The British Indian actor stars alongside Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan in the globe-trotting action flick, Heart of Stone.
What better way to break into Hollywood than with a lead role in a globe-trotting action thriller, alongside two bona fide movie stars? Such is the case for Alia Bhatt, the British Indian actor who makes her English-language debut in Heart of Stone acting opposite Gal Gadot (Red Notice) and Jamie Dornan (Belfast). The performer, already a force in the Indian film industry with starring roles in Highway, Udta Punjab, and RRR, says of her transition to Hollywood that she “was waiting for the right opportunity and also wanted it to be true to who I am and where I come from.” From the opportunity to co-star alongside Gadot and Dornan to working with director Tom Harper (Peaky Blinders), Bhatt found Heart of Stone to be the perfect project to take her worldwide. “There were a lot of pluses that came together to make me feel I should take the plunge and do this,” she says.
In Heart of Stone, Bhatt is Keya Dhawan, an independent and enigmatic hacker. She is on a mission to steal the titular “Heart,” an incredibly powerful artificial intelligence apparatus used by the Charter, the secret intelligence agency led by Rachel Stone (Gadot), who is struggling to keep her classified mission from her MI6 teammade Parker (Dornan). As Keya, Bhatt goes toe to toe with Gadot’s Rachel, and the duo has an electric, adversarial onscreen chemistry. But once out of character, their dynamic was anything but hostile. “Gal is very loving; her energy is extremely warm,” says Bhatt. “When I’m around her, I feel like I’ve known her for a very long time.”
Alia Bhatt
Photograph by Robert Viglasky
Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt)
Photograph by Robert Viglasky
Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt)
Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt)
Heart of Stone was a project Gadot first conceived after she and her producing partner and husband Jaron Varsano were eager to create a large scale, genre-defying action film with fierce yet thoughtful women at the center. The multihyphenate Gadot recently told the Skip Intro with Krista Smith podcast that “after the success that we’ve experienced with Wonder Woman, I kind of had an aha moment. I was like, ‘Wait a second, there’s an audience for it.’” Bhatt had recently starred in Gangubai Kathiawadi, a female-led crime thriller that was both a critical and commercial juggernaut in India, and was experiencing a similar realization. “We come from a certain school of thinking that a woman-led film in an action franchise won’t do very well, but I think Gal shattered that myth when she did Wonder Woman,” says Bhatt.
“We were so excited that Alia was going to join us,” says director Harper on working with the Raazi actor. “She’s a formidable talent. [She has] that amazing film star charisma.” Despite exploring new territory and jumping into the world of stunts, tech jargon, and action set pieces, Bhatt felt more than comfortable making Heart of Stone. “It’s quite surprising how similar it is [to Indian cinema],” Bhatt says of the on set environment. “It’s just like home.” It may be her first film in Hollywood, but it is certainly not Bhatt’s last.
