- Title: Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton star in steamy spy thriller 'All the Old Knives'
- Date: 6th April 2022
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT - MARCH 8, 2022) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR, THANDIWE NEWTON, SAYING: "I learned so much. We had the benefit of people advising us, who actually are CIA operatives or who were. And I spoke at length to one woman over a number of days just learning about what it feels like to be in that role. And obviously, you know,
- Embargoed: 20th April 2022 12:49
- Keywords: All the old knives Chris Pine Janus Metz Olen Steinhauer Thandiwe Newton all the old knives film all the old knives movie
- Location: VARIOUS
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- Country: Various
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film
- Reuters ID: LVA007994606042022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Hollywood stars Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton play CIA operatives and former lovers in the new Amazon Prime spy thriller "All the Old Knives".
Based on a novel by Olen Steinhauer - who also wrote the film's screenplay - "All the Old Knives" tells the story of a failed mission which also ended the budding relationship of agents Henry Pelham (Pine) and Celia Harrison (Newton).
The two are reunited years later over a meal in Celia's new hometown of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California to discover what went wrong during the mission and whether there was a mole in their operation.
A passion project for Pine, the actor also executive produced the movie.
"It's one of the best scripts I've ever read, simply put. And I've read it a lot before I made it. I loved it. It was just a well-crafted...so I'd read the script like I'd read a short story. Olin did an incredible job of adapting it. It's the kind of film I like, the kind of film I like to go to, the kind of film I've always wanted to make. It's an intelligent, elegant, chic spy thriller, aesthetically beautiful with a great love story at the centre. It's heartbreaking and dramatic...it's got all the things that make me want to tune in. So I was determined to make it," he told Reuters over Zoom.
Newton said she spoke to real CIA agents to ensure her portrayal of Celia would be accurate.
"We had the benefit of people advising us, who actually are CIA operatives or who were. And I spoke at length to one woman over a number of days just learning about what it feels like to be in that role. And obviously, you know, it's different for a man, I'm a woman of colour, as a CIA operative, I want to know how that might feel and play that for real, you know," she said.
"All the Old Knives" is directed by Danish filmmaker Janus Metz whose previous credits include "Borg vs. McEnroe", "Armadillo" and episodes of "True Detective" and "ZeroZeroZero".
Metz said he was drawn to the project by its multi-faceted plot.
"It's essentially two people having dinner at a restaurant and trying to, you know, there's this cat and mouse interrogation about what was it that went wrong in the past, leading to a terrible incident that efficiently, as we learn in the movie, made it impossible for these star-crossed lovers to be together. And so I thought, on the one hand, you have like a really exciting, thrilling, twist-and-turn whodunit spy story and then on the other hand, you have a very deep and emotionally overwhelming love story, and to make these two worlds come together, I thought it was exciting," he said.
Much of the film relies on the chemistry between the two lead actors, who had to find a way to bond amid lockdown and tight Covid restrictions. Pine and Newton also worked with an intimacy coordinator over the film's sex scenes.
"The chemistry is really, it's about respect, more than anything, actually, respect and trust. And thankfully, you don't know, obviously, if that's going to be achievable, but in this case, it was. And I'm super grateful because it allowed us to do things, certainly for me, that I probably would have had more difficulty accepting, you know, but strangely, it's a bit like 'Westworld' for me because I had so much trust and faith in Chris, particularly, and everybody that we were working with, I was able to go way further than I could have gone. And that's of great benefit to the movie," said Newton.
"All the Old Knives", which co-stars Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce, opens in select cinemas and globally on Amazon Prime Video on April 8.
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