Being a trained dancer does have its uses on a film or television set. Since she moved into an acting career Glau has since taken up a handful of different martial arts, with the lead-in time to making Serenity involving several months of intensive training so that she's be able to do most of the fight scenes for the film. Since then she's also done firearms training for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a practice that saw her injuring herself on a shooting range. Woops. Joss Whedon estimated that Glau did 13 95 percent of her own stunts on Serenity, the director choosing to do long takes of her fighting. She was a dancer so we were able to train her in ways that others cant do, he has since said. Would've saved a lot of time on The Matrix if Keanu Reeves had done ballet in his youth. Amazed by her dexterity, when asked by one of the stunt coordinators on Serenity, She can kick a guy in the back of the head around a pole. Can we build a pole? Whedon replied, Yes we can, so sure was he of her fighting prowess. Remember that episode of The Big Bang Theory where the geeky cast are typically pathetic when they try to chat her up? They should just be glad they didn't make her angry.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
