to finally make her superhero movie debut.

the-old-guard
Image via Aimee Spinks/Netflix

During the extended conversation, we also discussed:

  • The production timeline for The Old Guard, how she was approached for the project and if that was something she'd experienced before.
  • What she learned from her experiences developing Silver and Black and directing the pilot for Cloak and Dagger.
  • How she approached the action scenes, working with Charlize Theron, and striking a balance between delivering what action fans want and creating something new.
  • How she designed the action scenes with her stunt choreographer, the elements that were most important to them, and how they accomplished them on set.
  • Spoilers for the end of the movie, from what the final scene means for a possible sequel to how tightly the timeline holds up, and the biggest changes she made when she signed on to direct.

The Old Guard is streaming now on Netflix. For more on the film, check out our extended print interview with Bythewood. And be sure to watch the rest of our Collider Connected interview series, including recent standouts The Only Island for Palm Springs, Dan Stevens for Eurovision, and Academy Award-winning animator Genndy Tartakovsky.