KIVA REARDON on Soderbergh's HAYWIRE | Beyond Badass: Female Action Heroes

Bookended by The Girlfriend Experience and Magic Mike, Haywire marks the middle (and high) point of director Steven Soderbergh's unofficial “body trilogy,“ each installment of which relies upon a stunt-cast lead role that references the respective star's offscreen trade: porn star Sasha Grey as a high-class prostitute in Girlfriend, one-time stripper Channing Tatum as the studly peeler in Mike, and in Haywire, former MMA fighter Gina Carano as a black-ops agent who goes rogue after being betrayed by her masters. Surrounding Carano with a stacked cast of male screen veterans (including Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas), Soderbergh reveals his leading lady's lack of acting experience as part and parcel of the display of her physicality. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme, who were cast for what their bodies brought to the screen and not for their thespian talents, so too was Carano picked for her impressive set of physical skil