Caitríona Balfe might have travelled through time in Outlander, but the new spy thriller The Amateur offered her an equally "special" filming experience.
The new movie stars Rami Malek as a CIA decoder who, when his wife is murdered by terrorists, heads on a dangerous quest for revenge. He's helped along the way by Inquiline (Balfe), who also has a painful secret in her past.
Inquiline lives off the grid in Turkey, with her house replicated on location in Marseille, which doubled for Istanbul on-screen.
Talking to Digital Spy, Balfe praised the "gorgeous" real-life location and explained how it benefitted The Amateur.
"I think every time that you get to, as an actor, be in a location that has a special feeling. Where Rami and I did the scenes of Inquiline's house, it was just the coolest little fishing village, but it feels so isolated and so remote," she recalled.
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"We had to go down a dirt track road for ages, and we had that whole coop full of guinea fowl there, and it felt like somewhere that somebody would go to disappear.
"You walk into a set like that and you spend 10 minutes there and you're like, 'OK I can understand how somebody could survive in this place and feel safe enough and yet be completely outside of society'.
"All of that stuff really informs you, and I hope that we keep getting to shoot on location and that people don't put things on green screens."
The Amateur also allowed Balfe the opportunity to work with Malek for the first time, having known the actor socially for a decade.
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To build their shared connection on-screen, the pair made use of time off filming to "build in" moments where the characters bonded over their grief.
"Even though they don't really know each other, there's that shared understanding of loss and how they can connect through that," Balfe explained.
"He's such an incredible actor. He's got such a vulnerability and such a presence, so when you're in scenes with him, he's so there. It was just nice to find those quick things that gave it that history, even though the history was sort of veiled."
Ahead of The Amateur's release, Malek also spoke to Digital Spy about his first time producing a movie and what he wanted to bring to it behind the camera.
The Amateur is released in cinemas on April 11.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
