Summary

The Amateur offers a grounded action-spy genre with emotional depth and real consequences.

Rachel Brosnahan plays a key role as the wife of the lead character, portrayed by Rami Malek.

The ensemble cast, including Caitríona Balfe, delivers thrilling performances in this big-screen success.

The Amateur brings elements to the action-spy genre rarely seen. An emotional, grounded reality filled with violence and consequence, director James Hawes coaxes an exceptional performance from lead and co-producer Rami Malek. Rounding out the cast are two complete ringers, Rachel Brosnahan (Superman) and Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe.
Brosnahan plays Sarah Horowitz, the love of Charlie Heller’s (Malek) life, who tragically loses her life in a terrorist attack in London. Heller, a CIA cryptographer, must stop at nothing to hunt down his wife’s killers, including fighting against his own agency. Balfe plays one of Heller’s close allies, a solitary hacker named Inquiline Davies. The film also stars Laurence Fishburne (The Witcher) and Michael Stuhlbarg (After The Hunt).
Collider’s own Steve Weintraub had the pleasure of sitting down with Brosnahan and Balfe to talk about The Amateur. In this interview, they discuss what drew them to the project and how they prepared for their respective characters, as well as teasing the end of the massively popular Outlander series and James Gunn’s Superman.
‘The Amateur’ Does Something New With the Genre

“For me, as somebody who’s not necessarily the target audience for the genre, it helped me find a way in.”

COLLIDER: Listen, I am obsessed with getting more people into movie theaters to see movies. What I’ve been asking everybody is do you have a favorite movie theater?
CAITRÍONA BALFE: Just because I was living there for 11 years, the Glasgow Film Theatre. It’s like an old 1930s cinema and it’s just gorgeous. I love going there.
RACHEL BROSNAHAN: I love the Lincoln Center, the Dolby Theater there. It’s not an arthouse theater, which I also love those, but it’s a really epic theater-going experience. I see everything there. It’s close to my house, which doesn’t hurt.
I also love the IMAX theater at Lincoln Square. That IMAX screen is phenomenal.
BROSNAHAN: It’s really good.

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“What the f*** is a movie now?”

I thought this movie was so well done. What was it about this script that said, “Oh, yes, I am doing this.”
BALFE: It was just really smart. It was very well-written. It was very smart. I thought it was a really unique and creative take on this genre. It also felt like there were just such great character pieces throughout it, along with all of the action and everything else. Each one of these characters felt really fully formed and had a lot of depth to them.
BROSNAHAN: This was definitely evident in the script, but it’s also a testament to Rami and James having such a careful eye on this: I love how real all the action felt. Sometimes in this genre, it can feel like the action is there because of the genre, and we all buy in, and it’s a really fun theater-going experience. But in this one, I know Rami talked about this moment, but I love that that huge explosion goes off and he flinches. The idea of having the opportunity to take someone’s life and the way that might weigh on somebody is really explored in this film. It doesn’t take away from how big the scope is or how familiar other parts of the genre are. For me, as somebody who’s not necessarily the target audience for the genre, it helped me find a way in a way that I’ve never experienced before.
I brought that up with Rami. Something I really enjoyed was the fact that when you kill someone, it’s not just glossed over. The emotional repercussions are felt and dealt with, which I thought most movies avoid.
BALFE: I think a big part of it is when somebody experiences loss like that, and they’re driven to do something, and they think that they’re in pursuit of justice, but often that gets confused with revenge. It’s the cost of what revenge does to you, and does it bring you solace? This is a big theme in the film, which I thought was also really interesting.
How Did Caitríona Balfe and Rachel Brosnahan Prepare For ‘The Amateur’?

“James really gave us space to experiment on the day.”

