Fast Five  with Morena Baccarin

This Brazilian-American beauty heats up the screen in Deadpool

Feb 10, 2016 06:00 am

FACTFILE

NAME: Morena Silva de Vaz Setta Baccarin

BORN: June 2, 1979, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

FILMOGRAPHY: Firefly (TV series, 2002-2003), Serenity (2005), V (TV series, 2009-2011), Homeland (TV series, 2011-2013), Spy (2015), Gotham (TV series, 2015-2016), Deadpool (2016)

1 THEATRE-TRAINED

This Brazilian beauty of Italian descent followed her family and moved to New York as a child. Like her family members - her great-uncle is a celebrated Brazilian director, her uncle and mother were actors - Baccarin loves performing.

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She studied at the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies, where her future Homeland co-star Claire Danes was a classmate.

Baccarin later pursued theatre at the famous Juilliard School.

2 GEEK MAGNET

Ever since Baccarin got her showbiz break in Joss Whedon's cult sci-fi drama Firefly in 2002, she has become a fanboy favourite, a status she further cemented when Whedon took the TV series to the big screen with 2005's Serenity.

Her sci-fi fanbase grew when she landed the starring role of alien leader Anna in the TV series V. Baccarin, who received an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Emmy nomination for her work in Homeland, is now a regular on Batman spin-off series Gotham as Dr Leslie Thompkins.

She's currently eight months pregnant with Gotham co-star Ben McKenzie's baby. She already has a 2½-year-old son with her producer-director ex-husband Austin Chick.

Actors Ben McKenzie (L) and Morena Baccarin attend the Deadpool fan event at AMC Empire Theatre on Feb 8, 2016 in New York City. PHOTO: AFP

3 TOUGH COOKIE

Baccarin has scored her biggest role to date in Deadpool, playing mercenary-mutant Wade Wilson's (Ryan Reynolds) love interest, Vanessa.

Opening here tomorrow, Deadpool is the big screen adaptation of Marvel Comics' popular titular anti-hero, who becomes terribly disfigured but is imbued with super-fast healing abilities after undergoing a rogue experiment.

Vanessa's wicked sense of humour rivals that of her lover. "Vanessa's a great combination of smart, sexy, cool and tough," said the 37-year-old Baccarin.

4 SEXUAL POWER

In the comics, Vanessa is also a mutant like Deadpool and is known as Copycat, but the movie version won't feature any of her shape-shifting powers.

"I don't have any powers other than the power of sex," Baccarin joked to entertainment website Collider.com.

The photogenic on-screen couple have an active sex life, which is documented in a montage showing the strong bond between them.

"Nothing can prep you for eight years of sex scenes in one day (of shooting)!" she added.

5 FAST TALKER

While Baccarin was involved in some of Deadpool's action sequences, she said those moments were nothing compared to the scenes where she shared dialogue with Reynolds.

She told Collider.com that keeping up with him was a challenge as there was a lot of improv on set.

"Ryan will come up with something, I'll come up with something... it's really collaborative. It's fun."

SUPER GIRLS

A SUPERHERO IS NEVER COMPLETE WITHOUT HIS (NON-SUPERPOWERED) LEADING LADY