If you’ve seen Daniela Ruah, who plays Agent Kensi Blye on NCIS: Los Angeles, bust some serious moves and take down criminals, one of your first thoughts might be about her training. She looks so convincing that it’s difficult not to wonder if the actress performs her own stunts. Here is everything Showbiz Cheat Sheet is aware of.
Daniela Ruah was the winner of the first season of Portugal’s version of “Dancing with the Stars”
Ruah’s dance training helped her prepare for her role on NCIS: Los Angeles. Her athleticism allows her to navigate difficult fight scenes more easily. Her preparation paid off when she was crowned the first winner of Danca Comigo, the Portuguese version of Dancing with the Stars, in 2006.
Ruah told Backstage that she knew her dance training would be useful at some point in her career. “I knew it would be useful for acting as well, just in terms of spatial awareness and your own physical posture,” she told the publication.
Daniela Ruah performs her own stunts..?!
Ruah revealed that she is usually the one doing the stunts in her scenes. She does, however, use a stunt double whenever a scene is too dangerous for her to perform herself. “I probably do 99 percent of the fighting,” Ruah admitted to Backstage. “We just have a really amazing team of people who support and help us, and they want us to do our own stunts because it helps the cameramen and the director.” But for the truly perilous stunts, I have a stunt double.”
Dance training, according to the NCIS: Los Angeles star, makes her more aware of her surroundings and her body. Dance is something she recommends to other actors who want to hone their craft.
“You become very physically aware of yourself and the space around you, and your body reads movement like words on a page,” Ruah explained. “At some point, I don’t need to read an entire page to figure out what that word is. You have a feeling you know what it is. It’s a language that’s ingrained in your body… I would recommend that any actor take some movement classes because it makes a huge difference.”
Daniela Ruah has extensive fighting experience.
Eric Christian Olsen stated in a 2017 interview that Ruah has extensive fight training. “[Ruah] does so much of her fighting,” Olsen said. “When you see a four-minute-long knife fight with Dani, that’s all Dani.” She takes the time to learn all of that. In all honesty, that means that she goes somewhere and rehearses that fight scene for hours on top of having two kids and doing the show.”
Ruah says she approaches her fight scenes as if they were dance routines. “Because I have a dance background, I treat the fight sequences as choreography, which they are.” Olsen added her two cents, saying she’s very good at what she does. We’d have to agree.
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