Kaya Scodelario says ‘Crawl’ had "one of the most feminist scripts" she has ever read.
The 27-year-old actress plays Haley in Alexandre Aja’s upcoming horror flick, a young woman who finds herself fending off vicious alligators at her flooded house after a hurricane hits town, and she has revealed that it was the fact her character wasn’t a damsel in distress and is not defined by a man that made her keen to sign up for the part.
Kaya told POPSUGAR what drew her to the role was the fact that her alter ego was "not anyone’s girlfriend, not somebody in underwear for no explicable reason."
She continued: "I’m not being saved. It was just this young woman’s story, and she’s an absolute badass, but she’s still kind of vulnerable.
"She’s still frightened, and she’s still complicated.
"I really liked being able to helm a film where the central character is this young woman who is an athlete, who’s at the top of her game, and who is able to get herself out of the situation."
Meanwhile, Kaya – who rose to prominence when she starred as Effy Stonem in UK teen drama ‘Skins’ – previously admitted that being cast opposite an older "love" interest is a regular occurrence for her and that she finds it "really f***ing weird".
She said: "But, yeah, nine out of 10 times, if I read a script, it will be me with a guy that is twice my age, which is really f***ing weird."
Kaya was speaking after being cast in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’ as Carina Smyth, and how she feared she would be romantically paired up with a much older actor, and was "extremely relieved" when Brenton Thwaites – who plays the son of Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner – arrived on set.
She explained: "I was concerned that they would want me to play a romantic part against someone in their 50’s and that would be heartbreaking. So I was extremely relieved that Brenton is only a year older than me."