- Film pays homage to TSA workers’ struggles during holidays
- Egerton and Carson shadowed TSA agents for realism
- Deadwyler highlights film’s focus on compassion and humanity
LOS ANGELES — For actor Taron Egerton, the Netflix action film “Carry-On” pays homage to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers and the on-the-job struggles they encounter, especially during the holiday season.
“Our movie is absolutely a kind of spiritual salute to those guys, so I really hope that they feel good about it when they see it,” Egerton told Reuters.
Egerton stars in the movie as TSA agent Ethan Kopek, who is searching for direction in his life with encouragement from his girlfriend, Nora Parisi, played by Sofia Carson.
The film, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, also stars Danielle Deadwyler as Elena Cole, who is an FBI agent.
The story follows Kopek as he is enlisted by a devious stranger played by Jason Bateman to help pass a dangerous package through security and onto a flight that departs on Christmas Day.
“Carry-On,” the first film spawning from the collaboration between Netflix and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, arrives on Netflix on Friday.
For Deadwyler, the film resonates with anyone who has caught a flight during the holiday season.
“Christmas is chaos. The airport is chaos,” she said.
“This is a dope experience to bring people back into a kind of nostalgia that they’ve had with past Christmas action films,” she added, comparing “Carry-On” to the film “Die Hard.”
To make the movie more realistic, Egerton and Carson modeled real-life TSA agents and airport workers.
“As part of my prep, I got to shadow a director of airport operations in the New Orleans airport for a few days,” Carson said.
“It’s not an easy feat to make an airport run, or to be a TSA agent,” she added.
Deadwyler echoed this, saying that the film goes beyond its action scenes and delves into the humanity of people and the importance of compassion.
“Everybody at the airport needs love and support and compassion for the work that they do, because it’s not just at the holidays that they’re dealing with all of us and all of our anxieties,” she said.
—Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Rollo Ross; Editing by Mary Milliken and Sandra Maler
