Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller on how "genre-bending" The Gorge feels fresh

Teller, of course, is the actor who made such a splash as the music student in Whiplash, while his co-star was last seen in full-blown action mode, playing the title role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Story.

Together, they’re creating some serious sparks in The Gorge, a gripping film that’s almost impossible to describe without giving away its deadly secrets.

"Genre-bending is the term that we’re using for it," explains Teller, looking slick in a dark shirt when we speak over Zoom. "This feels very fresh."

Certainly, the script by Zach Dean, which was written during the pandemic, is unlike anything else around.

Teller plays Levi, a top-notch American sniper who is lured (by Sigourney Weaver’s hard-nosed suit) to take on a year-long solo mission, guarding an outpost overlooking a spooky gorge.

On the other side, the Russians have also built a lookout; Taylor-Joy’s equally proficient sharp-shooter Drasa is stationed there.

While both kill for a living, the two are very different. "I think their backgrounds are part of the reason why they do make such a good match," says Taylor-Joy, seated alongside Teller.

"Drasa, I found fascinating because despite the darkness of the world in which she inhabits, she herself is a very light person, and that comes from her relationship with her father. She’s always had somebody who she could say anything to, and he would be there to, as we say in the film, carry her shame.

"And so it was interesting, because she was so comfortable in her skin that I think she really allowed Levi to come more into his own."

Levi is the archetypal loner, meanwhile, who has no loved one waiting for him back home. "He’s there for mission, and assumes that he’s going to be taking down some form of enemies, some sort of evil presence," says Teller.

"A lot of people that choose professions similar to this… you can always go back to some form of trauma in their life, usually in their upbringing."

The actor has played military personnel before, notably in 2017’s PTSD drama Thank You For Your Service. "I have a ton of empathy for anybody who does that kind of work, whether it be first responder or military background… it’s a very tough profession."

Teller even collaborated with a technical advisor who has worked as a sniper. "[That] was important, because there’s a certain fluidity that comes with that, with doing something for 10,000 hours [and getting that] practice."

The rest, the "emotional life of the character", as he puts it, he mapped out himself. "I just knew that it was important for this movie that that connection between the two of us [was established]… once these characters really kind of find each other, that’s the most important thing, and that was easy to develop with Anya."

What lies beneath the gorge is too delicious to give away (suffice it to say, it’s not for the feint-hearted), but the real rub with The Gorge comes when Levi and Drasa start communicating with each other, against their superiors’ orders.

Initially holding up home-made cue cards, they gradually start to fall for each other. "We were all aware of the fact that if the love story didn’t work, the rest of the movie didn’t work," says Taylor-Joy. "So I think our priority was making sure that you fell in love with these two people individually, and then you fell in love with the way that they fell in love."

Those early scenes, as Levi and Drasa are glimpsed in their habitats, almost seem like nods to both Teller and Taylor-Joy’s past roles. Levi is seen drumming (like his percussion-obsessed character in Whiplash), while Drasa is left pondering moves on a chess board (which will make fans think of her role as the prodigy in Netflix drama The Queen’s Gambit).

Teller says these nuggets were in the script for the moment he first read it, suggesting that it was somewhat serendipitous that Dean included them before the actors were cast.

"At the time, I was thinking about ways they could communicate with each other and build a relationship without ever being close enough to touch or speak," explains the screenwriter. "And playing chess, and then percussive sounds, and things like that, were ways that they could communicate. Not only communicate, but they could also create something together and build on it."

Then came the re-writes, as the actors had input. "We tried to take it away... it felt very on-the-nose," laughs Taylor-Joy.

Yet Teller admits that it was the perfect way to establish the characters’ burgeoning relationship. "When I saw the movie for the first time, it’s really those moments where they first are communicating back and forth… I felt those moments to be very intimate and private and cosy. As an audience member, I enjoyed that part of the story a lot."

Bringing Teller and Taylor-Joy together was a bit of a gamble, admits director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange). "I didn’t want them to be too old," he says.

"Because doing research, after reading the script, I learned that world-class snipers like this, they tend to be very young people. It’s very physically demanding job. Both of them seemed like intuitive actors in everything I had seen them do. Honestly, I had a sense that they would have chemistry. I had no idea if that was the case."

"I think on-screen, chemistry is a very ephemeral thing," adds Taylor-Joy. "You’re not really sure if you’re going to have it with somebody. I think with a co-star, you want to feel like you are able to go anywhere and they’re going to follow you and catch you. And that is certainly the case with Miles."

Of course, it helps that the 37-year-old Teller and the 28-year-old Taylor-Joy were friends off-set already. "It’s fun to go to work not only with somebody who you really respect as a professional and for their talent, but also is your friend. You have extra leeway to play with," says Taylor-Joy.

Still, there were teething troubles. Given the nature on the film’s set-up, with the characters located on opposite sides of the gorge, they were rarely required to be present on set at the same time.

"During rehearsals, we very much promised each other that we would be there every single day, regardless of the fact that we weren’t on camera [at the same time]," the actress explains.

"And on the first day we attempted it, it was Miles’s coverage, and they put me in a hydraulic lift, and very clearly, it just was not going to work. I was [in] the wrong eye-line. I was too far away. Miles couldn’t see me. I was distracting. So we had to let it go."

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The solution was simple. "From that point on, whenever we came on set, we would watch the coverage that the other had filmed earlier," she continues.

"So we were always reacting to something that we had seen before. But that just made it so much better when we did actually get to be together, because we had that same excitement that the characters did, where we were like, 'Ah, you’re a real person and we get to actually do this a little bit closer.'"

It’s not hard to see how invested the two actors are in The Gorge, especially with both credited as executive producers. Is going behind the camera something they’ve long wanted to do? "Well, for me, it took a long time to be able to attach myself to something, create something, add value to a project, as an actor, to be able to produce something and to get it made," says Teller, who previously took an executive producer credit on The Offer, the 2022 mini-series about the making of The Godfather.

"I’ve really enjoyed that creation process that starts with an idea, maybe it starts with an article, maybe it starts with an early draft of something."

Taylor-Joy nods in agreement. "I think for me, it came from a desire to help. I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life essentially on a film set. I’ve just worked back to back to back, and I always felt that there were moments where I couldn’t really step forward with an idea, because I wanted to be respectful of my position in the process.

"And what you are allowed to do as a producer is really help out with all of your knowledge in any department at any time. And that scratches a very specific part of my brain. I’m not that type-A in my real life, but in terms of movie making, I can run a schedule and I love it!" Little wonder The Gorge really hits the target.

The Gorge is now streaming on Apple TV+.

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