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00:00I watch her. I assume she watches me. I would do anything for you.
00:10Would you? Yes.
00:12Hi, I'm Alex from NME and today I'm joined by two of Hollywood's most acclaimed actors.
00:17It's Tom Burke and Kate Blanchett. How are we doing?
00:19Hi. Good.
00:21At the centre of Black Bag is the idea of lying and lies and secrets.
00:26And Kate, your character often has these conversations with her husband, played by Michael Fassbender,
00:31about when she would lie to him and if it's alright to lie to him.
00:36And she says only if she had to.
00:39So my question to you two is when is it okay to lie to someone?
00:43When you'd just be being brutal to not, I guess. I would say that's my benchmark.
00:49Yeah. I think truth is a lot about timing.
00:53And the truth is a very complex thing. You can distill it down to something which can be really brutal.
01:00But the truth, real truths, are very complex.
01:03And sometimes if you reveal a bit of information to somebody, particularly someone you're incredibly close to,
01:09it could be compromising for them, particularly in the world of Black Bag.
01:12But it could also be unhelpful.
01:15So if you're deeply in love with somebody,
01:18I think they have to trust that you've got a good judgement on when you're going to say things and when you're not going to.
01:23Are lies integral to the success of a good marriage?
01:27There's a line in a play I did which was,
01:29the more we say, the more the unsaid becomes an agony.
01:33Right.
01:34Like you can get into a bottomless pit with all that.
01:39I'm obsessed with the idea of the Black Bag in this film.
01:42And you want one.
01:43I do, definitely.
01:44And I was thinking, actually, when I was preparing for this interview,
01:47is there an interview question that each of you have been asked a million times
01:51that you would love to just be Black Bag every time it came up?
01:54What do you mean generally or in relation to this film?
01:57To your career, because you must get asked the same questions over and over and over again.
02:00How do you balance your work life and your family life?
02:04Oh, really?
02:05As if it's even possible.
02:08I don't even want to say mine.
02:10Because people will keep asking you to see what there is.
02:13Do you have a favourite line from this film that your character gets to say?
02:16I do, actually.
02:17It was added later and it's as I'm right at the end,
02:21as I'm trying to get Marisa out from the table,
02:25I say, we need the rug.
02:28Darling, we need the rug.
02:29Darling, we need the rug.
02:31What about you, Kate?
02:32I always loved when I got the chance to say the words Black Bag.
02:36You know, because if you turn the sound down,
02:39one of the sexiest words you can say is faluka.
02:42It just does a great thing with your lips and I think Black Bag does the same thing.
02:47How did you work that out, faluka?
02:49Being very drunk in Egypt.
02:51And actually, talk to me a bit about shooting those dinner scenes,
02:53because I've done interviews before where we've talked about it
02:56and they've always said the hardest thing is that you have to pretend to eat the whole time
03:01because you can't spend a whole day eating, you're so full.
03:04What is the most difficult part about filming those meal scenes?
03:07Well, that was okay for me because I knew that the food was laced with a drug
03:12that Catherine didn't want to eat, so I didn't have to eat.
03:15I felt I needed to be seen to eat more than anyone else of the chana masala,
03:20but luckily nobody else was eating an awful lot of it, so that helped.
03:24And of course you had the hand scene as well.
03:26Yeah.
03:27Tell me about filming that.
03:29Well, I was looking forward to that for all kinds of reasons, but yeah.
03:36Suddenly there's a lot more people involved at that point, you know,
03:39to get it all looking right and you've got to set it up.
03:44That's popped my top.
03:46I'm getting so excited.
03:47I thought I'd said something incredibly surprising.
03:49Yeah, you did. Chana masala.
03:51Yeah.
03:52That's the code word. Get your clothes off, get your kit off.
03:55That's a totally different interview.
03:57Who's the suspect?
03:59Your wife.
04:02I can feel when you're watching me.
04:05Sorry.
04:06I like it.
04:08When you can lie about everything, when you can deny everything,
04:11how do you tell the truth about anything?
04:13So Enemy is a music magazine, as you know.
04:16So we ask everyone we interview,
04:18what is your go-to album that you've gone back to over and over again?
04:22If you had to pick one, it would always be that.
04:24I think for me it would have to be something Sigur Rós.
04:28Really?
04:29It would probably have to be something, yeah.
04:31When did you first discover Sigur Rós? Do you remember?
04:33Oh, God, I don't know, when they popped out.
04:35I only saw them in Sydney when I was there.
04:37Yeah. I saw them in Iceland.
04:40But, yeah.
04:41And I remember I saw Sonic Youth play when I was in Toronto.
04:46This is all years ago.
04:48And I loved their music,
04:50but I became addicted to it when I heard it live.
04:54Because I think when people make beds of sound like that,
04:58it goes into you in a visceral way that you can't get in a recording.
05:03The layering of the sound.
05:05You feel like it's got church.
05:07Have you ever managed to meet Kim Gordon or Thurston Moore?
05:09Yeah. Not Thurston, but I've met Kim.
05:12I'd say either Violator, Depeche Mode,
05:16or Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads.
05:18Have you managed to see either of those bands live?
05:20No, I haven't, actually.
05:21I went to the remastered Stop Making Sense film at the IMAX,
05:26and I was like, I could go to this every week,
05:28or maybe once a year or something.
05:31NME did a special on the new Bob Dylan film.
05:34Oh, right, yeah.
05:35But as, obviously, you played Bob on screen,
05:39have you managed to see Timmy's performance yet?
05:41Yeah. I thought he was fantastic.
05:43I really loved the whole film.
05:45It was a very, very different endeavour to Todd Haynes' film,
05:50which was about shape-shifting identity,
05:54and, in a way, an artist's refusal to be pinned down.
05:58And I've never been more liberated than being asked to play
06:02so wildly against type and gender.
06:05And I think, in a way, because you knew that there was a woman
06:10inside probably the most iconic silhouette of Dylan
06:13when he went electric,
06:15you were complicit with the audience in it,
06:19and so there was no way that you'd ever be accused of mimicry
06:23or anything like that was really liberating.
06:27Would you kill for me, George?
06:31Would you?