16 Things We Learned on the Set of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E screened from 1964 to 1968, at the height of the Cold War, and played like a small screen counterpart to James Bond’s cinema outings. The series’ smart conceit – concocted by 007 creator Ian Fleming – was to have spies from both sides of the conflict collaborate. So the West had Robert Vaughn as CIA agent Napoleon Solo, and the East had David McCallum as KGB agent Illya Kuryakin.

IGN visited the set early last year, and this is what we learned from the aforementioned triumvirate as well as co-writer/producer Lionel Wigram and female lead Alice Vikander...

1. It’s an Origin Story

Lionel Wigram: What cracked it for us, I think, was the idea of doing an origin story. In other words, this is really the story of how the U.N.C.L.E. organisation came together. The television story has not told that. U.N.C.L.E. is simply a sort of United Nations of spies. You have a Russian and American working together at the height of the Cold War, but it’s never explained why, so I thought, it could be really interesting if you actually start with Napolean Solo a CIA agent and Illya Kuryakin as a KGB agent who are on opposite sides. We’re talking mid ‘60s, early to mid ‘60s, the height of the Cold War. It’s not more than a year or two after the Cuban Missile Crisis. So, you’ve got these two sides who are completely at odds, the threat of nuclear war, mutual threat of destruction has never been higher, and that felt like a good place, a good context to put the story in, so now, the idea is that you start the film with these two enemies. They’re on opposite sides, and as a result of what happens in the first 20 minutes, their bosses decide, ‘you know what, there’s a third party threat that’s actually more dangerous right now than either of us, so in our mutual interests, rather than sabotaging each other’s efforts to stop this person, let’s team up.’ So that’s the idea, and both bosses hope that their little sneaky agenda... both hope to get one over on the other at the end of it, but at least for the time being, it’s a temporary alliance, and from that comes U.N.C.L.E..

2. The Actors Didn’t Know the TV Series

Henry Cavill: I didn’t ever watch it. It was before my time and what attracted me was Guy [Richie]. He’s a great director and the story was very cool and I thought if anyone can make this even cooler, it’s Guy and so that was the selling point for me.

Alice Vikander: Now I’ve seen a couple of episodes, but mostly, I mean, I knew about it… I think my Dad knew about it. He got a bit excited when he heard I was going to do a remake of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but also back home in Sweden where I grew up, I remember it was one of those series that went on in the afternoon, over many years.

Armie Hamer: It was a little bit before my time. I never really caught any reruns or anything like that, so the only thing I knew about Man From U.N.C.L.E. was that Guy Richie was directing it, and that was good enough for me.

3. The Classic Spy Stories of the 1960s Are an Inspiration

Wigram: This is the story that Guy and I came up with, inspired by our love of Sean Connery, James Bond, Michael Caine, Harry Palmer, The Odessa File, all those classic ‘60s and ‘70s spy movies, the John le Carre movies. For us, it was an homage, if you like, to those films.

Guy Richie: It’s a nostalgic thing. I always thought it was a cool title. I always liked the tone of the TV series and I thought it would have legs and I thought I could do a good job on it.

Wigram: We thought there had been enough contemporary spy movies and that we couldn’t add anything new to that particular thing. The ‘60s has it’s own particular style, and I think setting it in a time period enables you to create your own reality that the audience can escape into.

4. As is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Richie: What I’m interested in is finding a tone like Butch Cassidy. It’s a funny thing about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - I remember it not being a very revered film. I remember the reason it wasn’t that revered at the time was that it was because it was a comedy. People tend to look slightly down their noses at comedies, thinking ‘oh, it’s a comedy, so I won’t take it that seriously’. But I think it’s that much harder to make a good comedy than it is to make something that’s straight and apparently serious, so I like that balance between finding it’s a real film, but it has a lightness of touch - and I think very few people can apply that lightness of touch and that’s a tone that I’m interested in generally. And I suppose Butch Cassidy is the greatest illustration of that, because I seem to remember at that time, no one else had done that, you know? It was that bromancy, 'we take ourselves seriously, but not too seriously' and it broke the pattern of a typical genre, so ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’ pops up in the middle of a western, and that was the first time anyone had done that. A western was no longer a western as you’ve seen it, and I think it’s the conspiracy of the different creative juxtaposition - without sounding too preposterous about this - that I find stimulating creatively.

I don’t like the idea of agents in the typical form. The idea of an agent to me brings up the idea of a man in a very boring suit who is not very good looking and doesn’t have much attention to style and he just went to sort of… he was a policeman, then maybe he was in the army and then he’s good at that and he was promoted to some aspect of secret service. The reality of where agents come from is probably… obviously a lot more dour than how we create them in films, but I like that, you know? I like the idea of taking essentially what’s a sort of boring, officious job and turning it into something that is a fantasy to a degree. I like doing something to make that entertaining. I suppose there is a juxtaposition involved in that, because you do have to be a civil servant, but you’re doing a tremendously exciting job or potentially an exciting job or a glamourous job and there is a juxtaposition in there and with Butch Cassidy, there was a juxtaposition between taking a genre and putting ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ in it, so I suppose what you’re really looking for is to find your cross genres, to a degree.

5. As is Classic Italian Cinema

Wigram: The film mostly takes place in East Germany, West Germany and Italy. We chose East Germany because we felt that it was sort of the iconic, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Wall… East Germany was sort of the most embelmetic of the Cold war and we felt like you had to have it. And we chose Italy because of the world of La Dolce Vita; the world of Fellini and Antonioni and Mastroianni. We thought it was just a sexy, fun, glamorous time and we wanted to have that.

6. Tom Cruise Was Supposed to Star

Wigram: We were going to do it with Tom Cruise and for various reasons that didn’t work out. There was a moment just after that when we had been considering Henry for Kuryakin, as well as Armie, and we said – you know what? We talked about Henry at the beginning for Solo – why don’t we go back to that idea and the studio said ‘You know what? That’s a great idea!'

We chose them because honestly we felt they were among the best young actors of their generation. We feel that – and the girls as well – we feel that we have the next crop. The next generation of movie stars. We’ve been fans of Henry since The Tudors where I thought he stole a lot of the scenes he was in, and we’ve been fans of Armie since The Social Network.

7. David Beckham Might Appear

Richie: It’s just a rumour. You’ll just have to keep your eyes peeled. Put it that way.