Actors Anthony Mackie and Damson Idris star in the new futuristic action film Outside The Wire premiering on Netlflix January 15.
The co-stars sat down with The Knockturnal to discuss filming and their fears for the future of Artificial Intelligence.
Many will recognize Mackie as ‘The Falcon’ in Marvel’s Avengers franchise, and he said training for those films helped prepare him to play robot Marine Leo in Outside The Wire.
“It was easier because I was coming out of Altered Carbon, so I was training and ramping up for Falcon Winter Soldier so this was right in the middle and it was the perfect transition,” Mackie said. “It was just harder because it was a different type of move. I had to do tai chi, yoga, jiu-jitsu. It was just moreso me trying to get the staccato approach to movement instead of the fluid approach.”
Idris plays American drone pilot Harp in the film and manages to cover up his British accent perfectly. Idris said he attributes his American accent to the Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor films he watched as a kid.
“I’ve always been fascinated with different dialects in the States and I learned them from when I was back across the pond in London from watching Def Comedy Jam and a bunch of American movies when I was six years old, like Bad Boys, A Low Down Dirty Shame, all of Eddie Murphy movies and Richard Pryor. I was watching those from a young age,” he said.
“Bad, bad parenting!” Idris joked.
“Maybe not the thing to say, ‘I was watching Richard Pryor at six years old’,” Mackie said.
Though they star in a film about Artificial Intelligence, they both have some concerns about the futuristic technology that’s already in many of our homes.
“My Siri is turned off. I don’t have [Amazon] Alexa in my house,” Mackie said. “I don’t even use Bluetooth. I use nothing. I get in my car and I plug my phone into my car. I don’t want my car recognizing my phone when I come out. I want none of that. You’re not tracking me. I’m off the grid!”
Idris is quite the opposite of Mackie however.
“Meanwhile my car drives me!” Idris said.
He did say that updates with social media apps are a little worrisome.
“We need to chill out and movies like Outside the Wire may be able to teach us how to,” he said.
