Gina Carano’s New Look, New Voice, in ‘Haywire’

Claudine Zap

Meet the next big action star: Gina Carano. The "American Gladiators" champ was plucked from the fighting ring to star on the big screen in the upcoming thriller "Haywire."

The Steven Soderbergh-directed movie is built around the budding actress, who kicks, jumps, and shoots her way through the thriller as a black-ops agent who has been double-crossed. And, she admits, as part of her transformation, her voice was digitally altered to set her apart from Gina Carano, the pro fighter.

While the extreme athlete shows her trademark moves in the movie, her voice sounds different. TMZ noted that on a podcast yesterday, the new actress explained that Soderbergh needed to do "some altering and some mixing" to deepen her voice so that people would see her and her character as "two completely different entities ... and he did a really genius job at that."

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New voice and all, the Web has certainly taken notice of the newbie. Yahoo! searches for "gina carano" have kicked up 74% in the past week. Other lookups include "gina carano movie" and "gina carano movie trailer." The film doesn't just rely on Carano's fighting skills -- it also has an impressive supporting cast, including heavyweights Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, and Antonio Banderas.

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The Las Vegas native got her start at age 21 with the combat sport muay Thai. Her boyfriend at the time, fighter Kevin Ross, introduced her to it. After training for her first fight, she told the Los Angeles Times, "I was completely addicted."

The daughter of former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Glenn Carano went on to compete in the WWE and finally on "American Gladiators," where her fights caught the eye of Soderbergh, who wanted to make a movie using a trained fighter: "I saw Gina on TV, and I thought, 'She is [James] Bond,' just in a different context." Translation: There is no stunt double in this movie. It's all Gina.

The 29-year-old seems to be taking her leap to Hollywood in stride. The breakout star told Access Hollywood, "It's a complete honor. It's a beautiful cast, and beautiful people are a part of it. ... This is the best moment of my life."

"Haywire" opens January 20.

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