Ever traveled to the farthest reaches of the Arctic Circle in the dead of winter just to see the Aurora Borealis? Hurtled down a waterfall atop an inflatable raft? Catapulted yourself off a cliff in a wingsuit, your heart in your throat and your life at the mercy of the winds?

No? Neither have I. However, I have had the pleasure of speaking to Pom Klementieff, French actor, stuntwoman, and one of this decade’s prominent figures in action franchises, responsible for stretching the public’s appetite for risk. In our conversation, I swear I can hear a faint call to adventure pulling me out from my screen, encouraging me to venture forth out of my room and into the world, and to grasp that tantalizing opportunity to really, truly, live.

Klementieff, who got her start in French arthouse films like Après Lui opposite Catherine Deneuve and Loup, credits Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy for helping to establish her in the American market. But it was her role as Mantis—the gentle and empathetic insectoid-celestial hybrid in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films that brought her into the realm of global recognition. Most recently, Klementieff has become known for her portrayal of Paris, the silent and deadly assassin in two recent Mission: Impossible films, and she’ll soon return to French cinema for Guillaume Nicloux’s thriller, Mi Amor. Klementieff has established herself as one of the preeminent stunt actors in the business, representative of a kind of fearlessness that, in a world numbed by a generational malaise and screen addiction, feels refreshingly human.

Though a conversation with Klementieff thrums with energy, it’s a positivity and magnetism that doesn’t feel contrived—rather, her aura is rooted in honesty, experience, and an understanding that without the darkness, there is no light. “We all curl up in bed and sometimes feel fucking horrible,” Klementieff admits to me of her disposition. “It’s part of the human experience. Whatever success you have, you always have these times of like, ‘What am I doing, what’s going on?’ All these dark thoughts. But you have to get away from them.”

Though she speaks of “getting away” from the darkness, Klementieff’s star has blossomed in the process of turning perceived darkness into light: the characters she—and many of her fans—are most attracted to are borne of that disquietude. Her Marvel character, Mantis, for example, is a quiet and empathetic addition to the franchise, demonstrating a naivete, a hypersensitivity to others’ emotions and a soft yet ferocious power to make others feel. Many neurodivergent teenage fans have shown support for the character, often commenting on Klementieff’s social media to express their appreciation for her portrayal.

“Sometimes you forget about how much people really love these characters,” she admits. “I guess at the beginning, what can be scary is being more vulnerable and exposed through something that is bigger than you… I love the fact that so many people watch these movies all around the world.”

This joy of representation is a different strain than that which she gets to experience in her portrayal of Paris in the Mission: Impossible films, a role which is a personal realization of a long-held dream to star in the action franchise. “I remember watching movies like Kill Bill, for example, and I loved the character. I wanted to be in revenge movies with all of the fighting. It was always a dream to do a movie like Mission: Impossible, and I trained for it for years with a martial artist. In my schedule, I would write ‘Mission: Impossible training’ instead of ‘martial arts training,’ because I wanted to manifest it.”

Well, the training and manifesting paid off. And anyone who has seen the most recent installments in the franchise might have felt that Klementieff’s inclusion may well have been predestined. Those years of preparation meant she could perform most of her own stunts, and scratch that itch of pure cinematic spectacle for a global audience that CGI and stunt doubles still can’t quite capture. It is a movement, a glance, a general badassery that permeates all of her scenes and ingratiates her into this world seamlessly. When she mentions that her current passion away from performing is skydiving, it tracks.

“I just love it so much,” Klementieff says of the hobby. “There’s just so much to learn within that world.” Skydiving isn’t simply a part-time hobby for Klementieff to capture a few good Instagram shots. She was gifted her initial skydiving lessons from her co-star and fellow stunt enthusiast Tom Cruise. Since, she’s jumped well over 200 times. She’s fully immersed herself into the high-octane universe—learning the intricacies of the techniques, of which she’s eager to dive into extreme detail. “The goal now is to be able to land on the beach,” she explains, “You know if you don’t do it properly, you’ll land in the ocean. I have all of these specific goals that nobody knows about. I want to sky surf—there are just so many things.” Skydiving, for Klementieff, is less about the adrenaline and more about honing the mental fortitude necessary for mastery.

“With these kinds of things that are high speed, you’re like, ‘Oh shit, shit, shit,’ and freaking out as you’re falling. But it’s such a good exercise for me. Instead of freaking out, you just calm down. You have to find the flow and the calm. It’s about how to react in a smart way and quick decision making. Because sometimes when you get put into a position like that your brain wants to go into overdrive. But it’s about just calming your feelings, and breathing into it.”

As Klementieff discusses her passions—whether they be acting or plummeting thousands of feet from an airplane onto a narrow stretch of sand—that contagious joy that she brings to her projects begins to materialize. It is not performative nor a default state of happiness, but something more akin to a philosophy around how to exist day-to-day.

“I think you can always find the happiness in everything,” Klementieff ponders. “It’s part of the human experience to enjoy happiness but also to experience sorrow or frustration. It’s about reaching for the happiness, letting the sadness come and then transforming that into happiness. Emotions are always fluid and moving and you have to let them happen, and surrender.”

Perhaps the ability to register one’s emotional state and then mold it to your liking is where the magic of performance lies. Klementieff already has a wide variety of roles to her filmography. Now, she can add the top billing for her upcoming project Mi Amor, a French psychological thriller set to be released this year and a far cry from her recent blockbuster exploits. While the project’s plot is still confidential, Klementieff is able to share that it was an opportunity for her to not only reconnect with French cinema but push her own boundaries as a performer, where she was excited to have the opportunity to “tap into something intense, emotional and very different.”

“It was such a beautiful experience because I loved working with the director [Guillaume Nicloux] and the whole crew,” she says of the film, which is set to release next spring. “We had such a great time shooting in the Canary Islands; being on this adventure.”

Part of the adventure, she shares, was returning to a French-speaking role after more than a decade of working in English—a daunting task, even for a native speaker. “It’s funny because now I’m a little bit self-conscious sometimes when I speak in French. Spending so much time overseas, your accent changes. And sometimes your intonations too.”

Even in recounting these difficulties, Klementieff laughs. No job is perfect. A good role forces you to deal in the darkness every once in a while. But the increasingly seasoned actress seems assured that all roads do eventually lead back to joy, so long as you are in control. “It’s about experiencing emotions and connecting with the audience through revealing the truth of a character,” Klementieff says. “It’s just about keeping the emotions flowing.”

Hers has not been a life without adversity. The more one learns about Pom Klementieff the more the toughness and resolve that she displays on screen seem appropriate. More impressive might be the effervescence displayed away from the camera. There have been plenty of personal and even professional hurdles to arrive at where she is now—an actor with decades of work and dozens of titles to her name—but her conscious effort to allow for the flow differentiates Klementieff from her peers.

“You want to bring the best out of everyone,” Klementieff says. “Sometimes things don’t go as planned and you have to problem solve… but life can be so stressful already. I want to make the experience nice for everyone. That’s my personal little sauce.”

And, by “making the experience nice for everyone,” Pom Klementieff doesn’t just mean “everyone” as her costars. She means you, too. If you watch Klementieff on screen, and inevitably feel like I have throughout our conversation—that is, you feel a compulsion to push yourself to feel more, do more, live more—heed the call. Keep the emotions flowing, and life will follow suit.

Photographed by Alvin Kean Wong

Styled by Dylan Wayne

Written by Jake Carlisi

Hair: Michiko Boorberg

Makeup: Regina Harris

Flaunt Film: Haruka Horiuchi