When an amateur goes pro

Stars Rami Malek, Laurence Fishburne and Caitriona Balfe chat to YOLANTHE FAWEHINMI about their new espionage revenge thriller

- 

AS Morpheus in the The Matrix trilogy and the Bowery King in the John Wick films, Laurence Fishburne has become a go-to guy for strong, authoritative leader roles.

And the Emmy award winner steps up to the plate again playing an intimidating colonel, who trains up Rami Malek’s introverted analyst in The Amateur.

The action-packed spy thriller follows CIA decoder Charlie Heller, played by Oscar winner Rami, whose wife Sarah (played by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a London terrorist attack.

When it becomes clear that Charlie's supervisors are not going to take action over his wife's death, he goes rogue and takes matters into his own hands.

With the training and mentorship of Laurence’s Colonel Henderson, Charlie embarks on an unrelenting journey to avenge his wife's death, and punish those who are responsible.

While he now plays the teacher, Laurence reveals he has himself benefited from mentoring as he's navigated his glittering career.

“Every day, I carry something from several people who have mentored me over the years and many of them have passed on,” reveals Laurence, 63, who was Oscar nominated for his performance as Ike Turner in the 1993 Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It and has picked up six Emmy Awards for television projects, including Miss Evers’ Boys. “And the really cool thing is, now that I'm at the age that I’m at, I’m actually in a position not just to mentor younger people, but also to learn from them too,” adds the Georgia-born actor.

“I don’t know everything. I know some stuff, but there’s stuff that I don’t know. Like how to turn on a computer, and I'm really excited when I meet a younger person who has something to teach me.”