As filming for the Highlander reboot starring Henry Cavill continues, one of its stars has hyped up the action scenes fans can expect to see, while confirming one big character change.
Siobhán Cullen plays Brenda in this new Highlander movie, directed by John Wick’s Chad Stahelski. The cult classic 1986 Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert as immortal Scottish warrior Connor MacLeod and Sean Connery as his mentor, Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, saw Roxanne Hart play NYC forensic scientist Brenda Wyatt.
In the original movie, Brenda follows Connor hoping to make sense of his mysterious sword. She eventually uncovers the truth of not just Connor’s past, but his immortality.
In an interview with Deadline, Cullen said the Brenda we’ll see in the new Highlander is “totally different.”
“We find her at a different time in her life,” she added. “We find her getting into trouble and when she meets Connor on a pivotal night, as a mortal, she gets swept up in the world of immortals. Because she is mortal in this immortal world, she’s kind of the eyes of the audience because she is being introduced into this whole new world, which totally upends her whole understanding of humanity and time and what’s possible.”
What “getting into trouble” means in this context is anyone’s guess, but to me it sounds like she isn’t a NYC forensic scientist this time around.
Stahelski’s Highlander is described as “John Wick with swords,” and given Henry Cavill is already familiar with swordfighting from his time playing Geralt in Netflix’s The Witcher, I imagine he’s the perfect fit for Connor. This Highlander is set in beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, with Cavill set to play a sword master who’s been alive for over 500 years, training in all sorts of martial arts along the way.
Cullen also hyped up the action, saying the movie is “definitely one for the fans,” adding: “some of the fighting scenes I’ve seen are just insane.”
“It’s exciting to work with somebody who is so fluent in the language of action, and it’s like there’s this whole other script that’s happening that is parallel to our dialogue,” she continued. “The subtext and incredible detail to character is incredible and I’m just a keen student.”
In January, Cavill posted a first look at his character in the Highlander reboot. The former Superman actor took to Instagram to reveal two images, below, of himself in character. As you’d expect from a Highlander movie, Cavill carries a sword. It looks like he’s in Hong Kong in the first photo, and New York in the second.
“Happy First Look for Highlander!” Cavill said alongside the photos. “This has been quite the journey for me, which I’ll tell you all about when the time is right, but it’s a special moment to be able to share this. I hope you enjoy.” Cavill’s mention of Highlander being “quite the journey” is probably a reference to a leg injury he sustained last year while training for the film, which delayed production to early 2026.
Stahelski has offered a vague story setup: “We’re bringing it forward from the early 1500s in the highlands to the beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, and seeing how it goes. There’s big opportunity for action. There’s a chance to play a character that not a lot of people get to play. And it’s a bit of a love story, but not how you think. On John Wick, I learned a lot on how to bend the storytelling a little… another kind of myth.”
And on Cavill’s character, Stahelski added: “My selling point was, to [Henry Cavill], look, you’ve got a guy that’s been alive for over 500 years. He’s the last person in the world that wanted to be in this situation. So you get to cover quite a broad spread of a character arc there. And you get to experience someone that’s trained over 500 years and sort of played [with many types of] martial arts…”
In September, Deadline reported that WWE star Drew McIntyre, who hails from Ayrshire, Scotland, will play Angus MacLeod, brother to Cavill’s Connor MacLeod. He joins Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, Dave Bautista, Marisa Abela, and Max Zhang in the reboot.
In August last year, Stahelski suggested the Highlander reboot could be the start of something big. “I think we have some very good elements now,” he said. “The trick is when you have the tagline ‘there can only be one,’ you can’t just kill everybody the first time.”
He continued: “Our story engages a lot of the same characters and stuff like that,” Stahelski continued. “But we’ve also brought in elements of all the TV shows, and we’re trying to do a bit of a prequel, a setup to The Gathering, so we have room to grow the property.”
In Highlander, The Gathering is a summoning that forces the immortal warriors to face each other in what’s called the Game.
“I’ve been a fan of Highlander since I was a lad,” said Cavill on Instagram when the film was announced in 2021. “From the movies in all of their 80s, Queen slathered glory to the TV show with an actor who looked remarkably like one of my brothers. Being not shy with swords, and having a director as talented as Chad Stahelski at the helm, this is an opportunity like no other.”
In April 2024, Cavill bigged-up his training for the Highlander movie, promising even more impressive sword skills than he demonstrated in The Witcher. “If you thought you’d seen me do swordwork before, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Cavill said.
Image credit: Henry Cavill / Instagram.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
