"I didn't think I'd get stuck in it because I made that choice to go back," Joey King tells Digital Spy of her lead role as Elle Evans in Netflix's hugely popular Kissing Booth trilogy, which wrapped up last year.
King has been around in movies since 2008, appearing in the likes of The Conjuring, The Dark Knight Rises (as a young Talia al Ghul) and Independence Day: Resurgence. However, it was the Netflix series that catapulted her into being a major star and if that's what people want to associate her with, that's fine with her.
"For me, I never was concerned with people just knowing me as that because, I don't want to sound arrogant, but I'm pretty confident and secure in what I think my abilities are. I know I am able to play different kinds of people," she explains.
"I did number 1, then I did The Act and then I made the choice to come back [for the sequels], so I consciously did that because I love them, I love playing that character. I think that I'm entering a new era for myself and I'm the most confident I think I've ever been.
"I'm in my young 20s, I'm making decisions that are a little bit bolder now and I feel like I'm going to go back-and-forth and do things that people don't expect all the time if I can help it. I want to keep making weird and wild choices.
"I don't think I'll get stuck in anything because I never have seen myself as putting those parameters around myself. I think you're your own worst enemy at the end of the day when you think that kind of way. I'm like, 'Oh people think of me as that, cool – well, I think of myself as this, so that's their problem'."
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And it was that decision making which led to King's boldest choice yet, playing The Prince in Bullet Train, one of a number of competing assassins on a train from Tokyo to Kyoto. Though she might disguise herself as an innocent schoolgirl, The Prince could be the deadliest assassin on board.
In a change from the original novel, The Prince has been gender-swapped, but retained the same name – which was crucial for King.
"I loved my character, everything how she was written, how villainous she was, but then also that her name is so strong and powerful," she notes. "It made me so happy because I was like, 'This name feels like the perfect way for me to build the character around her because it made me feel so strong and powerful'."
Alongside King, Bullet Train's collection of deadly assassins include Brad Pitt's Ladybug, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry as "twins" Lemon and Tangerine, Bad Bunny as The Wolf and Andrew Koji as Kimura.
Even though she's been acting for almost two decades (her first acting role was a commercial when she was four years old), King admits that she felt a bit of a newbie when she started off on the action movie.
"I feel like this movie, stepping onto this set, I felt like I had just touched down in Los Angeles and it was my first [movie]. I felt so fish out of water, imposter syndrome, I was like, 'What am I doing here? I don't deserve to be here'," she recalls.
"But working on this movie with the entire cast and of course Brad – I mean he's f**king Brad Pitt at the end of the day, we love Brad Pitt – it was truly an honour, not just because they're so talented and have such cool careers, but because they're the coolest humans to work with.
"Brad became someone that I was so comfortable with and feel so lucky that I was able to share this time with, I just absolutely adore him. I adore Brian so much, he's my lifelong friend now. Aaron and Andrew, it doesn't get better than these people on a human level and on a talent level."
As it turns out, the real challenge for Bullet Train was not the unexpected role for King or the star-studded cast. It was actually the LED screens that surrounded the set to give the impression of a moving train.
"I never got motion sickness, but what did happen is, you know that feeling when you're sitting in a parked car and the people next to you starts backing up and you feel like you're going forward, you're like [gasps]. Sometimes I got that feeling and I was like, 'Oh shit!'," she jokes.
"I never really get motion sickness, that's my sister, my sister gets such bad motion sickness, poor thing."
Bullet Train is released in UK cinemas on August 3 and in US cinemas on August 5.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
