Cate Blanchett on Going Spy vs. Spy with 'Brilliant' Michael Fassbender (Exclusive)

Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris, and Tom Burke are dishing on their new espionage thriller “Black Bag,” in which Cate and Michael Fassbender play a married spy couple with serious trust issues!

Joined by Naomie and Tom, Cate spoke with “Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi about finally getting to properly work with Michael.

Referencing their 2017 film “Song to Song,” she shared, “It was great to finally get to work with him properly. We had a walk-by on a Terrence Malick film, a scene in which I don’t even think ended up in this movie, but it’s a contract you make with Malick.”

As for their intertwined characters, Cate said, “The characters are so beautifully described on the page and whilst it’s absolutely an ensemble film, the core of the drama is the stakes are Katherine and George’s marriage.”

“There’s not a lot of time in the bedroom,” Blanchett noted. “I think you have to establish that they are totally entwined and as coiled as a spring as George, particularly the way Michael so brilliantly plays him, and that he's so in control that you feel like if he lost his faith in Catherine or felt that she had betrayed him that he would completely unravel. So in a way, he’s a ticking time bomb.”

Naomie and Tom talked about the verbal sparring among all the characters, noting everyone had to be on their toes since Steven Soderbergh doesn’t like to rehearse.

Harris called it “exhilarating,” saying, “It was all happening for the very first time… It’s like playing a game of ping-pong, right, and you don’t want to be the person that drops the ball.”

Naomie is coming from the 007 world, which gave her some experience with a spy movie. She said, “It was nice to have some of the research that I’d already done… getting the opportunity to interview spies, you know, so that was really great that I had an insight into that world, but the great thing about my character is she’s not actually a spy, she’s part of the world but she’s an outsider observing… She’s the therapist that keeps them on their mission and mentally healthy.”

Cate and Tom also spoke about going from set to co-starring on the London stage in “The Seagull” and how that experience is different from film.

Tom commented, “Chemistry, I think, is about trust. You have to extend that on the first day regardless, in a way… But then you work with people more and more and the trust becomes absolutely foundationally based in your experience, as well as whatever notions you have of that person to begin with, and so that really deepens what that is.”

Cate chimed in, saying, “I often feel as an actor quite dislocated from the audience. When you’re working in film, you don’t know how many people have seen it. How they’ve seen it, if they’ve enjoyed it, and often you don’t get the figures, so you don’t know how many bums on seats there are, whereas when you’re in the theater, you know not only how many people are there, whether they leave, or whether they fall asleep, or whether they’re engaged… It’s a more fluid, direct experience and engaged experience with an audience, which I love.”

Mona also chatted with Fassbender about working with Cate, and he shared that they didn't discuss their characters' relationship much before filming.

He said, “I was just, you know, quite excited to see what she would bring once the camera started rolling. She’s so experienced and brilliant at what she does. I thought, you know, sometimes, it’s best not to talk. She started talking; I was like, ‘Just show me.’”

Michael was joined by his co-stars Regé-Jean Page and Marisa Abela.

Regé-Jean dished on his buttoned-up character and fun scenes with Naomie. Mona also had to ask about fueling those James Bond rumors, since Pierce Brosnan is also in the movie!

"I didn't ask for nothin'!" he insisted. "Steven is just like, 'You know what I'm gonna do? ... In the casting, he's like, 'You know what? I'm gonna play with you throughout the movie. I'm just gonna place pieces of spies and Bond and things that you already recognize or have a subtext in pop culture for.'"

He continued, "I do actually genuinely think he does that on purpose, because he's playing multiple layered games with the audience at all times... You know he has a plan, he has a plan under the plan... and a little bit of tongue in cheek. He's a funny guy."