Key Insights
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson shares insights about his collaboration with director David Mackenzie on Fuze.
- The film explores the chaos in present-day London due to a WWII bomb discovery.
- Theo James discusses improvisation and the intense directing style of David Mackenzie.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson‘s career spans genres, from Marvel blockbusters to period horror films, offering him the opportunity to work with several talented filmmakers, including Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie, on their new heart-stopping heist thriller Fuze. While talking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub about the film, however, the actor admitted he’s a little “envious” of certain actor-director collaborations, like Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, that he believes set the gold standard for moviemaking.
In Fuze, present-day London is hurled into chaos when a construction site unearths a bomb from World War II that failed to detonate. When the entire city is evacuated, a team of experts races against time to defuse the threat, but amid this chaos, a criminal operation takes advantage of the crisis. Fuze also stars Theo James, Saffron Hocking, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elham Ehsas, and Sam Worthington.
Don’t miss the full conversation in the video above or the transcript below, where Taylor-Johnson recalls his first-ever memorable celebrity encounter and breaks down the process of working closely with a real-life EOD specialist, Nick Orr, and the authenticity that brought to the movie’s high intensity. He also discusses reuniting with Robert Eggers on their upcoming horror Werwulf and with Tom Ford on Cry to Heaven. For more on Fuze, be sure to check out our conversation with James below.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson Reveals the Wild Way Jackie Chan Won Him Over as a Kid
He also shares how a recent young co-star inspired him for future sets.
COLLIDER: Before we get into the movie, which I thought was fantastic, I’ve been asking this question of everyone: Have you ever asked for someone’s autograph?
AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON: Wow. The first autograph I ever asked for was probably Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, or Goofy, or something like that. I must have been six years old at Disneyland Paris. I had the little booklet and everything. That was a thing. That was probably the last time. [Laughs] When I was a kid, I must have done a couple of things, and I had some sign things, but then after that, I didn’t really collect.
It probably was Jackie Chan. Do you know what the thing about Jackie Chan was? I was 12, by the way, and what Jackie Chan did was he sort of showered everybody in gifts of Jackie Chan merch. So that was like coats and bags and cool stunt gear, hats, and stuff like that. That was cool.
I’m not very good at doing that. I’m not very good at asking people for their signature, autographs, and things like that, but I should. I just did a movie, and there was a young boy, and he just had every actor sign the front of the script. I think that’s such a beautiful thing to hold on to. If anything else, I should have started that a long time ago and just collected that to give away or gift or whatever you can do in terms of the projects you’ve been on.
100%. And by the way, there’s no better time to start than on the next thing you do.
TAYLOR-JOHNSON: For sure.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson Trained With a Real Bomb Disposal Expert
“He was on set with me every single day.”
You play someone who’s an expert at defusing bombs in the film, and I’m curious, did you actually meet anyone who defuses bombs, and did you notice that they have massive balls?
TAYLOR-JOHNSON: [Laughs] I can answer the first part of that question. Yes, on this movie, I worked with this great EOD specialist called Nick Orr, and he was really instrumental in the dialogue and the technical side of how to actually defuse a bomb, World War II explosive, but also I really gravitated to him as a character. He’s from Leeds, up north. He was also someone who left the military who’s now in privatized organizations and works around the world, globally. At the drop of a hat, you go off and do exactly that, detect these explosives, and it’s incredible. He has incredible composure and discipline, and has a side of authority that he carries with him. But then also, he’s someone who knows how to have gallows humor. He has a lot of banter and humor, and I find that so intriguing. The human side of someone, in those really tough times, hard times, they’re the sort of people who can crack the funniest jokes. It’s also a mechanism to get through these super high-stress, high-octane, life-or-death situations.
He was on set with me every single day. He was very instrumental in what I would say and do to the point where I’d take all of that, and the way that David Mackenzie shoots it, he films in a way that he just doesn’t say cut, so he’ll film for like 13, 15 minutes, and I’ll just go off, and I’ll tell these people to do what they need to do. The other cast were military guys, and they saw the badges I had on my lapel, and I had authority over them to tell them to do what I needed to do because I knew exactly what Nick Orr would say and the lingo and the way to do it and how I would carry myself in chaotic situations. You have to have firmness but calmness during crisis management mode.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson Teases Reuniting With Robert Eggers for His Next Gothic Horror
On reuniting with the filmmaker he admits “I look at great director-actor combos and I’m envious of it.”
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