The Amateur director says Laurence Fishburne improvised slapping Rami Malek: 'It was shocking'

This article contains spoilers for The Amateur. 

Just like his character in The Amateur, Rami Malek was not prepared for Laurence Fishburne slapping him (twice!) during a particularly intense scene.

Based on the novel by Robert Littell, the espionage thriller stars Malek as genius CIA decoder Charlie Heller, who embarks on a mission for revenge against the terrorists who killed his wife (Rachel Brosnahan).

The only problem is that Heller is a data analyst with no field experience. So, when he tells the top brass that he plans to go after his wife's killers himself, they don't take him seriously. But that begins to change when he successfully blackmails them into giving him the training he needs to hunt down these assassins.

It's during this training that Col. Henderson (Fishburne) decides to prove a point: no matter how much training Heller gets, he will never have what it takes to be a killer. Forcing a loaded gun into his hands, Henderson makes the analyst point it at his chest and tells him to pull the trigger. When he hesitates, Henderson slaps him hard twice before Heller gives up and puts the gun down.

"You can't do what I do, no matter how much I train you," Henderson says. "I can't make you into something that you're not. You're just not a killer, Charlie."

By the end of the film, Heller has more than proved Henderson wrong — using his creativity and intellect to kill or capture all of the terrorists. Still, the duo's confrontation during training is a pivotal moment in Heller's transformation — and it turns out the scene was made even more impactful by Fishburne, who improvised the slap without warning Malek.

"It was shocking," director James Hawes tells Entertainment Weekly. "It's a small room. There's not so much you could do in that set in terms of blocking. I imagined that Hendo was going to come in and sit on the chair and be like the headmaster and give him a lecture. The slap was entirely Laurence's invention and decision, and it was shocking to be there."

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Hawes laughs before adding, "It was pretty shocking for Rami, and I think you can see it on his face — and the color of his cheeks — but it really worked."

Asked about the scene in a separate interview, Fishburne says he doesn't remember improvising, but admits he was just "in the moment."

"I'm just too focused on doing the work," the actor explains. "I remember saying, 'Rami, are you okay?' And he was like, 'Yeah, yeah. Come on. Let's go. Let's go.' That's what I remember."

Hawes says Rami got slapped "a lot" after that first take because all subsequent takes "have to match" what they did before. "There were wide shots, there were close-ups," the director says. "He got slapped, but then it gets to the point where Rami says, 'Yeah, keep going, dude, keep going.' Obviously, you can't not do it on the reverse shot."

Malek loves that his real reaction to the slap "was captured on screen," telling EW, "It's not a one-take scene, so it happened quite a few times. And it's delivered in a way that's quite aggressive. But not in a way that a makeup artist had to be flown in to fix the color of my cheek or anything like that. He is a true professional, and anyone would say that about Laurence."

The director doesn't believe that Malek walked away with bruised cheeks but adds with a laugh, "I'm sure Rami carried it as a proud war wound." He continues, "That's when you know you're working with just brilliant actors because they have an instinct and they make a choice and they've thought about it before they turn up, and then they bring that choice to the set and the scene takes on a whole different energy."

When it came to acting opposite Fishburne, Malek praises his performance as "no acting required."

"I don't know if it's a blessing or a burden — I would certainly hope not — but he continues to take on these mentor archetypes, and he delivers it with such ease," Malek says. "That scene felt so natural and easy to perform because a man of that talent and skill level was delivering those lines, and they hit with an impact that is even more aggressive than that slap."

While the slap was not in the script, Hawes now can't imagine the scene without it. He believes it levels up the intensity of that interaction and further drives home just how unready Charlie is to kill.

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"You hear people in the theater, they're really quite taken aback when that happens, and they wince when it happens a second time," the director says. "But it had a danger to it. And also, strangely, I felt it had a care to it. He wanted to prove the point: 'You can't do this. Stop now before it just gets worse.' And it is a seminal moment in the beginning of their relationship."

Fishburne looks back on it as "one of the great scenes" of the movie.

"He pushes him and challenges him on his intention," he says. "It contains one of the themes that runs through the film, which is, 'What you've set your mind to doing, is it the appropriate thing to be doing? And what will it cost you? What will it cost you to go out and seek retribution against the people who killed your wife?'"

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