Taron Egerton Calls 'Smoke' Co-Star Jurnee Smollett An "Extraordinary" Actor

New York Post

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00:00Your performance in Blackbird had such an impact on people and obviously there's quite a bit of

00:04overlap between the creatives on that series and Smoke. I'm curious what you value most about your

00:10creative relationship with the great Dennis Lehane and his writing that made you want to

00:15immediately team up with him on this. Well I mean the thing I value most is he seems to want to send

00:19work my way which is great you know because I've got a mortgage to pay um but that's me being

00:25flippant. I um Dennis is such an esteemed uh accomplished writer as both a novelist and

00:36a screenwriter and now as a showrunner and I think you know for me it's just um hugely validating to

00:48have somebody place their confidence in you in in in the way that he has. I really love his work

00:55and I love being a part of it and you know I really hope it's a relationship that that continues

01:01because these roles both Jimmy Keene and now Dave Goodson they are hugely challenging creatively

01:11rewarding roles and um I honestly can't really imagine anything more rewarding you know to in

01:18television you know than these roles they are just amazing parts to play so I'm very grateful

01:25to him and um yeah I feel very honored to be on this ride. You and Journey have such phenomenal

01:31chemistry as Dave and Michelle in this. Have you studied arts and investigation? No. And you know

01:39I teach it all over the state. Oh yeah your reputation precedes you. You preceded me too

01:47into my own office. What do you admire about her as an actor? I think Journey has a formidable quality

01:57and a stoicism and a weight that I really admire and I'm slightly jealous of and I think what's

02:05interesting about our dynamics as actors and characters is Dave and probably me to a certain

02:11extent is a little less I want to say serious in some ways you know he's got more lightness to

02:20him and seemingly more kind of more of a jovial quality to him. Michelle Calderon is carrying this

02:27huge secret trauma that you only really understand towards or even begin to understand towards the end

02:34of the first season. I always felt that the thing that most interests me about Dave and Michelle

02:39is that deep down somewhere really deep I kind of think they're the same and um I thought a lot

02:47about Dave having some I I called Dave uh uh a lizard a lot there's a there's Dave's a lizard and um

03:01I kind of think Michelle is somewhere deep down as well and um and I found that to be endlessly

03:06fascinating and and and we had a really great time working together she's an extraordinary actor.

03:11The fact uh that Smoke uses so much real fire during filming added a real authenticity to it as

03:17a time where there's a lot of you know reliance on CGI and intense AI debates did you find those

03:23efforts refreshing as an actor? I really think there's something about one I think on screen you can

03:29feel a practical effect you can feel the weight of it there is just something satisfying about things

03:35being done practically just where I get a little bit spiritual about it I think there is tremendous

03:40value in in in the human effort in something so you know there are endless debates around AI and

03:50my fear and my the thing that I find a little um discomforting about it is it feels like getting

03:57too much for free and uh anything good I've had in my life has come through hard work and will and effort

04:06and I mean I'm being very flippant and I'm not really acknowledging you know all of the plus sides

04:10of AI but I do also have like fear around the ease of it and you know um I don't know I anyway I'm losing

04:20focus but the the fact of the matter is I think there's something really wonderful about doing things

04:26practically you see it in the show um it's beautiful and I would argue it's more beautiful than were it

04:33made by a computer I was delighted to learn that a little over a decade ago you starred in a tv series

04:40called the smoke yeah and how having a sort of full circle moment with smoke were you nostalgic for the

04:47smoke at all during this experience and how does it feel just to look back at that series and see how

04:52far you've come as an actor yeah funnily enough the first week I got to Vancouver to shoot this series

04:57I sent there's two actors uh who I really love who I made that tv show with back in the early 2010s

05:07called Rashaan Stone and Jamie Bamber who I'm still in touch with and I sent them a photo of me in

05:13firefighter gear being like this is weird but at that point we didn't know the show was going to be

05:18called smoke and I haven't actually caught up with them since we robbed the old title but um it is a

05:24weird thing and it does make me reflective for the past I think it's actually the past 13 years of my

05:30life now and um yeah it's crazy you know but I just feel very lucky to be working and I feel very lucky to

05:38have the opportunities and career that I do and and um and yeah I really hope it it continues maybe in

05:4810 years time you know we'll be we'll be talking about another show called smoke um but yeah yeah it's a

05:55weird coincidence

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