The Cast Of Warrior Nun Was Thrown Into Intense Physical Training From Day One

Netflix's "Warrior Nun" is based on Ben Dunn's comic book, and rarely has a show's title managed to describe its basic premise more succinctly. When a young, quadriplegic woman called Ava Silva (Alba Baptista) dies, a mysterious organization of warrior nuns revives her with the Halo — an ancient artifact that grants her full mobility and a host of superpowers. Now able to see and fight demons, Ava becomes the spearhead of a warrior nuns organization's fight against the forces of evil, as well as the subject of much interest from several powerful players. 

The plot twists and turns of "Warrior Nun" Season 1 end in a way that makes clear the show has plenty of plot in store. As such, fans likely breathed a sign of relief when the first teaser trailer for Season 2 dropped and hinted at some pretty big things to come. If the first season is any indication, the sophomore one will also require grueling physical performances from much of the cast. Fortunately, they started practicing very early for their roles, to the point that they were thrown into intense physical training from day one. 

Kristina Tonteri-Young plays Sister Beatrice in "Warrior Nun," and when you look at her elaborate combat scenes, it's easy to think that most of the fighting was left to stunt professionals. However, as Tonteri-Young told Syfy Wire, the warrior nun actors' plane had barely landed when they begun the arduous training for their roles. 

"We all got thrown into training literally the first day when we came from the airport," she said. "Basically, a lot of us were in the stunt warehouse. [...] So we all did some group exercises on how to cover a room and how to go into a room with weapons and how to make sure it's all secure and safe."

Since a show like "Warrior Nun" features plenty of scenes that feature the titular nuns' teamwork and combat abilities, it's perfectly understandable that a crash course on the subject would be in order. As Tonteri-Young told Brief Take, this wasn't all they learned, though. Her character's proficiency in the elegant Wushu martial art may have required the use of an expert stunt double, but she still had to learn the moves herself — from the choreography of the fight scenes to the use of weapons. 

"I did learn all of the fight sequences that I did or that Hélène [Tran, Tonteri-Young's stunt double] ended up doing," the actor said. "We did quite a lot of training, I did learn how to throw knives, I did learn to use the staff that Beatrice uses, so yeah, that was pretty incredible."  

While the physical training the "Warrior Nun" cast had to go through sounds arduous, it clearly helped the highly intense action scenes of the show — and, as Tonteri-Young noted, it was a good bonding experience.