Henry Cavill Improvised That Unhinged Tongue-Wagging, Nazi-Killing Moment in Ministry

Posted by Martina Birk on Sunday, July 28, 2024

Director Guy Ritchie‘s “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” may be based on secret, real-life WWII commandos, but that didn’t stop him up from upping the Nazi-killing brutality.

In a couple gleefully bloody scenes, Henry Cavill‘s character Major Gus March-Phillipps massacres Nazis while sticking his tongue out in a joyful, manic grin. As it turns out, Cavill improvised the scene, which caught viewers’ attention in the action film’s first trailer.

“It was a co-improvisation between Guy and myself,” Cavill told Variety at the film’s New York premiere Monday. “Guy said, ‘I want you to have more fun with it. Stick your tongue out or something.’ And so we did and it stuck, as featured quite well in the trailer. That was the first moment where we decided Gus was going to be slightly unhinged in these moments, and that makes it more fun.”

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Writer Arash Amel, who adapted the 2014 book “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII” by author Damien Lewis, said that the movie’s team took “creative liberties, but everything is rooted in truth.”

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“It was totally in the essence of Gus March-Phillipps to behave exactly in that way,” Amel said of Cavill’s improvised tongue-wagging. “He was the guy who blew up a bridge in Norway when he was told not to by British high command and almost got court marshalled. So for him, he lived to kill Nazis in the same way Alan Ritchson’s character Anders Lassen lived to kills Nazis. These guys were built from a different breed. He didn’t stick his tongue out, but who knows maybe he did? He embodied Gus from start to finish.”

“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” tells the story of the first-ever special forces organization, formed during World War II by U.K. prime minister Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming and a small group of military officials, and follows the group of rogues on a mission against the Nazis. The rest of ensemble include Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Babs Olusanmokun, Henrique Zaga, Til Schweiger, Henry Golding and Cary Elwes.

González plays Marjorie Stewart, an operative who has no trouble holding her own among a macho cast. “I’m kind of a tough cookie myself, so they have to keep up with me more than I have to keep up with them,” she said.

“He would just was throw curveballs at me all the time,” González said about Ritchie. More than three months of learning different languages, singing and body movements to represent women in the era of WWII went into González’s preparation for the role.

“A lot of the moments were spur of the moment. That’s the way we worked on this movie,” Cavill said. “We all sit there in the morning, kick the scene around and come up with some during shooting. And if it works, it works; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

He continued, “It’s a freeing process because it feels a lot like family to be throwing ideas out there to try stuff and Guy will be like, ‘No, that’s a terrible idea. Sit in the corner. You’re not allowed to have ideas anymore.’ And then immediately afterwards you’ll have the best idea in the room and you’ll be the favorite student.”

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