“The accidents are getting more frequent every day – it’s terrifying”
Christopher Plummer talks to Georgia Humphreys about his new aircraft thriller Departure
Christopher Plummer will turn 90 this December – not that you’d have any idea from chatting to him. “I guess when I was 80 that was a bit shocking, and then you forget about it immediately the following day,” quips the Canadian actor, whose classic roles include Captain von Trapp in The Sound Of Music (he was 36 at the time).
“I really feel like I’m 60... I’m very grateful because I’m not ill or anything, and I’m not injured, and I seem to have the same energy. I’ve two huge projects that I’m about to do next year. I hope to God I can get through them, but I’m raring to go.”
Plummer won’t give any clues as to what those projects are. But a show he will talk about is Departure, in which he plays Howard, the head of the Transport Safety Bureau. The thriller follows the mystery of Flight 716, a passenger plane which vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean. Howard calls in a former employee, aviation investigator Kendra Malley (Archie Panjabi), to help investigate the crash.
Tasked with trying to find possible survivors and unearth what really happened to the plane, they also want to stop it happening again.
Discussing what drew him to Howard, the charming star, who talks softly and slowly, notes: “I liked him because he has some sort of eccentricity about him.
“And I admire Archie, so it was a pleasure to work with her. I’m supposed to be her [character’s] mentor ... I persuade her to take this terrible job in hand and try and find out what motivated this terrible disaster. And she really feels that she isn’t capable, after having not done it for a while.”
Elaborating on his experience of filming with British star Panjabi – best known for US series The Good Wife – Plummer is full of praise. “Archie has that very strong, bossy personality – and I say it with great affection. She is electric, actually. She’s so
talented, and her face can change in a second; it can be glamorous and then harsh. It can do anything it wants. She’s a terrific actress, a very bright young lady who is also a very good producer.”
Why does Plummer think people find plane crashes so fascinating? “It’s just like watching a snake, isn’t it?” suggests the father-of-one, who is married to English actress Elaine Taylor (he had daughter Amanda, 62, also an actress, with his first wife, Tammy Grimes).
“You’re absolutely fascinated by the horror of it all. And it happens so frequently now that it’s become part of our life. All my years of flying – and I’ve been flying since long before jet flying – we always were
“You’re fascinated by the horror of it all”
told that, ‘Come on, it’s so easy! If you’re driving you have more chance of being killed than being in the air’ – wrong! It’s all changed, and the accidents are getting more frequent every day. It’s terrifying.
“But people love that, don’t they? They love to be tortured, and they find it fascinating to watch the destruction on their screen or the stage or wherever.”
Indeed, while Plummer says being part of this show hasn’t changed his perception of flying, travelling isn’t something he likes doing as much anymore anyway. “I’m so glad that my wife and I saw the world many times before it turned into what it is now,” he says. “I know that sounds like a very old man talking, but goddammit I’m so glad I saw Rome and Paris and Florence and Russia, and indeed, most of the world that we’ve travelled through, when it had more style. That’s gone.”
While, Plummer, who bagged a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2012 for comedy drama Beginners, has been part of many highprofile films, there’s one in particular which made headlines. After allegations of sexual misconduct against Kevin Spacey emerged in 2017, director Ridley Scott removed the House Of Cards star from the final cut of All The Money In The World and began last-minute re-shoots. Plummer was brought in as Spacey’s replacement in the crime thriller, as oil tycoon J Paul Getty. “I thought it was a very good movie, I thought it was terrific, and I was a complete stranger to it, because we only had nine days left, as you probably know,” he points out.
“We shot it in nine days, everything that I had to do with Jean Paul, and that was scary. But it was an adventure and I love adventures.”
● Departure launches on Universal TV tonight