Vincent Cassel plays Gabriel Delage, a mercenary hired by the French government to extricate two Syrian hackers in “Liaison.” Naturally, the mission goes wrong and he’s got to find the hackers before agents from England get to them and the explosive secrets they’ve uncovered in the globetrotting thriller that premiered its first episode on Apple TV+ on Friday.
In “Liaison,” Cassel’s Gabriel and Eva Green’s character Alison Rowdy, who are on opposite sides of the thorny political situation, work together to stop a series of devastating cyberattacks.
Ahead of the premiere, TheWrap talked to the French actor about the action-packed series. Cassel, who met with real mercenaries to prepare for the role, explained that he didn’t want the fight scenes to be too “flashy.” “I had a particular approach about all these fight scenes in the series, because, [I wanted to make it] realistic. I didn’t want to do anything flashy or long,” he said.
“Having the luxury to speak with real mercenaries, I realized that it has to be fast, discreet and efficient. It’s never very visual, but it’s super violent and short. So I decided to create a choreography, my own fights. And I cut everything. I wanted it to be short and violent. When you think about it, I think [the elevator fight] is not even a minute,” he added.
Between that burst of violence, Gabriel smoothly infiltrates the scene and calmly exits before anyone knows what happened. “Discretion, discretion, discretion. You know, you have to be a real bad boy, move in silence,” he laughed.
After years of trying to line up a project with Green, Cassel filmed two projects in a row with the “Penny Dreadful” star: This series and Martin Bourboulon’s “The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan,” which opens in France in April. The second film, which focuses on Green’s villainous Milady, opens in December. Cassel plays Musketeer Athos, who once loved Milady, but has now sworn to kill her.
“I’ve been trying to work with Eva for years, but it never worked out. So when finally I heard that she said yes, this project in particular, I was super happy and overexcited,” Cassel said.
“And then before we actually met for this show, I heard that she signed for the ‘Three Musketeers.’ So at that point, I didn’t want to go through the agents and I just went on Instagram and wrote, ‘OK, Eva, I’m so glad we’re finally going to have to spend a year together. And I just hope we get along,’” he laughed.
Watch video of TheWrap’s interview with Cassel at the top of this post.
The first episode of “Liaison” is now streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes of the six-part series premiere on Fridays.
