All of the cast /creator interviews are brilliant, but it's exciting to me to hear from Sofia Boutella about her character Shadha for the first time, and her relationship with Damien's character Paddy:

SOFIA BOUTELLA, ‘SHADHA’

“When I first read the script I thought what am I going to do with this, I just found it so violent! Through reading it again and again I understood what Shadha’s place in that was and what her power was, and what you find at the end is after enduring the whole beginning of the movie, which is quite tough, what I think gives it it’s power in the end is having gone through the whole beginning. It’s tough to endure but will be justified well in the end. The length of it gives it it’s power.

Shadha is this kind of girl who went through a moment in her life where she had a thirst for independence, and not wanting to be prisoner of any rules. She went beyond that and you can see from their relationship and their stories what she went through and how she met Paddy and why she did so. 

She found some escape by meeting a westerner, a man who gave her an idea of some sort of freedom, but it turned out not to be quite what she expected. It’s an interesting dynamic because you don’t see it coming whatsoever.

The relationship between Shada and Paddy is quite tormented. They come from quite different worlds, but in a way they were both looking for something quite different when they met. They fell in love, and their relationship wasn’t just love, it was quite a power struggle, and it wasn’t the healthiest relationship at all. Shadha wanting a chance for an alternative found in him an escape, and indulged and embraced that and was easily influenced by his want and need of control.

I’m not entirely sure where Damien pulled everything from, but I know for me to pull why Shadha did that, why did she go as far as she did in this relationship was quite easy to find, and I think that any woman who comes from any sort of repressed background, religious or not, is going to want that at some point. So I wasn’t surprised that she rebelled and went that far.”