‘IF YOU REALLY CARE, THEN EVERYTHING ELSE LOOKS AFTER ITSELF’
When Taron Egerton hops on a Zoom call with Total Film in early February 2023, he's not in the usual chic hotel room or video-studio setting. In fact, he's sitting in an unassuming kitchen, having returned home to Wales. After a busy run of work, he's back to spend time with his family. ‘It's nice, man,’ he smiles, dressed casually in a plain black T-shirt. ‘And also, I was in America for quite a while with [2022 Apple TV+ series] Black Bird being released. I came home for about a week, and then went and did a Netflix movie in New Orleans. So it sort of felt like I've not been home in ages.’
The jumping-off point for our chat today is Tetris, the latest film that Egerton stars in from Matthew Vaughn's BritishAmerican production company Marv Studios. Directed by Jon S. Baird (Filth, Stan & Ollie), Tetris is not a video-game movie in the traditional sense. After all, that addictive, thumb-twiddling block-buster is hardly blockbuster material. Instead, Tetris tells the story of the development of the insanely popular puzzler that would go on to sell hundreds of millions of copies, and the battle to secure the rights. If that sounds dry on the page, it involves globe-trotting, double-crossing, the Soviet Union, a race against time and pensionsnaffling media baron Robert Maxwell.
Set in the late 80s, Tetris stars Egerton as Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born, US-raised entrepreneur living in Japan with his family. When he claps eyes on an early version of the game Tetris, he's bowled over by its potential and sets out to secure distribution rights, which is anything but simple, and will see him heading to Moscow and putting his family's livelihood on the line.
On screen at least, Henk is a charming creation — an extremely affable guy with ambitions that drag him into some dangerous circumstances. Egerton scorched to fame with his breakout role as working-class-lad-turned-spy Eggsy in Vaughn's films, but Henk is the latest in a line of real people that he has played. Early in his career he was cast as Edward Brittain in , before playing Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards, Elton John and ‘s Jimmy Keene to critical acclaim. Starring in put his career on a new trajectory, with a slew of awards and nominations,, ‘He's in a rare, rare club… Hugh Jackman is the only other guy who's genuinely an action star and a musical star.’
