His name is Court Gentry, but no one remembers his real name. He has no identity, no documentation, no file speaks of him. Many years ago, a CIA agent, Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), broke him out of jail in exchange for his joining the Sierra project.
Gentry (Ryan Gosling) thus became Sierra Six and during all this time he has participated in missions as secret as they are dark. But now, the tables have turned and Sierra Six is the target of the most shady plan. An unscrupulous agent, Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), chases him across Europe to kill him.
The characters of The Invisible Agent, Netflix's big bet for this season, move through distant Asia, fight in Prague and live their tremendous final confrontation in a beautiful palace in Croatia.
“There are absolutely spectacular settings and action sequences, but at the same time you accompany the characters on their journeys. You can come to understand Sierra Seis, because he is an analog hero in a digital world, ”says Gosling, who yesterday participated in a virtual press conference with his co-stars, of which Ana de Armas is also a part in the role of Dani Miranda, the CIA agent who becomes Sierra Six's lifeline.
In addition, the brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of The Invisible Agent, which will hit theaters tomorrow and can be seen on Netflix from July 22, were also at the meeting. Joe Russo was inspired by Mark Greaney's novel The Gray Man to write the screenplay for this maximum action film, determined to compose a movie that is "fast paced, where a lot happens very fast".
The film is fast, but its development was very slow: "It took us nine years to deliver The Invisible Agent, because we were focused on Marvel," said Anthony Russo. Thanks to the Marvel series Captain America, the Russo brothers know Chris Evans very well, who has gone from being a hero to playing the villain in the film: "I don't know if I would have made it without the Russos, working with them is a pleasure because we have the utmost confidence," said the actor, who insisted that "the shoot was a lot of fun, because I love the Russos, they know how to set the tone and put together a good team. I even find it difficult to call it work”. Those compliments provoked a joke from Joe: “you owe me six bucks”, an amount that increased throughout the press conference and as each of the actors addressed a compliment to the directors.
Joe is convinced that the film is "charged with a sense of humor", even though The Invisible Agent is above all an exercise in action. The directors were especially proud of the Prague scene: “Sierra Six is trapped in a square, pinned down and held by the police while the world's most dangerous killers are on their way to kill him. It is a situation of extreme vulnerability. We choreographed several versions. We use trams and buses identical to the real ones. We were shooting ten days in which there was everything: shots, explosions, car crashes…”
Gosling and Evans discussed the training they've undergone to play tough CIA agents. De Armas also enjoyed "pre-production, which involved significant mental and physical training to become a CIA agent." The supporting actresses, Alfre Woodard and Julia Butters, wanted to highlight “the strength of the female characters in the film”.
The young Butters raised "the importance of not dealing with women in whom only their sexual attractiveness matters." And De Armas joined that thesis remembering that “I was a Bond girl, so it is very refreshing to play a role in which the physical is not put forward. Here the power of my character is seen in a very different way, Dani Miranda is an intelligent woman who when she finishes the day she knows that she has done the right thing”.
The Invisible Agent was shot in Los Angeles, France, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Croatia, Austria, and Azerbaijan. The production featured a 1,000-person crew working on 21 sets built in a former Boeing manufacturing hangar in Long Beach. Can there be a sequel? That was the last question for the Russo brothers, who left the door open for a new installment of the Sierra Six adventures.
