PREVIEW – From director Steven Soderbergh, Black Bag is a gripping spy drama about legendary intelligence agents George Woodhouse and his beloved wife Kathryn. When she is suspected of betraying the nation, George faces the ultimate test – loyalty to his marriage or his country.

 

A top British intelligence officer faces the ultimate test of loyalty when he investigates a critical security breach in Black Bag, a riveting spy drama from Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh. An insightful and stylish take on a classic genre, Black Bag amps up suspense and tension in a twisted tale of deception and betrayal.

George Woodhouse (Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender), an elite operative at Britain’s closely guarded National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), has only one weakness: his unwavering devotion to his wife. Assigned the sensitive and urgent task of ferreting out a mole in the agency before they can activate a destructive cyber worm called Severus, he is given a list of five suspects. Four are friends and colleagues at NCSC. The fifth is his beloved wife Kathryn St. Jean (two-time Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett), one of the organization’s most powerful and trusted agents.

The trail of secrets and lies George follows brings him ever closer to his target and each new revelation seems more damning for Kathryn. As he heads toward a seemingly inevitable conclusion, will his loyalty be to his marriage or his country?

A gripping tale of passion, deception and betrayal, Black Bag is directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Contagion) from a script by David Koepp (Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park). The film stars Michael Fassbender (Shame, Steve Jobs), Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine, Carol), Regé-Jean Page (“Bridgerton,” “Roots”), Marisa Abela (Back to Black, “Industry”), Naomie Harris (Moonlight, Skyfall), Tom Burke (The Souvenir, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), and Pierce Brosnan (Fast Charlie, The Thomas Crown Affair).

Producers are Casey Silver (The Highwaymen, No Sudden Move) and Gregory Jacobs (Edge of Tomorrow, the Magic Mike trilogy) Executive producer is David Koepp. Co-producers are AJ Riach (Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Magic Mike’s Last Dance) and Corey Bayes (Presence, KIMI). Cinematographer is Peter Andrews. Editor is Mary Anne Bernard. Production designer is Philip Messina (Ocean’s Eleven, Mother!). Set decorator is Anna Lynch- Robinson (Les Misérables, Wonder Woman). Costume designer is Ellen Mirojnick (Oppenheimer, “Bridgerton”). Hair and makeup designer is Frances Hounsom (Magic Mike’s Last Dance, “The Crown”) Composer is David Holmes (“Killing Eve,” Ocean’s Eleven). Casting director is Carmen Cuba (The Apprentice, “Stranger Things”).

 

 

About The Production

 

Since they first met over 30 years ago, Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp have become two of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood, with a string of critical hits and commercial blockbusters that has rarely been matched. Their latest film, Black Bag, the third time they have teamed up as director and writer, respectively, is an unconventional spy drama that takes audiences behind the scenes of a top-secret search for a double agent and into the personal lives of two elite espionage operatives, who are also passionately in love.

The key to their successful collaborations is what Soderbergh describes as the same amount of healthy respect and disrespect for each other. “David is obviously very good at his job and I think he generally likes my directing,” he says. “Knowing that, we’re comfortable being honestly critical with each other. Neither of us feels any need to obfuscate.”

The idea for Black Bag first occurred to Koepp while he was doing research for the first chapter of the blockbuster Mission: Impossible franchise. He interviewed several intelligence operatives on background and found himself fascinated by their personal lives. “All the spycraft stuff was very cool, but I learned more than I ever expected about the people,” he says. “One woman told me that her job made it impossible for her to sustain a relationship. A line in the movie was inspired by my conversations with her. ‘When you can lie about everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?’”

That idea stuck with him. “Think about it,” he says. “If you want to have an affair, it couldn’t be easier. You just say, ‘I’ll be gone for three days and you can’t ask me where I’m going because you don’t have clearance.’ You can’t trust people and people can’t trust you. For George and Kathryn, the confidential information they can’t share goes into what they call their ‘black bag.’”

Soderbergh is always looking for a script that is intelligent and has the potential to be a star-driven, commercial movie. “I love that it’s smart, like so many of David’s scripts,” he says. “And I want as many people as possible to see my work. Black Bag seemed to be the same kind of opportunity that the Ocean’s films presented.”

