Kate Beckinsale has been playing her vampire character, Selene, in the Underworld movies since 2003. She reprises her role as the “death dealer” once again in Underworld: Blood Wars. The actress has been a key selling point for the franchise, which has earned over $500 million at the box office over the years. And while she’s gone off to star in other genre projects ranging from the Total Recall reboot and The Disappointments Room to The Elder Scrolls Online video game, she has a soft spot in her heart for this franchise.
Beckinsale reteams with actor Theo James, who has his own successful sci-fi franchise with the Divergent series, in this fifth installment of the Underworld story. James returns to his character David in the action-packed sequel, which was helmed by first-time director Anna Foerster. We caught up with the actors for an exclusive interview.
“There’s a threesome between two werewolves and Charles Dance, which is going to be quite hot,” James said. “What Anna did was bring it back to what the first two movies were a little bit in terms of tone and theme. We filmed it in the Czech Republic so there’s that gothic architecture, that moodiness.”
The film’s tag line, “The war to end all wars,” speaks to the action quotient. Beckinsale said this film has more of everything, including a lot of new characters, plenty of returning faces, and even more at stake.
“The stakes are really super high for Seline this time,” Beckinsale said. “So there’s a lot going on. It was definitely worth another visit based on what the story was that we came up with.”
James told us there’s a little bit more of the social dynamics of the vampire world in the new film, as well.
“You understand something beyond the big action sequences, but then on top of that it’s pretty action-filled because you have more characters and more sequences,” James said. “It has more action than any of the other ones have had to date.”
Underworld: Blood Wars is in theaters now.
