Aaron Taylor-Johnson Has Been Performing for Almost 30 Years — He’s Now Just Starting to Really Feel Like an Actor

What role do you most associate Aaron Taylor-Johnson with? His breakthrough as John Lennon in “Nowhere Boy”? His wannabe titular superhero in the “Kick-Ass” films? His actual superhero Quicksilver in the MCU? His heartbreaking turns in both “Anna Karenina” and “Nosferatu”? His bonkers baddie in “Nocturnal Animals”? Choices abound, and of course they do — the British star has been acting since he was just six years old, thanks to an early stage turn in a London production of “Macbeth.”

But it’s safe to say that he doesn’t take any of that for granted. In fact, nearly three decades in (he turns 36 this June), Taylor-Johnson feels like he’s just about to crack the code on his profession. That’s not him juicing for compliments: In a half-hour chat with the star, the word “learning” comes up more than any other. Here’s a star who truly seems interested in doing more, doing better.

“I’ve been in the industry almost 30 years, and I think there’s so much that only just feels like I’m learning. ‘OK, I feel like I might actually be an actor, almost. I might only just be there,’” the actor said during a recent interview with IndieWire.

Three decades into his working life, Taylor-Johnson’s professional reputation is something he “highly” values and respects. That doesn’t just mean what you see on the screen, but everything — and everyone else — behind that.

“I’ve worked in the States, I’ve worked in UK, I’ve worked in Australia, I’ve worked in Europe, and some of these are crews I’ve worked with since I was a kid,” he said. “To feel this industry being this tight-knit little intimate family? You start to build relationships. You get to strengthen those relationships through the creative things that you’re doing. You build upon trust. A director-actor relationship is built on trust. The more you have that feeling, the more your actor’s going to let go, give more, try new things.”

Taylor-Johnson’s latest role: playing a military bomb expert in David Mackenzie’s fast-paced heist film “Fuze.” His Major Will Tranter is tasked with defusing what appears to be a massive, unexploded World War II bomb smack in the middle of London. But there’s oh so much more to it, as the actor explains ahead.

The film re-teams Taylor-Johnson with his “The Outlaw King” director Mackenzie, a common trend in his recent work. Beyond “Fuze,” he’s recently worked again with “Nosferatu” filmmaker Robert Eggers, “Nocturnal Animals” director Tom Ford, and “Fall Guy” filmmaker David Leitch. In the coming months, Taylor-Johnson will star in Eggers’ “Werwulf,” Ford’s “Cry to Heaven,” and an unnamed project with Leitch.

“I feel very fortunate that I’m at an age now where I’ve been in the industry long enough that, in the last couple of years, I’m getting the opportunity to work with the same directors again for a second time, for a third time,” he said. “I sort of really romanticize the idea of being an actor, so to be in the same company twice and to be asked back is so flattering.”

He’s clearly admiring of those kinds of long-standing matches, pointing to Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Martin Scorsese; David Fincher and Brad Pitt; and Christopher Nolan and his many repeat stars as inspirations. (Taylor-Johnson is ripe for a Nolan repeat, after appearing in “Tenet,” just saying.)

“To have done a movie with Robert Eggers and then to have been asked to come back? I was like, oh my God, I felt so flattered and honored,” he said. “The same when Mackenzie came to me with this script for ‘Fuze.’”

‘Fuze’Roadside Attractions and Saban Films

The “Fuze” opportunity happened right after the writers’ strike ended, and Taylor-Johnson was thrilled to be getting back to work. He still talks about it in animated fashion, almost two years after it shot. He can sell the hell out of this thing, basically.

“This movie is a full, fast-paced heist movie,” he said. “It’s a high-concept idea, this World War II bomb being discovered in the center of London that may or may not be a decoy for a bigger operation that’s happening down the road. Then it’s a sort of cat-and-mouse thing of who’s who and who they say they are, and it’s got twists and turns. When I read it, I was like, ‘Man, this is exciting. And [Mackenzie] doing it in London, you’ve never shot in London before! Working with you again, playing a different role, yes.'”