One of Soderbergh’s best qualities as a director is his decisiveness, in Koepp’s eyes. “Otherwise, you could drown in possibilities. He’s also not afraid of contradictions. In the world of espionage, everything’s ambiguous. Everything’s a puzzle.”

The most significant change Soderbergh suggested during development was moving the story from the U.S. to the U.K., where the main characters are all employed by the NCSC. A division of the country’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the NCSC focuses on intelligence drawn from technology as opposed to their partners MI5 and MI6 (the latter famously the home of James Bond), which gather information from people. “It just felt like a fresher location for this story, if only because there seem to be so many series and movies set in the American intelligence world,” he says. “London is a city I find very cinematic. David agreed to that.”

As the film begins, George is given a list with five names on it, all of whom are suspected of being the traitor. All of them come from the agency’s most elite ranks. “Each of them is aware of Severus,” says Soderbergh. “Each of them has the security clearance that allows them access. There’s nobody else that knows about it. They are the suspects simply because they have knowledge of it.”

“There is a traitor high up in the organization,” adds Koepp. “Nobody’s above suspicion.

Remarkably, one of the suspects is Kathryn. That’s a story I hadn’t seen. I wanted to know how two people who are supremely devoted to each other might deal with that.”

Both partners remain elusive, perhaps even mysterious to each other at times, which feeds their passion. “It is an interesting context in which to explore the idea of betrayal,” the director says. “The source of most conflict in the world is somebody feeling they have been betrayed or that a trust has been broken. In this situation, both main characters hold a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card because not only are they not obligated to share everything, in some cases they are forbidden to.”

The center of the conspiracy that George has been asked to investigate is Severus, a piece of malware with the ability to completely destabilize a nuclear facility. “Severus is a bit of dirty tricks that the agency wants kept under wraps,” explains Koepp. “In fact, many countries have already developed destructive software that can be introduced into an opponent’s infrastructure with devastating results. Perhaps most famously, a worm called Stuxnet was introduced into Iranian nuclear reactors and caused some of their components to fail.”

Conventional political thrillers often place a potential large-scale incident at the center of the story, as Soderbergh points out. “Severus functions as an inciting incident, but more importantly, it’s a way to talk about what you do if you think your spouse is violating the unspoken agreement that you made with each other,” he adds.

Koepp readily admits that spy movies are among his favorite genres to write. “People are lying,” he says. “The stakes are astronomical. There’s nothing more fun to write than that. We have all the action, suspense and tension that audiences want from a spy story, plus characters that are compelling and layered. At times, Black Bag becomes more like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? than Mission: Impossible. That’s a big part of what audiences will respond to. It brought me back to some of the great 1970s films like Klute and All the President’s Men, which were steeped in paranoia and deceit. The feeling of being lied to was very strong in that era and it’s pretty strong in this story as well.”

 

 

George and Kathryn

 

Elegant, erudite and very, very good at what they do, George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean are almost as devoted to their jobs as they are to each other. The secret to George and Kathryn’s longstanding marriage is quite simple, according to Koepp. “It’s very corny, but they truly love each other,” he explains. “It doesn’t hurt that they are also quite physically attracted to each other, and maybe most crucially, they are the only ones who understand each other. They both say that they will do anything to protect each other. Who wouldn’t want that?”

Soderbergh believes that it’s not just love that holds them together. They also genuinely like each other. “Over time, that might be more important,” he believes. “The scenes that they have alone together don’t take up a gigantic portion of the film. But you get a full portrait of a relationship because all the scenes,no matter who’s in them, are ultimately about George and Kathryn’s marriage. That’s a good example of David’s skill as a writer. He can spread out what you learn about them among all these other characters in scenes that are primarily about other things.”

Fassbender and Blanchett are authentic movie stars at the top of their professions, in Koepp’s opinion. “Both Michael and Cate bring exceptional acting skill, which is easy to say, but difficult to find,” he notes. “They both have a powerful understanding of screen acting and how to do more with less. George’s job is to withhold, to be steely. Michael’s performance is a masterpiece of minimalism. Cate’s role is much more expressive, but you often wonder what’s really going on behind her eyes.”

