Nina Dobrev has had a great career, being the lead on The Vampire Diaries for an amazing six seasons while also appearing in movies like Let’s Be Cops, the Flatliners remake and more. Yet, she’s never gotten to test her mettle as an action heroine, with her regulated to mostly non-fighting roles in films like XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. That all changes with Renny Harlin’s The Bricklayer, in which she plays a CIA analyst sent on a mission to Greece, where she’s supposed to keep an eye on the agency’s most notorious hitman, Aaron Eckhart’s Steve Vail, as he chases down a rogue agent (Clifton Collins Jr) who’s been killing journalists. While initially at odds, it doesn’t take long for the two to team up, giving Dobrev a solid chance to show off her action chops.
It turns out that Dobrev has always wanted to star in an action movie. I found this out when I spoke to her over Zoom last week, in which she raved about working with Harlin and told me that she grew up watching his movies, including Cliffhanger. It turns out that she’s always been a big fan of the genre, telling me at one point that her dream job would be to work with Tom Cruise on a movie. In this wide-ranging chat, we talked about Harlin’s style, Eckhart’s dedication to his role, and how, in this movie, they tried to show the physical toll carnage takes on the body, with her hilariously remembering a moment in World War Z when Brad Pitt managed to survive a plane crash without a singer hair being out of place.
The Bricklayer is now available digitally, or you can check it out in theaters. I thought it was a fun little action flick (read my review), and you can expect more from Harlin and Eckhart next week.