Espionage thriller All The Old Knives takes place eight years after a terror attack on a plane in Vienna killed everybody on board, as the CIA discovers that a mole in their Vienna bureau was leaking classified information to the hijackers.
Veteran agent Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) — who was stationed in Vienna during the incident — is assigned to investigate his former colleagues to determine which of them was responsible for the leak. Among the ex-coworkers he has to interrogate is Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), who was also his lover at the time.
As the pair meet for dinner one night in California so that Henry can find out whether Celia knew anything about the leaks — or indeed if she was herself responsible for them — the two reminisce about their relationship, and major secrets are revealed that put the past into a very different context for both of them.
Here Chris and Thandiwe reveal why their thrilling new film is a must-watch...
How would you describe All The Old Knives?
Chris: "It's a classic spy thriller in the vein of a John le Carré. Celia and Henry are two CIA operatives who were stationed in Vienna when a really bad terrorist attack occurs, and eight years later, the CIA is investigating it because it looks like there was a mole in the CIA office in Vienna, and everybody's wondering who that mole was. And as this story is happening, there's also a very intense love affair between Henry and Celia that's complicated for many reasons, one of which is that they worked together, and another is the whodunnit of this terrorist attack."
Celia describes intelligence gathering as 'the ultimate high' — what do you think she means by that?
Thandiwe: "Secrets! To have all the secrets — are you kidding?! Just to know who makes the big decisions, to know that literally people's lives depend upon the decisions you make — 'do I go to bed and sleep for five hours, or do I stay awake all night to be on top of this?' That's the kind of life they live. We were incredibly lucky in that we had access to people who genuinely live this kind of life — I spoke to an incredible CIA operative, a woman of color who I felt allowed me to have a real portal into this kind of life, and she's just like, 'everybody has a huge tub of Tums on their desk'!"
What were the biggest challenges of playing these roles?
Chris: "The dinner takes place over the stretch of the film, so it's about an hour and a half, and to go to work over two-to-three months, you're not diving into a scene that takes place on one day and then a scene that takes place on another — you have to pick up what's happening moment by moment, it's all about the nuance of the subtext. It's all about the close-ups and what's happening in these people's eyes, so you're just dialling your performance back, so to speak. It's almost like a play, in a way, and it was really quite fun. You're sitting at a table, so there's not much you can do with your body language!"
Thandiwe: "We did that dinner scene for a week sitting at a table, it was amazing. As Chris was saying, it's micro-work. There was one scene where Chris was talking to the camera, to me, in the most critical moment of the movie, so how do we do that? I was, like, squished into the side of the camera!"
All The Old Knives is both a spy thriller and a love story. Which of those elements was your favourite?
Chris: "This is probably one of the best scripts I've ever read. I've wanted to do it for five years, I could not put it down when I read it. I love intelligent, European, sexy, elegant spy thrillers — I wish I could do them all the time! And to answer your question, there is no thriller without the romance for me — it's like The English Patient."
Thandiwe: "You made a film for yourself to watch!"
Chris: "Yeah, this is what I would wanna watch!"
Thandiwe: "No matter how many times we worked on the script, no matter how many times we got to the end of the movie, we were always floored. I can't actually think about it too much because I start to cry! It's a perfect couples' movie, in terms of what you want to talk about afterwards — the movie asks you, what would you do if you were Henry? What would you do if you were Celia? That's why I love the movie, the questions it forces you to ask yourself."
- All The Old Knives is released on Friday, April 8 on Prime Video