Soderbergh worked with Fassbender on the 2011 film Haywire and had wanted to work with him again for years. “He’s always under consideration. I knew he wouldn’t be afraid to play the interiority of George. He burrowed in deep while creating a calm surface that masks a lot of turbulence. Michael can imply a great deal without being flashy.”

The actor was equally eager to work with Soderbergh again, Fassbender says. “I read the script and said I’m in. We talked about details like what kind of spectacles George would wear and that he might have a stainless-steel kitchen. George is a very traditional, old-school character and quite an obsessive guy, so the small things were very important.”

While none of Black Bag’s characters are based on specific people, Koepp did borrow a significant detail for George from legendary CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. “Specifically they both love bass fishing,” he explains. “For someone who hunts moles, bass fishing seems a pretty excellent hobby.”

George also enjoys cooking, which Fassbender points out is another solitary pursuit. “Both things help him recharge and center himself alone with his thoughts,” the actor says. “But Kathryn is his life. She has a social ease that he lacks, and like him is remarkably intelligent. She is also very commanding. His purpose is to serve her and to protect her.”

The first step in George’s plan is to invite all the suspects to dinner at his house. “He sets up a kind of truth or dare game for the guests,” says Fassbender. “His attention is on everyone except Kathryn. The information he gets is not necessarily directly related to Severus but is quite revealing in terms of their relationships.”

Kathryn is a character that requires a bit of old-fashioned Hollywood glamour in addition to extraordinary acting skills. “Cate just has both these qualities,” says Soderbergh. “Over the years, she’s always kept in touch to find out if there is anything we might work on together, which I’m flattered by. When there is, she gets it immediately.”

Fassbender says that Blanchett took a note from the script to heart that is essential to the character. “It said Kathryn is the head of the table, wherever she sits. But Cate also brings something that I didn’t see on the page. There’s a lot of ambiguity in her performance. Kathryn has built a sturdy exterior wall even for George, but there is vulnerability within her as well. As their colleague Freddie says, the one thing that you can count on is that they’ll do anything for one another.”

Black Bag marks Blanchett’s third go-round with Soderbergh. She says she did not even read the script before saying yes to it. “I just said, ‘Who am I playing?’ It was written by David and directed by Steven.

That’s all I needed to know. Steven’s got amazing panache and range as a filmmaker. He doesn’t stay in the same lane. He understands the outsider’s perspective these characters have, the way they can move almost panther-like through the world.

“David knows how to make great, propulsive narrative dramas that are also really fun,” she continues. “He understands how to play with audience expectations in a delicious way, and then he delivers something even more satisfying than what you were expecting.”

The script did not disappoint her. “Black Bag has a truly satisfying thriller aspect,” she believes. “But it doesn’t use any tricks or withhold information to get your attention. The audience learns things quickly and in unexpected ways. It’s also a psychological study that will make you want to fall into their world. The marriage was something I had not seen before. George and Kathryn would literally kill for each other, which is a good premise for a movie, particularly one dealing with spies.”

But even with George, Kathryn maintains some secrets, according to the actress. “She’s self- possessed and an incredible observer of people. She takes no prisoners and shares no confidences. Her marriage is the one thing she holds sacrosanct. The thrill of the job and the deep trust that they have in one another is their life’s work. There are certain things that they just don’t need to discuss, which is a useful thing for them. I suppose they are both very damaged goods, but perhaps many people who go into the espionage game are damaged. They have nothing to lose.”

The filmmakers were able to reach out directly to the real-life spies at GCHQ/NCSC’s parent organization, who agreed to help with some unclassified elements of their trade. Some cast members, including Fassbender, Burke, Abela, Brosnan and Page, met with real-life GCHQ and NCSC operatives, most of whom could only give their first names — assuming those names were even real.

Blanchett, who independently attempted to find a real-life spy to advise her on her character, found willing subjects scarce. She says, “I suppose if I could find one, she probably wouldn’t be doing her job very well. But Kathryn wasn’t based on any one person. This is more a portrait of their marriage and they happen to be in espionage.”

