Of all the actors in recent months and years who have tried transforming into John Wick in punishing, stylized action movies, Allison Janney in her new film “Lou” may be the most surprising transformation yet.
Janney leads the Netflix action movie “Lou” that also stars Jurnee Smollett and Logan Marshall-Green and is produced by J.J. Abrams.
In the film, she plays a woman named Lou with a dangerous and mysterious past living in the tranquil Pacific Northwest and whose only companion (you guessed it John Wick fans) her dog. As a massive storm threatens to set in on the community, Lou’s neighbor (Smollett) begs her to help save her kidnapped daughter, unaware of Lou’s many secrets.
This first trailer for the film though shows some of Janney’s biting wit matched with some punishing hand-to-hand combat, particularly after she picks a fight with some thugs inside a remote cabin.
“Things are…escalated,” she says in the clip.
Janney did many of her own stunts in “Lou” and worked with Charlize Theron and Halle Berry’s same fight choreographer from “Atomic Blonde” and “John Wick” specifically, Daniel Bernhardt of 87Eleven.
“Lou” is directed by Anna Foerster making her directorial debut from a screenplay by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, with Bad Robot’s JJ Abrams, Hannah Minghella and Jon Cohen producing. Both Janney and Smollett also executive produced the film.
Check out the first trailer for “Lou” above, which debuts on Netflix on September 23.