Catalina Sandino Moreno, the Oscar nominee, stars alongside Ana de Armas in the new action movie Ballerina, a John Wick spinoff featuring a battle between elite assassins. The Maria Full of Grace Oscar nominee, who plays an expert killer in the film directed by Len Wiseman, hurt herself early on - but not because of an elaborate stunt.

“So the first day, very simple,” she says, recalling a scene in which her character enters a room, holds a child and grabs a gun. “I'm like, ‘Oh easy. I can do that.’ I walk in, I bend over to pick up the child, and I feel something pull from my back, like, pop. I'm like, ‘This is the worst moment.’”

“I haven't done anything physical! I am bending over to pick up a child and now I have an injury,” she continues.

The director was like, ‘What happened?’ I'm like, ‘I don't know, but I can't breathe.’ And they're looking at me like, ‘Oh my gosh, she's going to be a nightmare.’ That was the beginning of my action life in that movie. I was pretty ashamed,” she adds with a smile.

Moreno saw a medic, who confirmed that her injury was “not serious,” she says. “The doctor was like, ‘What's wrong?’ ” She then explained what happened on the set. “He's like, ‘Welcome to your 40s,' and then gave me a pill,” Moreno continues.

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In a way, the actress - who healed quickly and was back in the swing of things, going toe-to-toe with de Armas - has her teenage son to blame for her minor medical ordeal.

“He was the one that pulled me into the John Wick world,” says Moreno, who shares one child with husband David Elwell.

“He's a boy. He's 16, and he just gets really excited every time certain action films come out. John Wick is one of his favorites, and we kept watching them - first one, second, third one.”

When Moreno landed the role and told him the news, he had a surprising reaction. “He said to me, ‘You better not die,’ ” referring to her character.

She's eager for him to see the film and get his take on her performance. “I'm always nervous about what he thinks. It's funny how my perception of making movies change once I had him,” she says.

“Little things that I would've never cared, and now I do. So his opinion is important for me, and it's based on what he feels. Sometimes he watches me and he's like, ‘That was not natural. Why did you do that?’ ” continues Moreno.

“Then I watch it again and I'm like, ‘Oh my God.’ He just makes me think,” she says.

Ballerina is in theaters now.

Read more: Entertainment