David Mackenzie and Aaron Taylor-Johnson on How ‘Fuze’ Is “Unrepentantly” Entertaining
You know it’s set to be an awkward shoot when the King’s comings and goings disrupt your schedule, but that didn’t rattle David Mackenzie.
The Scottish filmmaker, best known for Young Adam (2003), Starred Up (2013) and the Cannes-premiering Hell or High Water (2016), was willing to take the rough with the smooth while filming his latest thriller, the TIFF-bound Fuze.
When a World War II-era bomb is found buried under a London construction site, the authorities are determined to evacuate the throngs of innocent bystanders in the vicinity. Ben Hopkins’ script moves at breakneck speed, taking place across a single day while a military bomb expert (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) attempts to nullify the explosive before it detonates. Sam Worthington and Theo James star as hired criminals hoping to take advantage of the chaos, alongside Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a Metropolitan Police official.
“It was definitely a hassle,” Mackenzie confesses to The Hollywood Reporter about filming across 38 days in West London’s packed Paddington Basin. “We had drone shots get canceled on the day because there was something happening with the King,” he says (for those not familiar with London bedlam, elaborate road closures are often in place when Charles’ motorcade is on the move through the British capital).
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It didn’t bother his star, who tells THR that local crews, pushed to the limit, were the picture of professionalism. “I love filming in London and the local crews are exceptional,” says Tenet, Bullet Train and 28 Years Later actor Taylor-Johnson. “I think the challenge for us was locking off streets and having our background cast evacuate en masse. Then resetting, whilst letting the traffic pass through.”
The traffic-dodging Fuze, produced by Sigma Films and Anton, came to Mackenzie over a decade ago. He wanted to create a “mash-up” of the dual tension of an unexploded bomb movie and a heist flick, but the project didn’t come to fruition until recently, when the filmmaker found himself needing material with a lot less gloom, and a lot more boom. “I’d just done Relay,” he explains about his 2024 film — in theaters now — following a fixer (Riz Ahmed) who assists whistleblowers for corrupt companies. “It was quite lonely and intense … I felt like doing something a little bit more energized and slightly crazy. So it felt like the right time to be doing it.”
The director was beaming with pride by the time his cast signed on. “It’s a precondition of mine,” he says. “I need to do the casting.” He lauds the talent of Taylor-Johnson, whom Mackenzie had worked with before on 2018’s Outlaw King, though was yet to see James’ aptitude firsthand. “There’s not much dialogue [in Fuze],” says Mackenzie, “but you get a real sense of personality … And if some of those characters that aren’t the leads are not firing on all cylinders, the film can really start flattening. But all those characters are alive and strong and doing good stuff.”
Taylor-Johnson is, in turn, full of praise for his two-time collaborator, who came to him with the script just after the industry-halting Hollywood strikes. “It felt original, fast-paced — a twisted, suspenseful crime drama set in London,” is his tagline for Fuze. “The prospect of working with [Mackenzie] again felt exciting, as I love his process and style. He’s always striving to capture the authenticity in every moment.”
Taylor-Johnson is Will Tranter, an expert in the field of projectiles after serving abroad with the British army. “We dug deep to build the character,” the Briton says to THR. “One example was bringing on Nick Orr, our professional EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] consultant. I was genuinely inspired by his service,” he continues, explaining that Orr served in the military and now works as a EOD specialist with voluntary organizations in war-torn countries. And the consultant’s teaching approach was all hands-on: “We had the opportunity to go through an ‘explosives boot camp,’ learning how to build and detonate them,” Taylor-Johnson adds.
At just 91 minutes, the time-ticking thriller is a slick one, or as Mackenzie likes to put it: “a bank robbery film sung by the Ramones.” The Scot says: “It’s unrepentantly designed to be an entertaining film. I’ve been making films and it’s [a lot of] straddling the entertainment and the interesting, trying to get a bit of both. But I think this is probably my most unashamedly pure, entertaining film. And it’s very, very fast.”
It’s handy, then, that he has a cast as lean as the movie’s runtime: Taylor-Johnson teams with Divergent and The White Lotus star James for the first time ever, despite both Brits being from the same crop of extremely attractive, not-yet-middle-aged actors. “I’ve admired his work for a long time,” Taylor-Johnson says about his co-star. “We had a rare weekend before filming with David to rehearse and collaborate on our scenes.” His only regret from filming Fuze? “That we didn’t have more to do, as he’s a generous scene partner,” says the 35-year-old. “I was inspired by his choices and I really enjoyed being in his presence.”
Thankfully, they’ll get some bro time in Toronto when Fuze heads to TIFF. It’s a festival that Mackenzie is no stranger to — Fuze is his fifth film to screen here — but the “profound exposure anxiety” never lets up. “I’m very happy sitting in an edit room, cutting,” the filmmaker says with a laugh. “Putting it out into the world is definitely not my favorite. But it has to be done — that’s why we’re making films. We’re making films for audiences.”
THR has to ask: Is the door open for a Fuze sequel? “Yeah,” Mackenzie responds. “And we’ve already started investigating. So if it catches the imagination of the audience …”
