What happens when you build an action movie from the discipline, pain tolerance, and physical language of ballet? For Director Vicky Jewson, the answer became Pretty Lethal — a film where movement isn’t just style, it’s story.
This week on Below the Line, Skid is joined by Vicky Jewson and co-host Katie Carroll to go behind the camera on Pretty Lethal, the action thriller now streaming on Prime Video.
From the outset, Vicky approached the project with a clear mandate: ballet wouldn’t be window dressing — it would drive everything. That meant immersing herself in the world of professional dance, collaborating with prima ballerinas, and building an entirely new movement language that blends choreography and combat into what the team ultimately dubbed “Ballet-Fu.”
The conversation explores how that idea shaped every stage of production:
- Why the film was designed “ballet first, fight second,” and how that philosophy led to the creation of a new stunt vocabulary
- Building a hybrid team of dancers and stunt performers — and how seven weeks of prep transformed ballerinas into action-ready doubles
- The logistics behind intensive rehearsal, previs, and on-location blocking — including shooting complex sequences with an editor assembling scenes in real time
- Designing action set pieces as evolving story beats, allowing the audience to discover Ballet-Fu alongside the characters
- The decision to embrace the visual symbolism of tutus — not as spectacle, but as a statement about strength, femininity, and perception
- Creating a collaborative, high-trust environment on set, where tone, culture, and preparation all contribute to performance
Along the way, Vicky discusses the realities of getting a film like this made — from years of development and packaging to finding the right partners and building a team that could execute at scale. She also reflects on working with Uma Thurman, whose performance balances heightened, almost mythic energy with emotional grounding.
What emerges is a conversation about preparation, collaboration, and intention — and how a clear creative idea, carried all the way through production, can define the identity of a film.
