'The 355' Interviews with Sebastian Stan, Jessica Chastain And Diane Kruger
“The 355” stars Sebastian Stan, Jessica Chastain and Diane Kruger discuss their action movie influences, fighting in a dress, their admiration for stunt performers and much, much more in this interview with CinemaBlend’s managing director, Sean O’Connell.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 - I'm mesmerized by those posters in the background there.
00:03 - They are-- - You got 'em all.
00:05 - The two greatest films ever made, so.
00:08 - That's amazing, it's true.
00:10 - George Washington's first female spy
00:12 during the revolution.
00:14 They called her Agent 355
00:16 because they didn't want the world to know her real name.
00:19 (upbeat music)
00:22 - I love that this movie could end up becoming
00:24 like a gateway for teenage girls to the action genre,
00:27 where they might not necessarily look for stories
00:29 or might not see themselves,
00:30 but now they finally will in your guys' performances.
00:33 So I wanna know who that action hero was for you
00:36 when you were growing up.
00:36 Who was someone that you looked at on the big screen
00:38 and said, "I would actually like to try that"?
00:40 - Ripley in "Alien", Sigourney Weaver, man.
00:43 I mean, I remember watching that film
00:45 and just being like, "Wow, a woman is doing all of that."
00:48 And of course she would be doing all of that.
00:50 I mean, the fiercest competitor in the animal kingdom
00:54 is a mother animal protecting their young.
00:56 I mean, there's something about a mother's instinct
00:59 and that feminine ferocious energy
01:01 that I think can be quite intimidating.
01:03 So yeah, she would have been my favorite.
01:07 - Ripley or Linda Hamilton
01:08 are the only two acceptable answers by the way.
01:10 - Oh, Linda Hamilton when it opens up
01:11 on her doing all those pushups.
01:13 I'll tell you, I started actually,
01:16 I can't really do a ton of pushups now,
01:17 but that movie made me,
01:19 I would go to the playground and practice doing pull-ups
01:22 because of Linda Hamilton in "Permanator".
01:25 - Who was the action star that when you looked at,
01:27 you thought, "Oh, I might wanna give that a shot."
01:29 - I'm not, are you familiar with the film
01:32 called "Run Lola Run"?
01:34 - Yes, of course.
01:35 - Yeah, so I remember that film as really formative
01:40 because A, she looked so cool with her red hair, right?
01:43 And she was everything that I didn't think I was.
01:48 - I'm blanking on her name.
01:50 I know she shows up in the first movie.
01:51 - Franco Potenza.
01:52 - Yes, right, thank you very much.
01:54 That was a terrific, terrific film.
01:56 - You know, you have so much experience
01:57 with onscreen action.
01:59 And so I'm just curious if there are skills
02:01 that you can carry over from one project to the next
02:03 to almost make action sequences get easier for you,
02:06 or is it really different from project to project
02:08 because of the director or maybe even the demands?
02:11 - It is different from project to project.
02:15 It's always about the story and the character
02:18 and to what extent, how much action are they capable of
02:23 and whatnot.
02:24 But yeah, you get more confident, you know,
02:28 the more you do it, you sort of start to kind of
02:31 understand things that your body doesn't necessarily
02:35 do that, but it helps.
02:40 It helps if you've done it before.
02:42 - This year marks the 10 year anniversary of "Zero Dark Thirty"
02:45 so I want to know if there's any Maya to be found in Mace.
02:49 - Yeah, it's 10 years ago.
02:53 I made, I actually, like 10 years ago next month,
02:57 I would have been in Chandigarh, India
03:00 in Amman, Jordan making "Zero Dark Thirty."
03:01 So yes, absolutely.
03:04 And I'll tell you the woman that I play in "Zero Dark Thirty"
03:06 was a consultant on this film.
03:09 Yeah, and she connected us to so many women.
03:11 She connected Penelope and Lupita and there's, you know,
03:14 so many that we spoke to because of her incredible access.
03:19 So yes, absolutely, we were inspired.
03:21 - We're the top agents from around the world.
03:24 American, British, German, Colombian, Chinese.
03:29 So we need to join forces.
03:30 - The green dress in the final act is phenomenal
03:38 but hard to fight in?
03:40 Or what kind of accommodations do they make
03:42 to make it easier for you to fight in?
03:44 - Well, what was amazing is Ralph Lauren actually
03:47 made all my clothes in the film and we knew we had to go
03:51 undercover at this art auction
03:53 and that this fight would happen.
03:55 So the question was like, okay, well,
03:56 how can the dress be made in a way that it wouldn't,
03:59 you know, be completely destroyed
04:01 or it wouldn't, you know, disappear?
04:03 So they had created a whole corset system under the dress.
04:06 It made it quite easy.
04:07 It's actually, in some sense, probably easier to fight in
04:11 than a suit would be because a suit would be
04:13 more constricting in the arms.