 

 

Inside the Agency

 

Soderbergh has surrounded his stars with a supporting cast that includes some of Britain’s most distinguished actors, including Pierce Brosnan, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page and Marisa Abela. “All of them are phenomenal,” Fassbender says. “Everyone brought their ‘A’ game and we hit the ground running. We had to, because Steven doesn’t do many takes, so you need to be ready from the first one.”

The other four suspects on George’s list are all his friends and colleagues, including Freddie Smalls, played by Burke. Freddie once held great professional promise, but his messy personal life has stalled his progress. He has recently been passed up for a promotion that he very much wanted.

“Freddie’s situation is complicated by the fact that he is something of a loose cannon,” says Soderbergh. “He is an interesting character — very bright, somewhat self-destructive, but charming. Tom radiates intelligence on screen. I noticed him first in The Souvenir and I’ve been tracking his progress ever since. He’s worked with George Miller and Joanna Hogg, so he’s interested in directors who have real specificity, and that was fun to talk about.”

With a drinking problem and a stream of younger girlfriends, Freddie has become a security risk. “He was my favorite character to write,” says Koepp. “He knows that his low levels of self-control had much to do with not being promoted, but he still feels he was denied.”

For Freddie, deception has become his default response, according to Burke. “It is actually horribly easy to just fall into lying and then hard to backtrack,” the actor observes. “It’s just part of the world they all live in. Stories about trust and betrayal can be delightfully complicated.”

His longstanding friendship with Kathryn and George has also become complicated. “There are status issues,” says Burke. “Boundaries are blurred. There’s sometimes a sense of unease and distrust between them. Steven and David have great understanding of style and genre. They use it in an almost alchemical way. There’s unexpected comedy and loads of surprises.”

Freddie is romantically involved with his co-worker Clarissa, who is also a suspect. “She came to the team more recently than the others,” Burke says. “She’s had many boyfriends in the past and that comes out in quite an unexpected way in the first big dinner party scene because of George’s little game.”

Marisa Abela, who plays Clarissa, recently made waves in the film industry with her performance as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black, earning a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination in the process. “I knew Back to Black was coming and the word on her performance was very good,” Soderbergh says. “When I saw it, that was confirmed. This was an opportunity for her to do something completely different. I would argue that her character has an emotional heart that nobody else has. Clarissa is the most changed at the end.”

Clarissa is the youngest and most impressionable of the characters. “She is the most like any of us would be in this situation,” says Koepp. “She believes in the work but she’s shocked by the people. She knew it was going to be secrets and lies and dirty tricks, but she never dreamed it was going to be a bunch of people who drink too much and probably do too many drugs and certainly have sex with all the other people. And the fate of the nation is in their hands.”

For Abela, Black Bag has been a chance to work with talented artists that she has admired for years. “The script is unlike anything I’ve done before,” she says. “Clarissa presents herself as strong and fierce, but she’s quite sensitive, potentially too sensitive for this world. It seems enticing to her, but the brutality of it is shocking.”

In this workplace, dating within the office is encouraged. “When you stay inside the circle, there’s less chance of a leak,” Abela says. “But it’s difficult, especially since there’s a prerequisite for not telling the whole truth. It’s been amazing working with Tom Burke. He brings so much life to whatever it is that he’s doing.”

The all-important first dinner party scene was shot on Abela’s first day on set. “That was definitely a career highlight!” she says. “Looking around the table at these amazing artists, I kept thinking about how lucky I am. George is hoping that someone will expose something incriminating about their professional life. But it ends up bringing out a lot of interpersonal trauma and conflict. Instead of Severus, they’re talking about their private lives, which isn’t helping George.”

Nominated for an Oscar^® for her performance in Moonlight, Naomie Harris has been acting professionally since she was 11 years old. “I’ve been wanting to work with Naomie for a long time,” Soderbergh says. “This was the perfect opportunity. We needed somebody who embodies intelligence and inquisitiveness to play the staff psychiatrist. When her character asks questions, you feel seen. She’s probing and she has a lot of tools.”

Dr. Zoe Vaughan’s job is to keep the operatives alive, safe and focused on their missions. “Her client is the agency, although she has many clients within it,” explains Koepp. “Kathryn suggests that Zoe is just nosy, which really nails her. She’s drawn to the sexiness of intelligence work and hearing all the stuff she’s not supposed to know.”

The doctor does whatever it takes to do her job, says Harris. “Zoe is one hell of a complex woman,” the actress says. “She’s detached, manipulative and a predator in many ways, but she’s extremely insightful about people.”

The prospect of working with Soderbergh and a small ensemble led by Fassbender and Blanchett brought her to the project. “Kathryn and George are indisputably the protagonists, but all of the characters are fully developed, unique, complex and fascinating,” she says. “I was a bit terrified of the scene between Cate and me. It was just the two of us in Zoe’s office and so many pages of dialogue. Zoe’s sole focus is always on breaking somebody down to find out their truth. She knows that Kathryn is lying to her and she will use any tactic possible to get at the truth.”

According to Blanchett, they never had a chance to rehearse that very intense scene. “Most of the time you have to pretend as if it’s the first time, but it really was,” she says. “What Naomie brought to the screen is so rich. As a person she can’t lie and you sense that with her as an actor.”

As Colonel James Stokes, Regé-Jean Page is both Zoe’s patient and her lover. “Like a lot of people, I first saw Regé on ‘Bridgerton,’” says Soderbergh. “I thought, he’s got the looks, the vibe and the charisma of a movie star, which was perfect for this role. Stokes is contemptuous of other people, probably incapable of love, just a real piece of work. When we spoke, the first question I had was, ‘Are you OK with playing an irredeemable a-hole?’ He laughed and said, ‘That’s what’s going to be fun.’ He understood what that role and the movie needed.”

Working with the director was an immersive and extremely natural process for the actor, especially because Soderbergh was often operating the camera himself. “Steven watches every detail of every scene like a hawk,” says Page. “It allows him to react to anything that he had not planned for and capture unexpected moments very viscerally.”

The characters in Black Bag inhabit heightened, superhuman roles in a world that most people can only dream of — or have nightmares about, Page believes. “They are trying to hold on to their humanity and find real intimacy and honesty. But espionage is a blood sport.”

While the actor would never call Stokes a happy man, he does believe the character is a man of great discipline and a moral absolutist. “In his own mind, he is a hero,” Page says. “But I don’t think too many other people would describe him that way. That contradiction is part of what makes him so interesting.”

George has been a mentor and a role model to Stokes, as well as a competitor and an obstacle. “Michael brings such intensity to this character,” says Page. “He is always incredibly generous, as is everyone in this cast. Sitting around that dinner table with them was like walking into a tennis tournament, but everyone is Federer, Nadal, Venus, Serena. The scenes evolved and grew, because everyone’s generating new things between takes. If you’re not paying attention for a moment, you’ll miss the train as it flies by.”

Black Bag is a puzzle box for audiences to take apart and put back together, he adds. “It has a bunch of layers and we slowly peel everything back to find the grisly surprise at the center. These people exist in a world full of cloak and dagger, with the constant threat of violence just beneath the surface. Trying to figure out who everyone is versus who they say they are will keep audiences guessing.”

Arthur Steiglitz is the agency’s elder statesman, a veteran espionage expert who heads up NCSC. Who better to take that role than Pierce Brosnan, James Bond himself? “We were so happy that Pierce said yes,” says Soderbergh. “Given his resume, we were worried that he might feel he’d been in this universe long enough. But neither he nor I viewed the role as something he had done before. He brought such good energy to the set.”

The chance to work with Soderbergh, Blanchett and Fassbender was too good for Brosnan to pass

1. “Filming was intense,” he remembers. “My first day, I met Steven in the morning. He said, you won’t be sitting down. We were shooting a six-page scene. I thought, this is going to be a very long day. We were done by 3 in the afternoon. He moves like the wind.

“Arthur is a man who is Secret Intelligence Service to the core,” Brosnan continues. “He’s highly educated, somewhat perverse, his morality is questionable, but he wears beautifully tailored suits. He survives on one kidney and an ego that is a mile long.”

Brosnan found Soderbergh’s tendency to leave his actors to their own devices refreshing. “Since it was beautifully written by David Koepp and the character was very much on the page, all I had to do is follow the score.”

He counts himself as a fan of his colleagues on Black Bag, saying, “Cate Blanchett, as always, is absolutely impeccable. She’s incandescent in her beauty, her intellect and her humanity. I’ve watched Michael Fassbender come to post as an actor so many times and always deliver great work. Tom Burke, who I was working with yesterday, dazzles me regularly.”

Burke was a bit dazzled himself after his first scene with Brosnan. “He’s our M!” the actor says. “In the scene he’s not very happy about the leak. I was there with Regé and Michael. Pierce was pacing behind us. I said to Michael and Regé afterward, I feel like I’ve just been in the headmaster’s office. He’s brilliant.”

Brosnan is looking forward to audiences enjoying Black Bag. “I wish for them to be glued to their seats in anticipation,” he says. “I hope they will be enthralled and bewitched by the performances and by the love story within this nest of vipers that we have brought to life.”

 

House of Spies

 

Black Bag was shot at Pinewood Studios and on location in central London. Co-producer AJ Riach, who also worked on Magic Mike’s Last Dance in the city, was delighted to hear that the director was returning to London to make an epic spy movie. “We immediately started getting the pieces of the puzzle together,” he says. “We lined up production designer Phil Messina, Emmy Award-winning set decorator Anna Lynch- Robinson, Oscar-nominated costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, and makeup and hair designer Frances Hounsom, all of whom had worked with Steven previously. The look we wanted was elevated, sophisticated and luxurious.”

Soderbergh and Messina envisioned George and Kathryn’s home as an elegant, understated London townhouse. They had hoped to find a classic Georgian house with sightlines that left nowhere to hide.

“Kathryn and George make decent money,” says Soderbergh. “They don’t have children and are obsessed with their work, so they don’t take a lot of vacations. It makes sense that they would put all their money into this home.”

Unable to secure a place that met their wish list, Messina instead designed a real brick and mortar two-story house on a soundstage at Pinewood. At the front door, there is a view that goes straight through to the back of the house. From the kitchen, much of the upstairs is visible. It is a house in which it is hard to

keep secrets. “Working at Pinewood also gave us the ability to create the outside of the home and a street scene through the windows,” says the designer.” Instead of a backdrop, we built a full-scale facade across the street.”

It took eight weeks for Messina and his crew to construct the residence. “Steven didn’t want flyaway walls,” says Riach. “It needed proper ceilings. He wanted it to feel and function like a real house. You could pick it up and put it in central London, which is a testament to Phil and his team. The group eventually reached about 100 craftspeople.”

Even the outside of the house was made to look as realistic as possible. “We did a lot of reference photos for sewer caps and natural gas fittings,” the designer says. “Everything was measured on a real location. We’ve sculpted the details of the architraves. The railings are all replicas of an existing street. We tried to bring as much of the reality to it as possible.”

“Then it was up to Phil to glam it up a little bit,” Soderbergh explains. “We started with conversations about the color of the walls and then we built on that all the way through the forks on the table.”

Messina filled the house with practical lighting. “We used practicals everywhere because Steven prefers them,” he says. “There were about 183 different lights, LED strips, sconces, chandeliers, all of it. It gave us a lot of options to have everything built in.”

The designer learned long ago that on a Soderbergh film, no place on set is out of bounds for his free-roaming camera style. “I needed to open it up and give him a lot of options for angles. He and his camera were never jammed into a corner — unless he wanted to be.”

Messina felt from the get-go that the dining room would have to be specially built to accommodate Soderbergh’s shooting style. “There were so many pages set there,” he recalls. “Two of the movie’s most crucial scenes take place in the dining room. It’s where the story really starts to bubble. But six people seated around a table sounds deadly to a cinematographer.”

With that in mind, Soderbergh elected to remove the center of the dining table so he could shoot the actors from that viewpoint. “Steven was operating the camera most of the time,” says Blanchett. “Having it at the center of the table allowed him to shoot people from a very particular, paranoid angle. The camera could be moved up and down, so he could do many perspectives depending on who was looking at whom at any given point.

“He never, ever shoots in the way that you think he will,” she continues. “His filmmaking is technically inventive, innovative and always surprising. He’s constantly playing with the point of view. For example, he chose to shoot my character through George’s gaze right from the beginning. I was able to play into that and then try to subvert that as it went along.”

The other major challenge for Messina was creating the offices of NCSC, George and Kathryn’s professional home. The designer scoured London for a single building that could accommodate sets for two full floors and a lobby but would end up using three different locations. “The lobby is actually at the Financial Times building,” he says. “We used two more locations for the offices. One is called The Rowe and it’s an empty office building with great views. That’s where we put the analysts’ desks, the satellite monitoring room and offices for George, Freddie, James and Zoe.”

NCSC invited the production to visit their headquarters in London before filming, providing real life inspiration for the sets. “Being able to access an actual workspace supplied us with an authentic aesthetic that tied the locations together,” says Soderbergh.

While the NCSC were not involved in shaping the story, the consultant advised on the atmospherics and visuals of the film, including some of the props used. Only technology that really exists made it onto the set, per Soderbergh’s instructions. “On the walk-through, we couldn’t take photos, but I made notes and borrowed a lot of details from our consultant’s personal office,” Messina says. “We built custom workstations. Everything had to be in 4-foot by 8-foot pieces to get in the goods lift, so it was all modular. Then the NCSC gave me a bag of special little props that I doled out in the space, like his coffee mug and the Government Communications Headquarters history manual.”

The executive suite, where Kathryn and Arthur have their offices, is located in a building on Wood Street in the historic financial district of the City of London. “The space was originally designed by Norman Foster, the Pritzker Prize-winning British architect,” says Messina. “I loved the lines of it, even though it was a difficult layout. There’s one wall that’s at a 45-degree angle and another that’s completely curved, which made it challenging. It was a fun puzzle to put together.”

Producers also invited two of the NCSC’s senior intelligence officers, Felicity Oswald and Paul Chichester — real-life equivalents of Stieglitz and Kathryn — to take a sneak peek at the set last summer. “We all felt that Black Bag’s depiction of NCSC HQ is a mix of accuracy, including the red exterior tinges and triangular shapes of the real building, with cinematic flair,” says Sam. “The essence of our office is captured and we’re glad to have served as inspiration for the set.”

Messina found Shardeloes Lake in Buckinghamshire to stand in for George’s safe space, the place he fishes, unwinds and recharges in solitude. “It’s a beautiful lake in an idyllic setting,” he says. “It also just happened to have an existing boathouse that became one of our main locations there.”

The scenes at the lake were some of Fassbender’s favorites. “It tells us so much about the character,” he explains. “I used to do a lot of fishing when I was a kid. It’s great when you catch a fish, for

sure, but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t. It’s the solitude and the rituals that are important. George is a very patient character. He watches, always assimilating information and waiting for the right moment to strike.”

 

 

What Does a Spy Wear?

 

For costume designer Ellen Mirojnick and makeup and hair designer Frances Hounsom recreating London’s refined, timeless appeal with a glamorous Hollywood edge was a priority. “We had such beautiful sets,” Mirojnick says. “That had to be matched in the makeup and hair design. The goal was to make this world look different from any other spy film in order to elevate the genre. London is a cool, glamorous, novel environment for one of Steven’s stories. The world needed to be aspirational. It had to be next-level.”

The inspiration for Fassbender’s classic look was Michael Caine circa 1970, particularly in a movie called X, Y & Zee, but reimagined for 2025. “Caine’s elegance in that film fit Michael perfectly,” Mirojnick says. “George is a meticulous and calculating perfectionist. His wardrobe is from Dunhill clothier and the tailoring is that of an English gentleman, but never stodgy.”

Dunhill also provided wardrobe for Brosnan and Page. “We were able to find an individual style unique to each character,” says Mirojnick. “For Pierce, we thought, well, James Bond was a single-breasted fellow. We felt strongly that this character wore three-piece, double-breasted suits in a traditional Prince of Wales check and a classic pinstripe. Those and his magnificent silver hair really set him apart from Bond.”

