Ana de Armas has said she insisted a female writer be hired on the forthcoming John Wick spinoff film Ballerina.

The actor will star as the titular character, a young woman raised as an assassin who hunts down the hitmen who killed her family.

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“It was really important for me to hire a female writer, because to that point when I got involved in the project, it was only the director, Len Wiseman, and another guy,” de Armas told Elle. “And I was like, ‘That’s not going to work.’”

De Armas explained she interviewed “five or six female writers” and eventually hired Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell to join the project, which she said she “was so proud of”.

On the “conversations” in the US today regarding women’s rights, the actor continued: “I grew up in the most macho-man culture, and at the same time, Cuba is just so free in so many other ways that sometimes I’m shocked with the things that I hear that are still conversations in this country. I’m like, ‘We’re still here?’”

Ana de Armas will next be playing Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s Netflix film Blonde.

A synopsis reads: “Blonde boldly reimagines the life of one of Hollywood’s most enduring icons, Marilyn Monroe. From her volatile childhood as Norma Jean, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, Blonde blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.”

Blonde is released on Netflix on September 23.