Charlize Theron defined Atomic Blonde by the stereotypes she wanted to avoid

Behind the scenes, it was a long, hard fight for Theron to create that kind of signature action role for herself. Her interest in the genre started back in 2005, when she made Æon Flux. When that film bombed, it hurt its female director and star much more than similar flops affected the men who led them. Theron eventually began developing Atomic Blonde as a passion project in 2012, when her production company purchased the rights to Antony Johnston and Sam Hart’s then-unpublished graphic novel The Coldest City. She hired 300 screenwriter Kurt Johnstad to expand the story as part of the film’s five-year development process, but it wasn’t until her breakout action role in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road that Theron finally had the clout to get Atomic Blonde off the ground. She hand-selected John Wick co-director David Leitch, who left Chapter 2 to helm Atomic Blonde instead. Because the two projects were prepping concurrently, Theron and Keanu Reeves often worked out alongside each other.

For Theron, that meant training four hours a day for two and a half months before the 50-day shoot, at one point clenching her jaw so hard she cracked two teeth and had to get extensive dental surgery. More than that immediate prep work, however, her greatest asset was her history as a ballet dancer. “Fight choreography has far more in common with dance choreography than it does with actual martial arts,” Leitch told GQ. “You learn martial arts techniques but those are just the movements for the choreography. You’re working with a partner in choreography. You’re working on timing… You sometimes have an actor that can’t hold the 12 or 14 moves I need to capture in a row, or won’t be compelling enough with the drama in those moments. But I wasn’t worried with her.” Theron’s choreography skills came in especially handy during Atomic Blonde‘s signature set piece: a 10-minute escape sequence designed to look like one continuous take, in which Theron does the vast majority of the stunts herself.

What’s cool about Atomic Blonde is how much the press around the movie was simply focused on what it takes to create a kickass action scene, rather than what it means for a woman to star in one. The idea for the centerpiece sequence stemmed from Leitch’s dream to “do a fight-driven action oner in the style of Children Of Men.” The Atomic Blonde oner is composed of 40 separate stitched-together shots—some of them as long as two minutes—with the stairwell portion alone taking four days to film. To make things more efficient, Leitch brought editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir to set so they could basically cut the movie in real time. After filming each segment, the team selected which take they wanted to use so that the next shot could be composed to match it exactly, including the angle and momentum of the handheld camera.

Shooting the oner chronologically also allowed Theron to keep track of Lorraine’s increasing exhaustion, which is really the thing that makes it stand out. The first half of Atomic Blonde is filled with fun, heightened set pieces, like a car escape where Lorraine stabs someone with her red stiletto pump and an apartment fight set to George Michael’s “Father Figure.” But the oner is where Lorraine truly starts to feel the emotional and physical weight of her twisty, turny experience in Cold War-era Berlin. The sequence pushes Lorraine past the point of adrenaline and into a space where sheer willpower is the only thing driving her. It was part of a “mandate” from Theron that the film’s action feel visceral and real.

Indeed, on a scene-by-scene basis, Atomic Blonde isn’t necessarily doing anything that had never been done before. The innovation is how it reworks and combines various eras of female action cinema into one sleek, clever package. It’s playful and sexy, but also gnarly and gritty in a way that recalls action heroines from earlier in film history. It picks up on a trend of early-2010s female secret agent movies like Salt, Haywire, and Hanna, only instead of focusing on a wronged woman who has to go on the run, it centers on a competent spy just doing her job. 

The pleasure of Atomic Blonde is that it’s the kind of simple yet satisfying female-led action movie that Hollywood should have been making all along. Yet it’s notable that it took an A-lister on her third decade in the industry to make it happen. Atomic Blonde is cool, cocky, and almost tossed-off, but nearly every filmmaking choice was made as a response to Theron’s frustrations with the limitations of the action genre and/or her excitement about the freedom she found on Fury Road. That’s the impetus behind everything from Lorraine’s casual bisexual tryst with Sofia Boutella, to casting a big male star like James McAvoy in a supporting role, to the purposeful lack of a sympathetic backstory for Lorraine. “I’m trying to break these forms of how women ought to behave in movies,” Theron told Time. “Maybe they shouldn’t behave at all.”

Atomic Blonde was a hit, and hopes for a sequel were high, but they have stalled over the years. Still, if Æon Flux was Theron’s introductory action misfire, which Fury Road made up for, Atomic Blonde solidified her status in the genre’s pantheon, allowing her to lead franchises like The Old Guard and star in dumb-fun movies like Apex. It also broke the seal on a new wave of moody female-led action vehicles like The Rhythm Section, Ava, Kate, and Gunpowder Milkshake—not to mention the actual John Wick spin-off Ballerina. When envisioning Atomic Blonde, most of Theron’s reference points were lazy tropes she wanted to avoid. Now, the film stands as a stylish modern example of how to do things right.

Next time: 20 years ago, Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz tried to make their own Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid with Bandidas.