First step: start talking to a real EOD specialist (that’s an explosive ordnance disposal specialist, a highly trained military expert, the person you call in if, say, you find a World War II bomb in your backyard). Taylor-Johnson loves to learn by doing, so that kind of toe dip into the world of “Fuze” really, well, sparked him.

Mackenzie is a “very improvisational” director, the actor said, though he’s “there to constantly guide you and direct you through what he wants in different levels and layers.” That also excites Taylor-Johnson. “I love that he’s a filmmaker that is eager to explore. … There’s a sort of scared vulnerability that you have as an actor when you don’t know how the scene’s going to play out,” he said. “Every take is different, and you don’t know where you’re going to end. There’s something raw about that, but you feel like you’re on a safe pair of hands with David. I like the way he shoots.”

In recent years, Taylor-Johnson has taken on lots of muscular, action-leaning roles. Not just “Fuze,” but things like “Kraven the Hunter,” “28 Years Later,” “The Fall Guy,” “The King’s Man,” “Bullet Train,” “Outlaw King,” and, oh yeah, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (And, yes, he continues to be at the top of the “Hey, Who Is Going to Be James Bond Next?” list for anyone putting that sort of screed together.)

It’s funny then that Taylor-Johnson has so many women in his life, including wife Sam Taylor-Johnson, two stepdaughters, and two daughters. Has all that feminine energy possibly inspired him to pick more macho parts? He thought about it. “I don’t think it really informs the jobs that I choose,” he said.

Well, wait. OK, maybe.

“There’s definitely been a few roles that I’ve brought up to my kids and gone, ‘I’ve been offered these two roles. One is very much like this, and one is very much like this. Now, I’m kind of interested in both.’ For instance, say, one’s a psychopath, and one’s this other kind of role, another kind of psychopath possibly,” he said with a laugh. “And it’s quite brilliant, my daughters will go, ‘Well, look, knowing that you go really into your roles, we feel like this one you haven’t done before. That one feels a bit similar to something else, and maybe this would be more challenging for you. But then also, we don’t want that person at home.’”

When it comes to picking his roles, “I’m always going by my intuition and my instinct,” Taylor-Johnson said. “I have to go, ‘This character resonates to me. It really speaks to me. This is a filmmaker I’ve been wanting to work with.’”

There are also practical matters to consider regarding his home life. “I think [about choices] as a parent and a father and a husband, and with that comes [questions of], where am I going to be? Where am I going to be filming? How does this affect the family?” he said. “At times, it has been easy, because we all travel as a group. Now they’ve got exams, they’ve got to be in school, there’s a structure to that. My daughter’s come up for her GCSEs. I will not move from home. I’m not working from May to the end of June; it doesn’t matter what project comes along. I’m lucky enough that I can dictate certain things like that. That feeds my soul more, to be at home.”

Angelica Jopling, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Jessie Phoenix Jopling attend the ‘Kraven The Hunter’ New York Premiere at AMC Lincoln Square TheaterFilmMagic

That’s not often something you hear from a male star. But that might be because men are not asked these sorts of questions nearly as much as their female counterparts. Taylor-Johnson knows all about that because he knows what sort of questions are being asked of his wife, filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson.

“She’s a director, she’s an artist, and she’ll be on a press tour, promoting a great movie, and then [she’ll be asked] like, ‘How is it being a mother and directing a movie?’” he said. “It’s such a bizarre thing. There’s that saying, it takes a village. I have gratitude and a deep understanding of, for me to go do what I do, how that has an effect on people around me. But I also know how important it is to nurture and support and encourage my partner in what she does. … I don’t want to dim her light. I also don’t want to dim my daughters’ lights. I’ve got four daughters, all of which are super bright, really creative, and they’re so different, and they deserve to have my attention all the time. I love, love being with them all the time.”

So, what kind of thing can get Taylor-Johnson going? What’s the secret sauce for snagging him for a project? The stuff that should be easy and obvious, but isn’t always: good writing, talented co-stars, a director he can trust.

