The Amateur director James Hawes on breaking away from superspy trope in Rami Malek-starrer: ‘He shows emotional vulnerability’ | Hollywood News

Rami Malek paints a whole new spy in James Hawes’ vigilante film The Amateur, which is currently playing in cinemas. Firstly, he doesn’t start off as a spy, but as a regular cryptographer working at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Secondly, after his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) dies, he can’t help but mourn his heart out. Thirdly, even when he goes out for vengeance, he harnesses his knowledge of tech and his enemy to get back at those who killed her, like exposing an allergic woman to crushed pollen or causing a sky pool to shatter when a man is taking a solitary swim like every night.
In an interview with SCREEN, James Hawes opens up on how he repackaged Rami Malek as the spy with a conscience and whether there are any similarities to Rami’s breakthrough role of Elliott Anderson in the show Mr. Robot.
Just a month later, we’d see Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. But Charlie Heller in The Amateur is no Ethan Hunt. Do you think he subverts what a spy is supposed to be?
Story continues below this ad

‘Subvert’ may be too strong a word. But what I love is that it does turn the genre upside down to some extent. We’re used to seeing spies as muscled down, supercool creatures of action. Obviously, I’m thinking of James Bond and Jason Bourne as particular examples. He shows an unexpected physicality, an emotional vulnerability, and he’s completely useless at all the things we associate classic spies needing to be good at.
Do you see him as an anti-spy?
I’m not sure if I can call him an anti-spy. But it does give us a new slant on what a spy is. Whether it’s Ethan Hunt or Jason Bourne, we’re used to people who are super capable. They can ride a motorbike off a rooftop. They’ve got all marvellous close combat skills. They’re technologically adept. And they can shoot a gun straight. Charlie Heller can do none of these things. He’s a brilliant man, but a bit of a nerd at that. That’s a new take, and I think that’s absolutely the unique selling point of The Amateur. It’s the unexpected hero, the underdog, who can find different ways, using his intelligence, to defeat the enemy.

Do you believe then Charlie Heller is symbolic of modern day warfare, as he is someone who uses his tech expertise as a weapon of choice, instead of brute strength?
I think that’s terrifyingly likely. That’s where we’re going. You look at how modern weaponry is today, and how remotely it’s operated. We’ve grown used to the power of drones in the last 20 years, which is often operated someone sitting in a cubicle thousands of miles away from the combat scene. That’s just the beginning of what’s coming. That’s faintly terrifying.Story continues below this ad
Rami Malek plays a spy with a conscience. He doesn’t pull the trigger too easily. What was your brief to him, especially in the scene where he learns about his wife’s death?
To be emotionally honest. So much strength of Charlie Heller’s character is in his suffering. We see his pain, we see his grief. It’s about instinctive, emotional reaction that an actor of Rami’s calibre can bring to a scene like that. So it’s being true to how you feel. Let’s not dress it in what we think a spy would bring to it. It’s just how a man would feel in that moment knowing that the love of his life has been killed.
Also Read | G20 movie review: Viola Davis is wasted in Hollywood’s version of a Sunny Deol potboiler; laughably loud, chaotically clumsy
Rami said that despite the differences, he sees a connective tissue between his characters in The Amateur and Mr. Robot, who’s also a cybersecurity engineer. How did you approach that parallel?Story continues below this ad
Obviously, we see the brilliance of Elliott compare with the brilliance of someone like Charlie. They’re both rebels and risk-takers, but in very different ways. Charlie only becomes a risk-taker because of what he has to go and achieve. Before that point, he’s very much Mr. Safe who stays at home and plays with his kit of parts to make a plane, but nobody really believes he’s gonna fly it. It’s just a pipe dream. There are very obvious connections with Mr. Robot, with a guy whose power is to sit in front of screens. What I like about Charlie is that he goes out into the field, starts using his hands, and channels his brilliance in a more flexible way — it’s no longer just about hacking.