Taron Egerton stars as Ethan in Carry-On (Image: NETFLIX)
and the film stars Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman as TSA agent Ethan and a mysterious traveller. Ethan is forced to fight to outsmart the traveller who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Day flight.
The high-stakes circumstances come courtesy of Bateman’s sinister villain, whom Ethan meets as a voice through headphones as he threatens his pregnant girlfriend (Sofia Carson) if he doesn’t comply with instructions. Director Jaume Collet-Serra admitted he wanted the film to depict a realistic scenario.
He told Tudum: “We all wanted this to feel incredibly realistic, like the events of this movie could happen to any of us on any given day at any airport, and Jason and Taron delivered brilliant performances that helped ground our movie and make it feel real. I think they also very much enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game between their two characters and really had a great time making a meal out of those moments.”
The Carry-On cast had help keeping the film’s setting realistic as they had two LAX TSA advisors on hand. The director added: “They put our actors through proper TSA training before we shot the movie, and they were on set to advise us if anything didn’t look realistic.”
Some of the film’s most bizarre moments were fact-checked by expert, as Collet-Serra continued: “In our movie, we have a very funny ‘contraband bingo’ game where all the TSA agents compete to find certain objects in bags throughout the day. Our TSA advisers confirmed they had seen all of these items in bags before.”
Jason Bateman plays the mysterious traveller (Image: Netflix)
One of the advisers on the film was Dr Erroll G. Southers, a counterterrorism expert and former chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence for the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department.
For Carry-On, Southers gave advice on TSA jargon, the places where an agent like Ethan would be allowed to go within an airport and the crossover between different police departments.
Southers explained: “I was a technical adviser that was brought on for situational accuracy as it related to the agencies that are at an airport, so that when [the actors] were saying things, they were realistic and authentic.”
Welsh actor Taron Egerton said he was drawn to the “wildly entertaining, engaging script”, he told the .
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Taron Egerton said he wanted Ethan to be a relatable character (Image: NETFLIX)
He agreed there is a sense of real life in the film, adding: “Here’s an everyday guy who becomes extraordinary through necessity over the course of a single day.
“That premise felt almost like a slice of life itself.”
He admitted he was not keen on playing an “archetypal action hero” and wanted Ethan to feel “as relatable and as normal as possible”.
Collet-Serra said the film drew inspiration from the ’80s classic Die Hard, saying: “When I read the script for Carry-On, I felt like I had found a more grounded version of Die Hard — which was our North Star for the entire process — for a new generation.”
Carry-On is available to watch on