“Film is Forever”: How Maria Gabriela de Faría Embraced the Pain of Playing “Superman” Villain The Engineer

Maria Gabriela de Faría doesn’t pull her punches—or her spinning blades, for that matter. In Superman, the actress makes Angela Spica (aka The Engineer) fight like an animal, throwing raw punches with unwavering belief in Lex Luthor’s (Nicolas Hoult) idea that no individual should be trusted with superpowers. Whether the Engineer is slicing robots in the Fortress of Solitude or going toe-to-toe with Superman (David Corenswet) in the Cleveland Guardians’ ballpark (outfitted to look like the DC Meteors’ home), she battles with ideals as well as fury.

To play half-machine, the nanotechnology empowering her is also eating away at her humanity, Gabriela de Faría transformed into a fighting machine. “Everything I did in the movie was so physical that it changed the way I acted,” she told The Credits. “It gave the character that frustration, that fear, because I was feeling it, too.” Though Superman isn’t her first comic book gig — she previously starred in SyFy’s Deadly Class — it’s by far her most transformative role to date.

Gabriela de Faría began as a child actor in Venezuela and went on to star in telenovelas, often performing 40 scenes a day. In other words, she was no stranger to the discipline Superman required.

As hard-hitting as The Engineer is, it always looks like there’s pain there behind the punches. How much did her physical discomfort, not just her strength, drive your acting choices? 

That was a conversation I had with James at the beginning. This isn’t a movie about the Engineer — it’s about Superman. The other characters are there to support his story. My character, specifically, supports Lex. But James has big plans for every character, so I needed to give the audience a glimpse into the Engineer’s mind and soul, even though the story isn’t hers. She sacrificed herself to become a metahuman for the greater good. Every time she connects with a machine, she loses a bit of her own humanity. I asked James, “What does it feel like when she connects to the Fortress of Solitude’s computer? It’s a foreign technology – alien.” We came up with this body language to have something to work with in those scenes. It’s painful because it’s not natural. 

Playing a soldier with nanotechnology in their body, what training and prep is required?

I worked out with the trainer DC gave me, Paolo Mascitti, for eight months before filming. I prepped from the outside in, reading the comics and doing all the research. My main focus was to gain those physical abilities, to look the part. I wasn’t a good fit when I started. The first couple of months, my body didn’t change. I wasn’t feeling any stronger, but I still had to show up every day, afraid of not achieving my goal, but still going. While I was at the gym, going through all of that in my mind and my body, I thought of the Engineer. I would send James pictures of me on the treadmill with different options for how she would walk.

How would she walk? How would she throw a punch?

The nanotechnology weighed her down. I would work out with my stunt team later on, holding dumbbells to make it require effort. And then — God loves me so much — he gave me a tight, stiff suit. The Engineer’s suit was 3D-printed leather. I had to fight my suit every time I wore it, which is 95% of the movie. It helped create the awkward movement. 

When you’re weight-training, do you approach acting similarly, treating scenes like goals to hit? In other words, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approach to acting is like scenes being reps.

Every character requires a different approach. But I always start by finding a big-picture goal, an overall objective for the entire movie. Then I break each scene down into smaller objectives that build toward that larger goal. There’s no way for me to go for a scene objective without figuring out the big one first. It’s step by step. And so, in that sense, I guess Arnold and I have the same technique [Laughs]. 

[Laughs] What other questions did you have for James Gunn? How else did you want to help him tell Superman’s story? 

I know that when somebody writes a piece of dialogue, it’s there for a reason. Usually, actors — we are guilty of being so self-absorbed that we want to shine in a way we think is good for us, but maybe doesn’t serve the picture. I’m aware of not doing that, so that’s why I said earlier, “The Engineer — it’s not her story. She’s here to elevate Lex’s journey.” How can I do that in a way that – yes, helps me shine as an actress, because at the end of the day, I am an actor – but also help the filmmaker? If I help the filmmaker, the filmmaker is going to help me, and everything is going to be told in a way that’s great for the audience. We’ve all worked with actors that are not necessarily team players, and that’s painful. I’ve been guilty of that, for sure, in my career, but I never want to be that. 

Thousands of people are telling this story, given the scale of production. Any crew members you’d like to credit? 

The stunt team is so essential to our work. They make us look amazing when we can do the moves. More than that, they taught with patience and believed in me. They were so sure I was going to be able to do most of my stunts. The wire people — the riggers — the ones that make you fly, they became my safety net, alongside my stunt double, Angela. I’m afraid of heights and speed, and they knew it. When they were about to propel me forward fast and high, they were behind me, grabbing at my ankles, pumping me up: “You’ve got this, you’ve got this!”

For the baseball stadium set-piece, what did you and the stunt team want to accomplish with that fight? 

There are a couple of moves that took me months to accomplish, and I had real nightmares with those moves. There’s a slide where she is unconscious for a second, and then she sees Superman and Ultraman fighting above her, and she tracks them, and then she slides really fast and then does crazy shit. It was so difficult to accomplish that James’s wife, Jennifer, would ask, “Did you dream about this slide?” I did, because it’s so difficult. During that particular baseball fight, the riggers were there listening to Video Village and would be like, “They like it more every time. Don’t worry, you’re almost there.”

How did you and David Corenswet tackle the challenge of those stunts together? 

There’s another slide where I’m on top of David, and we flip over, then keep sliding. We rehearsed separately at first, but when we did it together, it just wasn’t working because of our weight differences. David is huge – I was tiny. Whenever we flipped over, we would be flying to the sides. It didn’t work. I was frustrated and asked David, “What can I do to make this better for you?” He’s like, “Just let it wash over you. It’ll happen.” That’s the approach I took after. We overthink things, I’m type A and want to get it right away, but the body needs time. You’re not a machine. Let your body get used to the movement, and then it’ll happen. 

Was it satisfying when you saw that the editors didn’t cut the action to death? 

At the same time, the Fortress of Solitude fight, that’s two seconds [Laughs]. It took us months to rehearse and prep, and then I’m like, “It’s over? Sh*t.” You’re working on so many things. I’m splicing one of the robots, and to do that, I slice with my tail tucked in — because I’m Latina and my butt’s always sticking out — but my tail tucked in, that took me weeks, and it’s a fraction of a second [Laughs]. But it’s how it is. It has to look perfect, so it takes what it takes.

[Laughs] To conclude with Arnold — on the set of Conan the Barbarian — he mentioned pain, and [director] John Milius said, “Pain is momentary – film is eternal.” 

[Laughs] Oh my God, I watched that [Arnold] documentary a week before filming. It was inspiring. I’m like, “Yes, Arnold — that’s what I’m doing.” I was going through so much pain. I have tiny little scars from wearing the harness for so long, and those are f**king battle scars. I love them. I’m proud of them, because film is forever.

Featured image: Caption: (L to r) MARÍA GABRIELA DE FARÍA as The Engineer, SARA SAMPAIO as Eve and NICHOLAS HOULT as Lex Luthor in DC Studios’ and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures