Kenneth Branagh built his reputation on brooding Shakespearean gravitas, the sweeping comic-book spectacle of Thor and the quiet, personal storytelling of Belfast, so nobody expected him to turn into a one-man wrecking crew on screen. He came close once before, threatening to shove something unpleasant down John David Washington's throat in Tenet, but that was still a long way from playing an outright action hardman. That changes with Mayday, a new buddy comedy that puts Branagh through the kind of physical, hand-to-hand combat usually reserved for stars like Keanu Reeves.
A Cold War buddy comedy with a twist
Mayday comes from directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the duo behind Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The story strands Ryan Reynolds' character Troy, a US Air Force pilot, in Soviet Russia, where he ends up befriended by Branagh's ex-KGB operative Nikolai. Against the odds, it is Branagh's Nikolai, not Reynolds' American flyer, who ends up doing most of the fighting.
Branagh credits Shakespeare for his fight training
Branagh told Empire that stepping into action scenes was not something he had planned for in his career, though he welcomed the challenge. "But I was most certainly up for it," he said. He explained that decades of performing Shakespeare had effectively doubled as combat rehearsal. "Frankly, if you do Shakespeare, there are 37 plays, and about 34 of them have a big fight at the end. So you're always practising," Branagh said, pointing to the swordfights and physical confrontations written into most of the playwright's works as unlikely preparation for a modern action role.
Reynolds wanted to flip expectations
For Reynolds, the appeal of Mayday was less about stunts and more about swapping the usual roles between the two actors. "I love when you can come 90 degrees to expectation. I think it's important," he said. He added that audiences would gain little from watching him play a one-man wrecking crew with a loud, flag-waving American swagger, calling that version of the story uninteresting. Instead, he said what makes Mayday work is how it unpacks the humanity on both sides of the Cold War divide separating Troy and Nikolai.
Two men, more in common than expected
Despite being cast as adversaries by the politics of their era, Troy and Nikolai turn out to share plenty. Reynolds explained that the Cold War left both sides with assumptions about what the "enemy" on the other side would be like, and that both sides turned out to be wrong. He also noted the film flips his usual on-screen persona, joking that he becomes the classical "damsel-in-distress" of the story while Branagh handles the fighting.
When to watch
The full interview with Branagh and Reynolds appears in a magazine issue built around the Rings of Power Season 3 cover, going on sale Thursday, July 30. Mayday itself is set to arrive on Apple TV on September 4.
