From directorChristian Riversand with a script written byFran Walsh,Philippa BoyensandPeter Jackson, the fantasy adventureMortal Enginesis set hundreds of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event that has led society to rebuild as moving cities of varying sizes, where the bigger cities hunt down and consume the smaller cities, as part of the natural evolution. When the mysterious and fierce Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) joins forces with outcast Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) to stop the giant predator city of London from destroying everything in its path, their strength and determination will be tested in ways that neither could have ever imagined.
At the film’s press day, held on the Universal Pictures backlot, Collider got the opportunity to sit down with Irish actor Robert Sheehan to talk about the film’s epic scope, the unusual dynamic between Hester and Tom, Tom’s character journey, and the type of scenes he most enjoys shooting. He also talked about being a part ofThe Umbrella Academy, embracing the madness and the unusual nature of the Netflix series, and how it compares toThe Royal TenenbaumsandX-Men.
Collider: What’s it like to spend so much time giving life to a character like this and work on it for months, and now have it be so close to officially going out in the world?
ROBERT SHEEHAN: It’s interesting how, no matter how big or small the project is, everybody who’s involved in the making of it are bonded by the blood, sweat, tears, bruises and cuts that they got in the making of it. When it starts to come out, it’s interesting because it starts to become more the world’s than ours, or at least we start to share it and it takes on a different reality. It takes on its own story. Having spent so much time working on this thing, and for it to be now coming out and now everyone knows about it, it’s strange because it’s in the minds of millions of people. What else can I say, other than it’s incredibly exciting, for that reason.
There were a lot of actual sets on this production, but there’s still a huge element of it that you don’t get to see until the film is finished. What was it like to actually get to see what this world would fully look like?
SHEEHAN: I think it’s the scope that you don’t fully understand when you’re there, on the day, which is a good thing because it’s not your business to understand it. You’re a human being, and human beings deal with what’s going on, right in front of them. But once the camera pulls back, you’re looking at the world in its vastness, and it swirls up the length and breadth of London, as it’s at full power, across a vast landscape. It’s truly astounding on a big IMAX screen. As an actor, you have no way of knowing how big the thing is gonna look. It just looks unimaginably large on the big screen. WithMortal Engines, there’s just so much to take in. Cinema is always trying to stay one step ahead.
Did you have a favorite set or a favorite sequence to shoot?
SHEEHAN: I don’t know if I have a favorite, to be honest. They have different flavors. I really, really enjoyed the flying of the Jenny Haniver, which is the beautiful red airship that is Anna Fang’s. Tom gets his moment to be the pilot in the driver’s seat. That was really intense. But the stuff that I love doing is the up close stuff, and a lot of that was with Hera [Hilmar]. A lot of the stuff with her was just a pure joy because we had this lovely, nuanced dramatic tennis going on, in a lot of the scenes.
Hester Shaw and Tom Natsworthy have such an interesting dynamic because they are very different people, who initially just seem really confused by the other.
SHEEHAN: Yeah, they don’t know what they are and what they mean together. It’s nice because everybody has mentioned how that’s a very strong part of the film. Even though they don’t know what they are, they’re not friends or enemies. They’re just stuck with each other for a bit. And then, as soon as they end up each other from some baddies, you feel the bond deepen in them and they become partners in crime. They become bonded together. I love that. That’s one of my favorite things about the film, that lovely central relationship. You don’t want them to be too adversarial, and you can’t have them be too affectionate either. It’s very subtly done, and that’s huge kudos to the editor, as well.
Was it fun to play a character who is always moving and evolving, throughout the entire film?
SHEEHAN: Yeah. I think Tom changes as much as Hester changes, just maybe in a subtler way. He grows up a lot. The conversations about his journey were like, “Where do we show the specific points of him going from a child to a man?” When Tom finds himself in the big, bad world off of London, for the first time, he has to contend with the fear that he’s feeling, but we didn’t wanna make him overly fearful because we didn’t want him cowering. We wanted him to have enough self-respect, self-awareness and metal, that he could deal with it. It was all about striking the balance. One of the big points where we show him growing is in taking charge of the Jenny Haniver. That’s a really beautiful point.
The last time we spoke, forBad Samaritan, you were in the middle of shootingThe Umbrella AcademyTV series for Netflix. Have you finished shooting the show?
SHEEHAN: Yeah.
Having only had one script when you signed on, how did it ultimately turn out compared to what you thought it might be?
SHEEHAN: They really leaned into the unusual. It’s very untethered creativity. There’s nowhere that the show won’t dare to go. It’s just so incredibly left field. That’s what’s so wonderful about it. It has an essential kookiness. It’s a really strange combination of stuff. It’s hard to know what the world will say or think. Ultimately, I don’t care what they say, either way, because I really, really love it, but it’d be nice if they loved it. I’m just more curious than anything else. It takes a lot of really quite left field sci-fi ingredients, and splotches them together. I’ve seen the first four episodes, and they live this Upper West Side of Manhattan, luxuriant but very neglected upbringing.The Royal Tenenbaumssprings to mind. They are these messed up adults, who are still emotionally stunted by their childhoods, and they just all happen to be very super, with super abilities. It’s very interesting. It’s like a traumatizedX-Men.
Is that more in line with your own personal taste? If you were going to do a comic book project, was it important to you that it was just a bit off-center?
SHEEHAN: I like stuff that’s more story driven.Mortal Engineswas a brilliant fit for me, as well, because everything in the film is in service to the story and serves that purpose, first and foremost.Umbrellais the same. The storylines are just really just incredibly unique, but are always story driven. It has a lot of the same writers asFargo, andFargowas all about the moving pieces on the chess board. You just never know what’s gonna happen, from one scene to the next, andUmbrellahas that quality, too. It’s completely mad, and they completely embrace the madness. They don’t hold back, and that’s what excited me so much about it.