04:15 - There's a moment where you seem to get hit by a car
04:17 in this, where I'm actually convinced
04:20 that it happened to you,
04:21 that you just gave it up for this movie.
04:23 (laughing)
04:25 - Well, yes, there is that moment.
04:32 And I was allowed to do some of it, you know,
04:36 I was allowed to roll off of it a few times
04:38 and that was kind of fun.
04:39 Never done that before.
04:40 - Well, good, I want to ask this too,
04:41 because every time I get to see like a movie like this
04:43 that's wall-to-wall action,
04:44 I marvel at the fact that the Oscars
04:46 don't have a stunt category yet.
04:48 What are your thoughts on that?
04:49 Do you think we're any closer?
04:50 - I hope so.
04:51 I really do admire and stunt performers and stunt actors
04:56 because, and I think they're very undervalued.
05:01 I mean, it just, it's, they're to some extent
05:04 always risking something.
05:06 And I don't, and I just don't think it's easy.
05:11 And the weird part is what people don't see is
05:14 they'll see a final product,
05:15 which is an edited version of it,
05:17 but they won't necessarily connect
05:20 where the stunt man came in
05:21 and make that look pretty and awesome.
05:24 And what you don't see is when you're on set
05:25 and you see them do that stunt like 10 times in a row.
05:28 There are many times I've been in a,
05:31 on a movie or on a TV show where they've changed,
05:34 they changed what they were going to shoot in that moment.
05:37 And they'll turn to a stunt person and they'll go,
05:39 by the way, do you care if we,
05:41 instead of doing what we just rehearsed,
05:42 we just do this instead,
05:44 meaning like you throw yourself in front of a car.
05:46 I know it's new.
05:47 We're just sort of realizing
05:48 'cause of the light and things.
05:50 And then they're like, yeah, of course, let's do it.
05:52 And then they'll change costume in five minutes
05:54 and just do the thing in front of you.
05:56 It's like, like, what do you do with that?
05:59 - When you get a screenplay like this,
06:01 which is wall-to-wall action,
06:02 but it has really great character development,
06:04 what do you look for first?
06:05 Do you want to see like what your action set pieces
06:07 are going to be
06:08 and maybe how physically challenging they are?
06:10 Do you look to make sure that there is strong dialogue?
06:13 Like what attracts you the most about the project?
06:15 - To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect.
06:17 You know, I've never been offered an action movie.
06:20 I don't think people look at me and go,
06:22 yeah, Diane Kruger is an action star.
06:24 So I was a little surprised when Jessica called me.
06:29 The other girls were already attached, right?
06:33 And so I was completely intrigued
06:35 why all those amazing actresses would want to be
06:38 in an action movie.
06:40 And, you know, you saw the result and that's why,
06:43 you know, I think it's a very fresh take
06:45 on women in that genre.
06:48 I think all the characters are really well-rounded
06:51 and representative of, you know,
06:53 what women actually are like.
06:55 And so, yeah, so that's really what attracted me.
06:59 - There's a terrific scene in the movie
07:00 where the ladies sit around and start to swap war stories.
07:03 And you can tell that this means
07:04 that the barriers are breaking down
07:05 and they're starting to trust each other.
07:06 And I want to know if actors do that on set.
07:08 Like, did you and Fan just compare X-Men stories?
07:10 - Our actors absolutely do it
07:13 because our job is to be open, right?
07:16 We have to be as open as possible
07:18 because that's how we're affected and sensitive
07:20 and all of these things to what we're playing.
07:23 So from like day one, usually we overshare,
07:27 we talk too much about our lives, our feelings.
07:29 And so, yes, but Bing Bing and I,
07:33 we were on the jury together at Cannes.
07:36 So we had plenty of time to get to know each other
07:38 before we even ended up on set.
07:40 - I'm already planning the sequel.
07:42 It's going to be called "The 710,"
07:43 which is 355 times two.
07:45 - 356, the days of the year.
07:48 - What actors are you recruiting for the next film?
07:51 Who's your get?
07:53 - Oh, I don't know.
07:54 I honestly, I, it's funny because when making this film,
07:57 it wasn't like, oh, I want to be an action star.
08:00 There's so many genres I like.
08:04 You know, doing Tammy Faye and, you know,
08:07 scenes from a marriage and there's so much
08:09 I love to explore as an actor.
08:12 I wouldn't want to be stuck doing one thing
08:14 for the rest of my career.
08:17 If we were lucky enough to get to do another one,
08:19 it would be wonderful to like meet other agents
08:23 from other countries.
08:24 I think that's the exciting thing about 355
08:26 is it's international and it feels like,
08:29 I mean, there are women working in espionage
08:31 all over the world.
08:32 And that's an exciting thing to bring actresses together
08:34 from all over the world.
08:35 - I like the new team.
08:36 - We're the 355.
08:38 ♪ We gonna run this town ♪
08:40 ♪ Hey ♪
08:42 (upbeat music)
08:44 you