Brosnan’s face may look a little less familiar to fans in this film. “He wanted to look just a bit different as Arthur,” says Hounsom. “I created a prosthetic nose design for him, which subtly altered his appearance. He said it helped him shape that character.”

Soderbergh pictured the usually icy blonde Blanchett with a long full mane of dark hair. “We made the decision quite early on to design a wig for Cate,” she adds. “Kathryn habitually puts her hands in her hair, she loves grabbing it, twisting it, flipping it. It really worked well for the character. We worked very closely with her personal team, Rick Findlater and Aurora Bergere, who are incredible, amazing artists.”

For Kathryn’s wardrobe, Mirojnick envisioned a balance of femininity and masculinity, which she says fit Blanchett and the character perfectly. “We were fortunate enough to be able to borrow some pieces from the French luxury fashion house Chloé,” she says. “Their new designer Chemena Kamali created a winter show with the perfect feel. They lent us Kathryn’s signature pieces, which are the leather jacket and culottes, as well as a trench coat. We mixed in other pieces that we made for her.”

For Zoe, the designer created a look that was professional, but also body conscious. “It was not a stereotypical approach for a psychiatrist,” the designer notes. “Her strength comes through. We really wanted Naomie to feel comfortable in her character.”

Abela mentioned that she liked what she called “French girl” style, effortless and quintessentially chic. “So we gave her wardrobe a broadness and sharpness in the shoulder, a very sleek silhouette and simple clothes like a long, totally straight-leg trouser,” Mirojnick says. “We combined vintage and new to create a unique look for her.”

“Marisa gave us a chance to shine as a hair and makeup team,” says Hounsom. “Her character is sophisticated and professional. Her nice, sharp jawline looked amazing with a stunning ponytail we did. A tiny thing that people might not notice is her nails. She has two little dots on her nails, which was Morse code- inspired, because the character loves coding.”

 

The Brain Trust

 

Fast-moving, clever and surprisingly funny, Black Bag should first and foremost be entertaining, according to its creators. “When Cate saw the movie, she emailed me,” remembers Soderbergh. “The first three words were, ‘That was FUN!’ It would be great if the audience has fun watching it. To be good and to be smart and also fun is a worthy goal — but nowhere near as easy as it sounds. A lot of people worked hard in the aid of creating something that we thought would be really entertaining. That was always our goal.”

Koepp hopes it piques the curiosity of moviegoers. “I’d love people to come out of this movie wondering if the spy world really is like this,” he says. “Myself, I have reason to believe that it is. Anybody who has ever worked in a group situation knows that the personal lives of the people involved will bleed all over it. Then of course we all will want to talk about things like who’s sleeping with whom.”

Soderbergh emphasizes the importance of having what he calls a brain trust to collaborate with.

“You need people who will speak openly and ask questions,” he says. “I’ve been working with producer Greg Jacobs for 30 years. Casey Silver, who is also a producer, was one of the first people I met in the film business. He gave me my first screenwriting job.”

Working alongside Soderbergh is always an exciting creative experience for the producers. “Steven’s natural inclination is to be thoughtful and considerate,” says Silver. “He is totally prepared, technically proficient and completely reliable. His confidence, born of experience, allows for a productive back and forth to solve any issues. He engages gracefully and effectively with both cast and crew.”

Jacobs agrees enthusiastically, adding “Black Bag is a smart, sleek, entertaining and extraordinarily well acted film. With the breadth of experience that Steven has and the working history that we have, everything went smoothly — as usual.”

People like Jacobs and Silver help Soderbergh make sure that the ideas behind the film become the best possible version of themselves, he explains. “There is always a lot of trial and error that grows out of conversations among the brain trust and keeps improving the work and making it clearer,” the director says. Whenever I complete a film, I’m reminded of where we started and how much movement came because of those kinds of conversations. I’d rather not feel like I did it all myself. I want to know I’ve considered everything, pursued every avenue to improve it.”

-theGeek-