Stars Who Have Played Soldiers (PHOTOS)

Michelle Rodriguez plays Captain Trudy Chacon, a combat pilot, in James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar. “She’s a really cool, laid-back, down-to-earth pilot, not the kind that you would typically find in the military,” describes Michelle. “A lot of military folk tend to be very regimented and hard core; she’s a little bit more loose.”

Michelle got into fighting form once again for the 2011 alien-invasion movie Battle: Los Angeles, in which she defends L.A. from some seriously hostile extraterrestrials as Air Force Tech Sergeant Elena Santos. To prepare for the role, she endured three weeks of brutal boot camp. “It was 110 degrees, every day, at the time. We’d run for two miles, do sit-ups and push-ups, take apart guns and put them back together, infiltrate buildings, and rehearse,” she told Collider. “It was gnarly.”