TOMORROW WAR STARS TELL ALL
WHO CATCHES UP WITH THE TOMORROW WAR CO-STARS
Jurassic World star Chris Pratt and Australia’s own Yvonne Strahovski can’t say enough good things about each other after co-starring in Amazon’s thrilling sci-fi action epic, The Tomorrow War. The pair bonded over their mutual love of family as Strahovski brought her then-infant son to the set – Pratt, 42, has 10-month-old daughter Lyla with wife Katherine Schwarzenegger and son Jack, 8, with ex-wife Anna Faris, while Strahovski, 38, has 2-year-old son William with actor hubby Tim Loden. Here, WHO catches up with the co-stars ...
Despite all your accolades, including
The Handmaid’s Tale, did you still have to do a chemistry test with Chris to secure your role?
STRAHOVKSI Yes, but I really wanted to do this. I was flipping the pages as fast as I could because it was just so exciting. It’s the kind of story where you need to buckle your seatbelt once it begins, because it’s a ride that just doesn’t stop. [My character’s] living in a future where there are less than 500,000 people alive on earth, and she’s humanity’s last chance in a lot of ways. She’s desperately trying to find something that might save the human race before we become extinct and she only has a limited amount of time to do it.
PRATT Yvonne is a complete bad-ass in this movie. She plays a tough, take-charge colonel and she’s the lead research scientist trying to prevent the end of civilisation. We got very lucky in casting her. The first time I saw her audition tape, I knew immediately she was the right choice for the role.
And Yvonne brought her infant son to the set?
Yes, it was really something to see her transform from killing aliens and doing these amazing stunts to being like, “Hold on, I have to go and pump.” She could immediately turn off the action hero and transform into this amazing mother figure.
Chris makes it sound easy, but was it hard to pull off?
STRAHOVSKI Being in my first year of motherhood, on that unknown path of discovering yourself as a mum, is pretty
relatable to the character of Romeo Command. She has the weight of the world on her shoulders as the scientist who has to figure out how to save the human race. What drew you to this story?
PRATT I just loved it from beginning to end. It’s a fantastic original concept filled with humour and heart, but it’s also a gigantic movie with lots of action and visual spectacle. I have to confess, making a film where I get to fight aliens and save the world while cracking the occasional joke is right in my wheelhouse. The visual effects artists pioneered some incredible new technologies to bring the creatures to life.
Was there a lot of tough military training involved prior to filming? STRAHOVSKI Yes. There’s a certain type of physicality that comes with that type of training, and it definitely informed my characterisation of Romeo Command. It influenced the way I stood, the way I moved, the way I fought and the way I fired my weapons. I really found it invaluable.
What was it like working with Chris?
I shared most of my scenes with Chris and he’s just awesome. As you might expect, he’s cracking jokes right up until the last second before they call action. He has a natural ability to be funny and improvisational, but then he instantly flips a switch and becomes this super-action guy in the combat scenes and he looks super-cool while doing it. What was your most intense scene? PRATT There’s a really great sequence when we make the jump to 2051, and we fall from the sky in Miami and land in a pool. That was some serious water work we got to do. We got to jump off this high dive that we built out of a forklift and jump into the water. The camera followed us down and then you had stunt people jumping down and landing on top of you, forcing you under water. It was really physical. There’s a camera down there, you’re trying to get smashed into the ground and come up, and struggle into a close-up underwater.
• By Gill Pringle