The movie stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson (’28 Years Later’), Theo James (‘The Gentlemen’), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (‘A Wrinkle in Time’), and Sam Worthington (‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’).

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director David Mackenzie about his work on ‘Fuze’, coming up with the idea for the film, developing the screenplay with Ben Hopkins, building tension, reuniting with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and putting together the rest of the cast, as well as taking a look back at ‘Hell or High Water’, which is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year.

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Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Will Tranter in ‘Fuze’. Photo: Roadside Attractions.

Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about coming up with the idea for the movie and developing the screenplay with Ben Hopkins?

David Mackenzie: So, my first reaction when I read Ben’s first draft was, “This isn’t what I was expecting actually.” But it’s a process that’s taken 14 or 15 years from when I first had the idea. Ben and I are old friends meeting on the festival circuit, and it was a project that I thought I might try and write myself, but I decided not to. I asked Ben to have a go, and Ben’s a director in his own right, doing some very interesting films of his own. He had a go, and we evolved it, and then we ended up with what we got. The initial idea I had was because I really like the unexploded bomb genre. In Britain, we have a history of World War II bombs not going off. There’s something that I really think is a very primal about, usually just one guy and a hunk of metal, that may or may not be ticking. If the wrong thing is done, it’ll obliterate him. If the right thing is done, he’ll save the day. You couldn’t be more minimal on it. You could almost imagine a primitive cartoon about it. So, I’ve always loved that. Then, I’m fond of heist movies and I like the idea of mashing together two incredible sources of tension, to try and make a double dose of tension as it were because I think tension in movies is one of the things that really drives them. It’s something I’m interested in anyway. But this is like an experiment to do something that’s more intense than normal. That’s where the idea came. Then, many years of going back and forth with Ben on the script and trying to find a way of doing those things, but also making it exciting and developing the second half of the film, where what I hope is a whole bunch of surprises happen, and it takes you in directions that you don’t know and are not expecting. Then once you got the script and you were ready to go, the next phase of it was meeting the experts, meeting army people, police people, and starting to refine it so it’s more real. You’re using the language, you’re using the right protocols, and you’re leaning into the kind of character and the type of people that do that. That was a super exciting part. Then bringing the actors in and trying to get something that represents that world as interesting as possible. Then as a director, you can make it. Then you’re ready and even when you’re making it, you’re improvising lines, and you’re changing things. So, the development process doesn’t really finish until you’ve got a finished film. Certainly, in my films, it carries on to the very end really. Even through the last day of the edit, you’re writing new dialogue or changing things.

Theo James in ‘Fuze’. Photo: Roadside Attractions.

MF: Without giving anything away, the film has several twists and turns, can you talk about the challenges of building suspense towards those pivotal moments?

DM: Because of the idea of what I’ve just said of trying to create that tension, there are several ways that you can create tension. First, within the scenes themselves, you’re trying to explore what’s going on within those scenes and let it play out, let the reality play out, was what I’m trying to do, and trying to see where those things are. You’re trying to play with the tensions between the characters. Obviously, in the example of someone dealing with a non-exploited bomber as we just discussed, that you’re trying to almost elongate time so that you know that there’s something that’s kind of dangerous there. Then, also you’re trying to ask all the actors to feel that tension. In our case, they all felt it. Because we were leaning into the military protocols and all that, there was a chain of command. It was once they were up and running, they almost started running themselves, which is kind of interesting. So that’s within the scenes themselves. Then you’re trying to build sequences so you’re working out where you’re moving from one thing to another and how you’re juggling. In our case, there’s three main story strands, and how you’re juggling those things. Then of course in editorial, we’re cutting hard, and we’re making the energy of the edit alive. We’re using sound, and we’re using music. The score was super important. Our score’s almost entirely a kind of ticking clock-based thing, all of the 120 beats a minute, all in the key of C. So, there’s a relentlessness to it that just keeps you tick, tick, ticking along with it. It is a game right from the beginning to the end, of knowing that you want tension, but trying to find ways of amping it up, and hopefully we achieved that to some extent.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Will Tranter in ‘Fuze’. Photo: Roadside Attractions.

MF: I know that you’ve worked with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the past. What was it like reuniting with his for this film?

DM: It was great. He’s an actor that really digs deep and it was very important for him to understand as much of that military research we were talking about before, and the great advisor that we had. You could tell Aaron was just channeling his character, channeling his movement, so he’s observing and trying to get deep in there. I really enjoy working with Aaron. I think he’s very opportunistic, and he’s very inventive, and swagging it out there in a cool way. Every time he goes into a part, he digs deep, and I really appreciate that.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in ‘Fuze’. Photo: Roadside Attractions.

MF: Can you talk about putting together the rest of the cast and working with Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Sam Worthington?

DM: Well, Sam and I’ve done three things together before. So, Sam and I also go back a long way. As a director, I have a relatively individual method of working, which is really trying to make things feel as real as possible, and to make scenes feel like we don’t know when on and off is, and we’re in our world, and our world is what it is, and we run the scenes long and we run the scenes inventively. We’re not sticklers to the script or any kind of continuity or any of those things. So, with actors like Sam and Aaron, they’re familiar with that world. But with the new ones coming in, I must make them feel comfortable with how this is done, and it’s not something they’re used to in some ways. So, there’s always something interesting there. Theo and Gugu got it quick and embraced it, and started doing the dance, in a way, that was super cool. So, there’s something great about working with people you’ve worked with before, but there’s also something great about working with actors who are fresh in that process and going on that journey together that’s cool.

(L to R) Ben Foster and Chris Pine star in ‘Hell or High Water’. Photo: Lionsgate.

MF: Finally, 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of ‘Hell or High Water’, which Moviefone included in our 25 Best Movies of the 21st Century list. Can you talk about the legacy of that movie and how you feel about it now as a filmmaker? Are you proud of that film and do you still receive a lot of positive feedback from fans?

DM: A lot of people love that movie, and I’m extremely proud of it. It came together very quickly. We made it with a very pure heart. I love working with that cast, and it kind of hit home in a cool way. As a filmmaker, I’ve done 12 films. I love all my films as my children, you know what I mean? So, I don’t want to have favorites, but I know that an awful lot of people really respond to that movie, and it still resonates in a really great way. My son has just been driving across the United States, and I was trying to get him to go to all the places that we shot in. He went to a couple of them. It’s interesting, I never watched my movies after I’ve made them, but last year they had my film ‘Relay’, and they had a double bill in Santa Monica where I had to do a Q&A in the middle. So, I sat and watched ‘Hell or High Water’, and I felt such an incredible nostalgia towards the places and the people of remembering that moment with Jeff Bridges, or that moment with Ben Foster, or Gil Birmingham. I wasn’t watching it analytically or in any way judgmentally. I was just going like, “Oh, I remember that day. I remember that moment.” It was lovely. I have such fond memories of the experience, and working with a beautiful team, and just a very pure experience in lots of ways.

‘Fuze’ will be available on digital May 26th and on Blu-ray and DVD July 7th.

What is the plot of ‘Fuze’?

An unexploded WWII bomb is discovered on a busy construction site in the center of London. Chaos ensues as the military and police begin a mass evacuation against a ticking clock.

Who is in the cast of ‘Fuze’?

(L to R) Taylor Sheridan (left) and David Mackenzie attends the Academy’s 8th Annual Governors Awards in The Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, CA, on Saturday, November 12, 2016. Credit/Provider: Aaron Poole / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.

List of David Mackenzie Movies:

Buy Tickets: ‘Fuze‘ Movie Showtimes

Buy Aaron Taylor-Johnson Movies on Amazon