Nicola Peltz, the 19- year old actress who costars with Mark Wahlberg in the new film Transformers: Age of Extinction, which will open in theaters nationwide on Thursday, earned her stripes as an action movie star by running a gauntlet of real explosions for the film.

In a recent interview Ms. Peltz, who is the daughter of billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz and model Claudia Heffner, described her experience in filming one of the scenes shown in a trailer for the movie.

“Those explosions were real. There were so many explosions going on at once with 10 or 12 cameras rolling, and (director) Michael Bay told us four minutes before we’re supposed to shoot, ‘You have to run from here to here in 4.6 seconds,’” said Peltz in an interview with the New York Daily News. “You  feel the heat on your back.  It was crazy,” she  said.

Ms. Peltz, who has a sister and six brothers, one of whom plays ice hockey for the Ottawa Senators,  discovered her passion for acting  when she took a drama class while attending  middle school in Westchester, the suburban New York county where she was born.  The start of her career came in 2007, when Ms. Peltz, then 13 years old, played in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Blackbird opposite Jeff Daniels.

Ms. Peltz continued her acting career with major roles in the 2010 film by M. Night Shyamalan, The Last Airbender; Bates Motel, the acclaimed A & E series and her role in the new Transformers movie.  Peltz also stars in the independent film drama Affluenza, to be released in theaters this July.