“You need a script, and you need characters, and you need rich dialogue,” he said. “As an actor, I can only work from what I’ve been given. There’s a lot of like, ‘This is a blueprint, this is a guideline.’ But I am like, ‘No, writers are more than just that. I get that there’s a starting off point, but it’s the foundation. They understand form and structure and how the turning points moved and pushed the protagonist into their journey.’ There’s only a certain amount I can do, I can only be as good as the character that’s on the page, and I can only be as good as the actor that’s opposite me.”

In 2018, the Taylor-Johnsons took on their first — and, so far, only — writing gig together, adapting James Frey’s embattled (and refuted) memoir “A Million Little Pieces” for the big screen. They wrote the script together, Sam directed, and Aaron starred. Is he interested in writing again?

“I’m not a trained writer by any means, and I’m very lucky; I was mentored by some phenomenal writers,” he said. “It really informed how I read scripts as well, and how I see a scene, and also how I feel comfortable with improvisation, within my character, within that scene, and how I learn dialogue. I’m a practical learner. I have to go through it, and I have to fall on my face.”

‘A Million Little Pieces’

The film premiered at TIFF in 2018 and was released a year later in U.S. theaters, to mostly negative reviews and low box office returns. But there are other metrics of success, particularly for a film that was a passion project for the duo that managed to do some quite impressive things with a small budget and a shooting period that didn’t even last three weeks.

“We all make mistakes and everything, but not to say that that movie was that,” he said. “We made it for four million [dollars]. We shot it in 20 days. We had a phenomenal cast. Jeff Cronenweth shot it! I have a deep understanding of how you actually get a movie off the ground, and I just feel such a huge achievement that we got as far as we did. It’s a very hard thing to do, but it burnt me out in a way that was like, when I was in it, I felt like I could do anything. I felt like I could do anything with it. I felt very confident in it. And then, after the fact, I thought maybe I was just embodying the character who wrote the book inspired by a time in his life.”

That’s all an answer to “are you interested in writing again?” Taylor-Johnson isn’t one for yes or no answers, and his genuine interest in meeting a question with some real thought and care is rare. Mostly, it seems, he is an actor who loves talking about every aspect of his work, even the bits that aren’t easy.

“I do love it. I’m learning,” he said of writing. “But there’s a reason we have writers, and they deserve for studios to basically just go to them and say, ‘What’s your passion project? We will pay for that script.’ They need to really invest more in our writers, and they need to give them more credit than they’re getting.”

Now, nearly 30 years into his career and just starting to maybe feel he’s got this acting thing down, Taylor-Johnson is relishing the ability to be choosy, to do different things, and to keep working with the people that he admires.

Director Robert Eggers, actor Emma Corrin, director of photography Jarin Blaschke, and actors Lily-Rose Depp and Aaron Taylor-Johnson on the set of their film ‘Nosferatu’Aidan Monaghan

“I’m exploring, from independent to studio movies, they’re big, they’re small, they’re fantasy, or they’re horror or all these different genres,” Taylor-Johnson said. “I’m lucky to be able to do that and to sort of jump across the board. But to be in the same company more than twice is a real honor. How do I explain it, articulate it? You just want to do your best work for those sort of directors.”

That bond between actor and director comes up a lot in conversation with Taylor-Johnson, that trust, that respect for artistic intent. He does not like when it goes the other way.

“When young actors come on set and think this whole scene’s going to revolve around them? It’s just not fucking true,” the actor said. “It’s just not going to happen that way. You can’t come with fucking egos. You’ve got to show the fucking raw, ugly truth and the vulnerabilities, and you have to be open to explore, and you have to think beyond yourself. You have to be a team player, a collaborator, and that’s when you might actually fucking learn a few things. There’s only a handful of actors like that around that can do that. And when they do, fuck me, do they blow your mind. And when you get to work with those actors, you walk away and think, ‘I couldn’t have made that scene any better. I wouldn’t even have learned it that way.'”

Roadside Attractions and Saban Films release “Fuze” in theaters on Friday, April 24.