Taylor Swift narrowly missed an accidental cameo role in the new heist film Fuze, which was shot on location next to Wembley Stadium during one of her concerts. The film, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a chief police superintendent tasked with evacuating London after the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb, involved shooting high-stakes scenes to a backdrop of Swift hits.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw on the Unusual Filming Conditions
Gugu, 43, who rose to fame in the 2013 film Belle, described the experience as off-putting. She explained that the set, located right where the bomb site was, was adjacent to Wembley Stadium. The cast and crew were performing intense, high-stakes scenes regarding the bomb's potential detonation, while Taylor Swift songs could be heard drifting across the breeze at the end of the day. The sound engineers reportedly struggled to cut out the music.
Fuze: A Heist with a Twist
In Fuze, which also stars Theo James, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sam Worthington, and Saffron Hocking, the bomb's fuse is active and could detonate at any time within 48 hours. However, its discovery reveals an even more explosive crisis, as the London evacuation is used as a cover for an audacious bank heist. Gugu described the film as a race against time with a twist, blending the unexploded bomb storyline with a heist genre.
Gugu's Background and Career
Gugu, the daughter of a Black South African doctor and a white British nurse, was raised in Oxfordshire after her parents separated when she was one. She remains close to her father. After winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), she was appointed an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017 for her services to drama. She praised the incredible cast of Fuze, calling it an edge-of-your-seat, high-stakes action thriller.
Fuze is produced by Stephen Merchant and is now showing in cinemas. This interview has been adapted from The Arts Hour on the BBC World Service and can be heard in full on BBC Sounds.
