Unlikely Marital Woes in “Our Kind of Traitor.”
Ewan McGregor and Naomi Harris star as a married couple thrown in the
obscure world of espionage and dirty politics in “Our Kind of Traitor.” Based on the acclaimed tome by John le Carré’
of the same title, the movie finds ordinary English couple Perry (McGregor) and
Gail (Harris) on holiday in Marrakech, Morocco who meet the flamboyant and
charismatic Russian, Dima (Stellan Skarsgård). He befriends them over games of
tennis and lavish parties at his villa before revealing he is the top money
launderer for the Russian mafia and wants to defect with his family to
Britain. When Dima asks for their help
to deliver classified information to the British Secret Services, the couple is
propelled on a perilous journey through Paris and Bern, a safe house in the French
Alps, to the murky corners of the City of London and an alliance with the
British Government via a ruthless and determined MI6 agent played by Damian
Lewis.
The relationship
between the attractive, comfortably-off Perry, a university lecturer in poetics,
and Gail, a very successful barrister, starts in a very broken place. That was
an interesting dynamic for the two actors to play. Everyman superstar Ewan
McGregor was the first of the film’s high-powered cast to join the project.
“Ewan was on early and first as Perry,” says producer Gail Egan. “He was
involved from quite an early stage of development and stayed with us through
many drafts. He was perfect.”
Director Susanna
White praises McGregor’s ability to engage with audiences. “He liked the idea of scrutinizing what it
felt like to be slightly emasculated by a wife who’s more powerful than you
are. In theory if you ask Perry whether he thought it would be good to have
high achieving women, he would say ‘of course, women deserve that.’ But when he
is faced with his own situation he starts to feel threatened by Gail and
challenged by it. Part of the challenge was keeping audience appeal while
seeing his weakness at the beginning of the film and his journey to rediscovering himself, who he is and
redefining his relationship of with Gail.”
Co-star Naomie
Harris describes McGregor as the ideal co-star. “He’s such a phenomenal actor
and just a great guy,” she enthuses. “From the very first moment I met him he
was incredibly down to earth. He has a really great sense of humour and is very
hard working.”
“Naomi is a
phenomenal actress. The relationship is very interesting and layered and
detailed, it’s not a sort of ‘movie’ relationship and they both have their part
to play in this story and how the story unfolds. Their relationship is damaged
at the beginning as Perry has cheated on her. She’s terribly upset and hurt and
he’s trying very hard to fix that and to move forward and be happy again.
That’s all really interesting stuff to play as it’s not the usual movie
marriage. Interestingly, the two arcs of
those storylines go hand in hand. Through it all Perry and Gail find each other
again and remember what it is they love about each other. By the time the film
ends they are in a much better place,”
McGregor relates of his co-star and on the film’s theme.
“There are bumps in whatever relationship, no
matter how good. It is nice to see a mature relationship which is going through
a very serious hiccup and is managing to find a way through,” Harris concludes.
“Our Kind of
Traitor” opens June 8 in cinemas nationwide from OctoArts Films International.
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