Kenneth Branagh on Doing His Own Stunts as a KGB Operative in ‘Mayday,’ Bonding With Ryan Reynolds Over Soccer: ‘We Can Be Pretty Nerdish’

While he may not be known as an action star, Kenneth Branagh absolutely wanted to give it a go for “Mayday,” his upcoming Apple TV Cold War action-comedy in which he co-stars with Ryan Reynolds. He just needed to find out how best to get involved.

“I asked the directors, ‘What’s the way to do it if you’re a man of a certain age and it’s not your natural genre?'” Branagh said, speaking at the Variety Lounge at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Their answer: “Get here early.”

So he did, to, as he explained, “start making the body a bit more flexible,” adding that he wanted to at least give the impression that his character was a “former lethal KGB operative” and “possible assassin, when necessary.” Branagh said it ended up being “very, very interesting and fun to be involved in the advanced choreography,” and that getting there early did indeed make a difference. “The stunt guy said: ‘We’ve never had an actor for this long.’ I said, ‘I’m that scared.'”

“Mayday,” being released by Apple TV on Sept. 4, is set in the Soviet Union in 1987 and follows Reynolds’ crashed U.S. Air Force Pilot as he teams with Branagh’s former ex-KGB man — someone he describes as a “‘Top Gun’-loving exile in the forest of Siberia” — to escape.