Janus Metz on ‘All the Old Knives’: ‘A love story and a whodunit’ 

The director says the spy thriller starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton, is framed around a dinner between two former lovers and spies, where terrible truths and lies are revealed

All the Old Knives is a beautiful, tense thriller where former lovers and spies (Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton) discuss a disastrous hijacking over a meal. The movie, which also stars Laurence Fishburne, and Jonathan Pryce, is based on a script by Olen Steinhauer from his eponymous novel.

Director Janus Metz says he loved the idea of a spy story set over the course of a dinner. “It was almost like a chamber play,” the Danish director says over a video call from Los Angeles. “I liked Olin’s tone. For me to take ownership as a director, I have to bring my heart and soul into my storytelling. It has to connect and be real. There was coherence between Olin’s sensibility and my understanding of people’s motivations, longings and desires. The idea of this dinner that works as an interrogation between these two star-crossed lovers was compelling.”

The 48-year-old director describes the film as a love story and a whodunit. “On a character level, it is a love story and on a plot level it is a whodunit.”

Chris Pine was the first person Metz spoke to about the film. “He loved the project. Chris is so perfect at being charismatic, compelling, generous, and good-looking, but at the same time, he can also go very dark like the Henry Palin character.”

Thandiwe is an extraordinary soulful, intelligent actress, says Metz. “I thought of Celia as a spy at the top of her game. This story is about hiding truth and playing double games and Thandiwe made that quality tangible in many tiny ways. I also liked the fact that there is a maturity to Thandiwe. I thought she is a woman and a mother when we meet her in the present day in the script, and she holds that as a person. It gave Celia’s character a lot of gravity.” Metz said Newton is also fun to be around on set.

Shooting the dinner scene which frames the movie was a challenge from a technical perspective, says Metz. “You need to control the light. We designed the restaurant on a stage and created a backdrop with huge LED screens of the real sunset and ocean of the California coast.”

Two weeks of shooting in the same setting was tough the director says as there is a limit to how many shots one can invent with two people around the table. “We had to play a game of minimalism. This was a poker game, an interrogation on how to get into Celia and Henry’s mental state.”