Jaume Collet-Serra is well-versed in the mid-budget action thriller. Since 2011, Collet-Serra has made several smart, gripping thrillers, from Unknown and Non-Stop to Run All Night and The Commuter.
All four are high-concept movies with memorable settings, heart-stopping action, and a pissed-off Liam Neeson. Collet-Serra, having helmed two big-budget blockbusters—Jungle Cruise and Black Adam—returns to his signature genre (albeit without Neeson) with Netflix’s Carry-On.
It’s Christmas Eve, and TSA Agent Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) is about to work during one of the airport’s busiest days. All is well until Ethan finds a mysterious earpiece in one of the security bins. On the other end is a mysterious traveler (Jason Bateman), who demands that Ethan let a dangerous bag slip through TSA.
If Ethan disobeys an order, innocent people will die, including his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson).
Unwilling to abide by the rules, Ethan embarks on an airport-wide manhunt to find the traveler and stop the bag from reaching the plane.
In a conversation with Digital Trends, Collet-Serra pondered Carry-On’s status as a Christmas movie, explained his return to the mid-budget thriller, and how he set out to make a more grounded action movie.
Cliffhanger, right? How’s that been? I think it was first announced last month.
Yeah, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know when things are announced. I’m too busy to pay attention.
First question. I want to end the debate, and I’m sure you might have gotten this before. Is Carry-On a Christmas movie?
It happens during Christmas, so yes. [laughs] Personally, I wasn’t much of a Christmas person, just like the character of Ethan, until I had kids. Now I really enjoy it, and I really like it, and I’m sure that the character of Ethan will go through the same evolution. And you embrace Christmas, right? In a weird way, the spirit of Christmas has grown in me as I was making this movie.
It’s been a while. My kids have grown older. We made the movie a couple of years ago, and so when I read the script, I felt like Christmas was just something in the background.
As I was finishing the movie, I actually came to like it and embraced the fact that there’s something special when movies are defined in a place. Like defined by one location, one day, and one season.
I’d rather make a Christmas movie than another holiday [movie]. It changes the attitudes of the characters. There’s music associated with it [Christmas]. There’s a certain wardrobe, and there are certain things… like the fact that we did it in L.A., where Christmas is not necessarily so obvious as in other places.
Right now I’m in Munich, and everything is snow, so everybody’s in the Christmas spirit already, even though we’re far away from it. In L.A., suddenly the lights pop on and things come in, but there are not a lot of physical changes. I think that made it interesting.
That it [Christmas] was a presence, but it wasn’t an overwhelming presence. It’s not like you have snow and singing carols and all of that stuff.