Image via 20th Century Studios

I really enjoyed both of your work and I love talking to actors about how they get ready. For a role like this: say you’re going to be shooting on Monday, September 1st. What is it like in the weeks leading up to that day?
BROSNAHAN: It feels so different, just speaking personally, project to project. With this one, because we had very little real estate, Rami and I, to make a real impact with this relationship, I know how important it was to him, not only in building Heller’s journey for himself, but also making sure that the emotional impact landed for the audience. We just spent a lot of time talking about it. We got on FaceTime.
I was doing a play here in New York and couldn’t join until about halfway through their shoot. And so we sat on FaceTime for hours and talked about what the most dynamic version of this relationship was. How we could use the scenes as they were on the page to bring out different sides of both characters. That was mostly the process for this. Then we got to show up, and James really gave us space to experiment on the day. Rami is such a gifted actor, but also producer, and had an eye on it, both from the inside and the outside. It was just a real joy. I also felt like we were in a different movie. We didn’t do as much of the action-adventure part.
BALFE: It’s like the summer. It was beautiful. For me, sort of in a different way, Inquiline, there’s so much that we don’t know about her. So I got to do an awful lot of work by myself where I could fill in that backstory for myself. There’s not really a template that sort of is an easy search, but I was really inspired by this Russian activist, Nadia Tolokonnikova, who’s one of the Pussy Riot activists. I thought that her bravery and everything that she had gone through, that’s kind of the spirit that I wanted to inhabit. So I watched a lot of her. She has an amazing TED Talk. She has a lot of podcasts that she did, so I listened to any one that I could find on that. I sort of used her as an example for the accent as well. But yeah, it was just sort of trying to capture that essence of somebody who really speaks truth to power.
‘Superman’ Is Not an Origin Story

And that offers Lois and Clark’s relationship a whole new path.

Image via Warner Bros

I want to ask each of you an individual question. [Caitríona], you’ve now wrapped on Outlander, a huge chapter of your life. What was it like filming the series finale with all the emotions, and what do you think fans are going to feel at the end? And [Rachel], my number one film of the year is Superman. I cannot wait. One of the reasons I’m so excited is that every first film recently has been about setting up things, and what’s unique about Superman is that you’re joining in the middle of everything. The movie opens, and this has been going on for a while. This is just the beginning. Can you talk about that aspect of the film and what you’re excited for people to see?
BALFE: Wrapping Outlander was very emotional. Everybody came to set, which was just very weird because they gave Sam [Heughan] and I a seven-page scene that was just full of dialogue to finish on, and yet the whole studio was full of execs and all the cast and everybody. So, there were lots and lots and lots of tears. I’m just very proud of the show and I’m excited for the fans to see it. I just hope we’ve done right by them.
What do you think fans will think at the end?
BALFE: Well, I don’t even know the ending. We’ve sort of filmed it in a couple of different ways, and Matt is going to decide, which I think is great so I can’t lie. But I think they’re going to be satisfied. We brought a lot of people back. A lot of the story is explained. I hope they are anyway.
I’m sure they will be.

8:07

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BROSNAHAN: Well, now I feel I can say a little bit more because James [Gunn] really busted it wide open in CinemaCon. David [Corenswet] and I have been trying not to say so many things for weeks leading up, and James just laid it all out. I also love that this is not an origin story. We’ve seen the origin story done so well a number of different times, but we come into a world that already exists — Lois and Clark are working at the Daily Planet, monsters exist in Metropolis, Lex Luthor has LuthorCorp. We drop in at this point in their relationship that I’ve never seen before, which is that they’ve been together for about three months, and they’re asking some questions about the future of their relationship. They’re not sure if this is something that was just a really great fling or something that could be forever, and they have really opposite worldviews, and they bump up against each other that way. So, it was a really fun way into a familiar story.
My first day of shooting was actually this 10-page long scene with David that we auditioned with, and so we shot it for two days. To be able to do that just laid this foundation for us and these characters that we got to carry through the rest of the film. But James has such a clear vision for this, and we all just fell into his very capable hands. James Gunn, not James Hawes. [Laughs]
The Amateur is in theaters now.

The Amateur

Release Date

April 11, 2025

Director

James Hawes

Writers

Gary Spinelli

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