NAVY SEALs were hired to knock Abbie Cornish, fellow Australian actress Emily Browning, and High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens into shape for the all-girl action fantasy Sucker Punch.

Cornish, last seen playing a porcelain-skinned poet’s muse in the 19th-century romance Bright Star, says transforming herself into a gal who could kick butt credibly took some serious working out.

“We did three months of training in the lead-up to shooting. I felt amazing … we were doing three hours of martial arts training, an hour and a half with personal trainers, and then gun work.

“I got to learn about all these different guns, how to handle them and fire them. I’ve never prepped for a film like that. It was a whole new experience.”

Directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen, Legends of the Guardian), Sucker Punch is the story of five girls confined to a psych ward in the 1960s, who escape into different worlds and realities. It also stars Jamie Chung, Jena Malone and Scott Glenn.

“We probably, at the beginning, all felt like, oh my God, we don’t look like fighters,” Browning told a Comic-Con panel in San Diego this week.

“We’re kind of all little girls. We trained our a—s off – we worked really hard.”

But after being put through their paces by Navy SEALs six hours a day for three months, “we got strong”.

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