Naomie Harris was full of praise for her Black Bag co-star Michael Fassbender, saying he can "switch it on in just a second", while Regé-Jean Page added that he's "inspiring".
Steven Soderbergh's slick and stylish new spy thriller follows two married secret agents, played by Hollywood A-listers Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, who grapple between faithfulness to their marriage and loyalty to their country.
Harris, renowned for her roles in Barry Jenkins' Oscar-winning film Moonlight and as Eve Moneypenny in three James Bond films (Skyfall, Spectre, No Time to Die), plays agency psychologist Zoe Vaughn in Black Bag, while Bridgerton and The Gray Man star Page plays her lover and patient, Colonel James Stokes.
"Slightly scary, but also inspiring because to keep up with our level, to keep up with that intensity, to keep up with that focus is something that you look for in every job that you do."
"He's amazing though, because he can switch it on in just a second", Harris agreed. "He can literally be telling you a story and deliver the punchline and then go straight into something serious."
Meanwhile, the Oscar-nominated actress goes toe-to-toe with Blanchett in a riveting therapy scene, which she described as "really, really terrifying" to film.
"I'm just gonna be honest, I had a few sleepless nights before that day," Harris said. "But she's so lovely.
"Honestly, she's such an amazingly warm, generous, kind human being that she really put my fears to sleep and I was totally fine. We had a great time."
Black Bag's impressive cast also includes Irish actor and former James Bond Pierce Brosnan, Strike star Tom Burke and Industry and Back to Black actress Marisa Abela.
Page said shooting scenes for the movie was "very much a team sport".
"There's an incredibly strong ensemble, so round these set piece scenes you have these six actors from Michael, Cate, myself, Naomie, Marisa, Tom, all playing at an incredibly high level," he said.
"We're finding things very much with each other, because you can trust every other performer around that table to bring their A-game.
"You are finding things in the script, you're finding nuance and subtleties, reactions. From take-to-take that continued to evolve. So sometimes it did feel like doing a play except on screen, and that for me personally is a huge thrill."
Prolific director Soderbergh, known for Traffic, for which he picked up the Best Director Academy Award, the Ocean's trilogy, Erin Brockovich and the Magic Mike trilogy, has a knack for creating incredibly propulsive films, an energy Harris and Page agreed was evident on set.
"I think he has a way of releasing energy in performers as much as the film", Page explained. "He very much lets you go and play with your fellow performer.
"I think that Naomie and I in particular found some of my favorite things in the film just from going back and forth and seeing what the other performer was doing and seeing what unexpected responses you get out of each other.
"And I think Steven really latches on to that. He has a very keen eye to observe the unexpected. So I think that might be part of how he keeps that quite so propulsive."
"He has endless energy as well", Harris continued. "It's really extraordinary, I've never known anything like it.
"He's behind the camera, he's directing, he's involved in the lighting and then we finish the day at four o'clock and he goes home and he edits for the next day. So by the time we'd finished the movie, the film was entirely edited and complete."
"He doesn't like waiting around!", Page added with a laugh.
Black Bag is out in cinemas on Friday 14 March.
Read more: Michael Fassbender says Pierce Brosnan was 'quite scary' in Black Bag
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