Lucy Liu and Kiernan Shipka Discuss Their ‘Red One’ Characters

November 18, 2024 Sophia Soto

Lucy Liu and Kiernan Shipka star as Zoe Harlow and Gryla in Red One. The fun new holiday film is now playing in theaters!

After Santa Claus – Code Name: RED ONE – is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security (Dwayne Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Chris Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.

“I think that for my character, and there’s two answers, one of them is material, it’s give her some bangs, okay? Because bangs are a good way to be a boss lady and secondly, just to play her very straight and to make her job a real thing, so it was quite serious,” Liu explained. “Like, it’s just another day at the office, dealing with the Headless Horseman, etc. I love that because it gives it ground and it gives that foundation for the rest of the movie.”

Shipka shared, “Gryla, I think, is a very angry, angry character, but it was choosing to let that simmer instead of kind of explode at all times because I wanted her to be hurt and make sense of why she was doing things the way that she was. But I think playing it in sort of an icier manner was definitely something that felt right once we got on set and I started working with Jake and we kind of talked about things. That was definitely an active choice and it could have gone in other directions.”