Alia Bhatt loves a challenge. The 30-year-old actor has been a fixture of Indian cinema since 2012. But like globe-trotting hacker Keya Dhawan, her character in Heart of Stone, Bhatt is always looking for a new mountain to climb — and she found it with the new spy thriller, her very first American role. “The idea is to just challenge yourself more, make yourself a little uncomfortable,” Bhatt told Tudum in an interview conducted in June. “It’s about just seeing what else is possible, trying it out. I’d rather be an ‘oops’ than a ‘what if.’” 

Born in Mumbai, Bhatt made her acting debut as a child in the 1999 serial-killer thriller Sangharsh. She went on to mainstream fame as an adult with winning performances in films like Student of the Year, Shaandaar, and Dear Zindagi, and stole scenes in a small role in last year’s crossover hit RRR. Many of her more recent films are streaming on Netflix alongside Heart of Stone, including a starring turn in Gangubai Kathiawadi and Darlings, her first film as a producer. “Real Netflix, baby,” she said with a chuckle. 

Directed by Tom Harper, and co-starring blockbuster talent like Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan, Heart of Stone marks a number of transitions for Bhatt: It’s her first Hollywood film, her first lead role in an action movie, and a notable turn as an antagonist. The true motives of Bhatt’s character in Heart of Stone aren’t immediately apparent. Keya Dhawan first appears as an opposing force to Rachel Stone (Gadot) and the Charter, the top-secret organization that Stone represents. Both are fighting to control the Heart, the algorithmic weapon that the Charter uses to operate on an international scale. Bhatt’s mysterious figure has her own personal grudge against the Charter, and she’s going straight for the Heart. “If you own the Heart, you own the world,” Bhatt said. “And clearly she’s here to disrupt a couple of things.”

It’s fitting then, that Harper views the dynamic between Gadot’s Stone and Bhatt’s Dhawan as, well, the heart of Heart of Stone. “The two bounce off each other brilliantly and you get real electricity,” he told Netflix. “Some of my favorite parts of the movie are when they riff off each other and the banter that they have, but also their deeper relationship as it twists and turns and develops. Really, theirs is the central relationship of the film.”

Bhatt relished the chance to play the foil to Gadot’s unstoppable spy. “I did enjoy the antagonist part. I will not lie,” she said. “What was amazing about working with Gal is that she takes everybody’s opinions as importantly as she would take her own.” It’s a quality Bhatt felt Gadot shared with the team-oriented Stone, making for a refreshing new twist on the spy movie formula. “I enjoy the [Mission: Impossible movies] and I enjoy the Bonds,” she said. “But is there a character that I have, you know, connected with or felt sensitively towards? Maybe not.”

Like its genre peers, Heart of Stone is full of blistering action, which plays out everywhere from the snowy peaks of the Italian Alps to a skybound heist aboard the Heart’s midair housing. In the latter sequence, the hacker and Stone plummet out of an airplane and hang from Dhawan’s parachute while grappling in the air. 

Bhatt shot Heart of Stone during her first pregnancy, but she had no problem tussling with the erstwhile Wonder Woman on-screen. Off the set? That’s a different matter. “I [would] not take her in a fight,” she said, laughing. “You know there’s those cartoons where you’d begin to start fighting and then you kind of dig a hole in the ground and make sure you escape from there really quickly? I think that would definitely be me and Gal.”

With this mission accomplished, Bhatt is ready to move on to the next. “I’m super excited that my first English-language movie is this summer blockbuster action adventure,” she said. “Hopefully if I’ve done a half decent job, I can see some possible exciting things ahead from here.” 

In other words: There are plenty more items to check off the Alia Bhatt bucket list. We’ll be watching.

Heart of Stone is streaming on Netflix this Aug. 11.

Alia Bhatt Takes Us Behind the Scenes of ‘Heart of Stone’