Sci-fi sleuth
Rebecca Ferguson adds ‘Silo’ thriller to blockbuster year
Before Rebecca Ferguson’s upcoming blockbuster movies, there’s her starring role in Friday’s “Silo,” the 10-episode AppleTV+ futuristic thriller.
Conceived and scripted by Graham Yost (“Speed”), “Silo” is set a mile below ground where Earth’s last 10,000 people live far from the toxic surface. What’s strange is no one knows why or even when the protective silo was built.
Ferguson’s Juliette is an engineer whose investigation of a lover’s murder leads to deeper, stranger mysteries about this underground colony.
Unlike the upcoming final two “Mission:Impossibles” and “Dune Part Two,” was part of the attraction with “Silo” that it’s original and finite?
“Oh, I don’t compare! I think every decision I make, every character that
I choose, it’s a new journey,” Ferguson, 39, said from London in a Zoom interview. “There’ll be different reasons as to why I take them.
“This one, I just really fell in love with Juliette. She’s really cool and she’s vulnerable. And with what they’ve asked me to do,” she said of the role’s intense physicality, “it’s fun to stay in shape. I love the drama between the characters and what she unravels in the storytelling. There was so much to love, why would I not do it?”
As to who Juliette really is, “An incredibly intelligent mechanic who basically is the only one who can run the generator that runs the silo. Her purpose is very straightforward: If you don’t run the generator, it will shut down and kill the entire silo.
“We find out quite quickly that she’s lost significant people in her life,” Ferguson added. “So she’s very brittle, very vulnerable and extremely hurt.”
This veteran of two previous “M:I” epics reprises Ilsa Faust in the final Tom
Cruise vehicles, “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1” due in July and then “Part 2” next year. And, yes, there’s also “Dune Part Two.” What can she say? “You know how incredible ‘Mission’ is — we use words like Explosive, Incredible, Dynamite. And it’s a start but to be honest, these are stunts you’ve never seen before. It’s dark, darker than the other ones and I enjoy that.
“I like the fact that Chris McQuarrie and Tom keep on wanting to take the next ‘Mission’ to another level. And this one definitely is.”
As for Lady Jessica and the final “Dune,” “I love the first one. I think the second one is going to be much better. Because Denis Villeneuve has taken the story to such a cool gruesomely detailed — I mean, the journey is like ‘Dune.’ But on crack, basically. I mean it’s everything. And more.”