Now that 'Superman' and 'The Witcher' has been done and dusted, Hollywood star Henry Cavill is making a comeback with a spy movie -- 'Argylle.'
In the multi-starrer spy film 'Argylle,' helmed by Matthew Vaughn, the main character, Agent Argylle, is portrayed by Cavill. However, he is a fictional character -- courtesy of author Elly Conway (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) -- in her successful spy novels. Trouble begins when real-life spies target Elly, believing her books hold confidential information. So, in her mind, she envisions her hero Argylle being her knight in shining armour, though her actual protector is the less polished Aiden Wilde (played by Sam Rockwell).
The film kicks off with a long, thrilling action scene aboard a train, where Wilde defends Elly against her attackers. Throughout the fight, she imagines Argylle in Wilde's place. This meant that every minute of the scene had to have Rockwell and Cavill present, to allow for seamless editing. Clearly, it wasn't easy to pull it off.
“Sam and I were watching each other and just trying to make sure that we had a similarity of movements,” Cavill tells Entertainment Weekly in his interview about the film. “Certain movements worked better for him, so I would mimic those, and then different movements in other places worked better for me, so he would copy those. Fight scenes are tricky and complex, especially in a cramped space like that with lots of hard edges.”
While this innovative method required extra joint effort from both the actors as compared to performing the scene individually, it also allowed them to divide the burden between them.
“It’s quite nice doing these things when you have someone doing the exact same work as you,” Cavill said. “So I do my bit, or Sam does his thing, and the other one gets to rest. The camera moves on, and we get to have a nice break. It was definitely a new way of doing things, but I enjoyed it. It was a good challenge.”
However, it's only their movements that have to be in sync, because their appearances certainly are not. While Wilde has long hair accompanied with a shaggy beard, Argylle dons a green velvet suit and has a flat top haircut. Cavill reveals that it wasn't his choice of hair, but he's appreciative of the new look.
"That was actually Matthew's pitch, his signature style," Cavill says. "I wanted to have fun with it. Matthew said, 'Look, this guy's going to have a particular look and you've got to trust me.' And I did! That's the kind of thing I was looking for. I'm glad I did it."
With this only being one of the few insights that has been revealed by the cast, there are many more mysteries to be unraveled from 'Argylle.'
The film will be released in theaters worldwide on February 2, 2024, before streaming on Apple TV+.
