Rebecca Ferguson has worked continuously for the last 25 years, since her first gig in the Swedish television series Nya tider when she was 15. With major roles in genre-spanning films including the musical The Greatest Showman, the Stephen King horror adaptation Doctor Sleep, as well as the Dune and Mission: Impossible franchises, she’s played iconic characters existing in the wildest of worlds. Onscreen, she's jumped off roofs and engaged in knife fights, but when Kathryn Bigelow approached her about playing a working mom in A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE, she leapt at the chance.

“The roles that I had done thus far, they’ve all been characters. And what I haven’t done is to just be a normal human being,” says Ferguson of her role as Olivia Walker, who, while seemingly ordinary on the surface, has the extraordinary responsibility of working in the White House, where she’s the captain of the Situation Room, overseeing the US response to nuclear threats. She adds simply: “The fact that Kathryn Bigelow wanted me to play a role in a film, that was enough for me.” 

Knit top by Maximilian Raynor.

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is Bigelow in her element, a dramatic thriller written by Noah Oppenheim (Zero Day, Jackie) about the race to respond after a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States. The project reunites Bigelow with familiar subject matter; she received an Academy Award for best director for her 2008 wartime drama The Hurt Locker, which also took Best Picture honors, and her 2012 Oscar-winning political thriller Zero Dark Thirty tracks the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. While making A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE, whose star-studded ensemble also features Idris Elba, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Greta Lee, and Jason Clarke, it became clear to Ferguson that she and Bigelow share a passion for truthfulness in filmmaking. “I felt from the beginning that there was enormous trust in her handing over this role to me,” says Ferguson. “There was also the fact that I made it very clear to her that I wanted it to be correct. I wanted to do research.” 

They went straight to the source. Bigelow brought in a 32-year veteran of the intelligence community and former senior director of the real-life Situation Room as a consultant. “They hooked me up with Larry Pfeiffer,” Ferguson explains. “He was the man. He’s basically the guy who Jason Clarke plays [in the film]. He’d been that guy, and he was on set every day.”

Cardigan by Antonio Marras. 

Blouse by Maximilian Raynor.

Being armed with Pfeiffer’s precise policy knowledge afforded Ferguson more freedom to explore Olivia’s emotions. “You had free rein to bring the scene to life,” she says. She cites one of Pfeiffer’s cardinal rules: “ ‘You never lose your shit in the Situation Room.’ If you need a break, you leave; you walk out, because you have to maintain calm in every situation.” The actor gamely put that advice to the test during filming. “There’s a specific moment in the film where the tension was quite high, and I left and walked into another room,” she recalls. “And Kathryn said, ‘Why did you walk in there?’ I said, ‘I felt that was a moment where I would’ve just felt too much.’ And she said, ‘That’s great. Let’s put a camera in there and let’s do that again.’ She follows you. [But] she’s still in control. She is the director,” Ferguson adds. “There’s no messing about with that. It’s just that if you move, and she feels it, she wants to experience what it is you are experiencing and pick it up.”

Despite A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE’s high-stakes intensity, a collegial bond permeated the set of the ensemble film. The cast even ate together every day at the canteen. “I didn’t see any of the actors go back to their trailer to go and have lunch alone,” Ferguson remembers. “Everyone was together. It was team-building.” Ferguson particularly found camaraderie with scene partners Malachi Beasley, making his feature film debut, and Brett Tomberlin, whose own military service brought a sense of realism to the project. “We’re called the Three Bears in our little group, because I did a rap for them about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and it made them laugh,” she says.

In addition to bonding with her co-stars, Ferguson drew on her own experiences. She recalls one scene in particular, in which Olivia puts her son (played by Nicholas E. Monterosso) to bed. “That little moment,” she reflects, “that was me with my [real-life] daughter or my son when he was little.” During the rehearsal, she asked her young co-star to try handing her one of his character’s toys. “I said to Kathryn, ‘I’m going to ask him to give me a dinosaur.’ She’s like, ‘Oh, I love that.’ One of the things I hear from Kathryn is a lot of ‘I love that.’ It makes me feel that I can do things and she is accepting of it, and if it works, it works.”

That particular instinct worked so well that the toy dinosaur became a throughline in the film. For one scene, Ferguson suggested leaving the toy in her character’s shoe, so that Olivia finds it when she goes to change into heels upon arriving to work at the White House. “We’re going to have a trail of the son throughout,” she says. “It’s something that I would’ve had myself, filled with stuff from my daughter.” The pair loved the token so much that dinosaur emojis became a regular part of their texting conversations. 

Blazer by Joseph.

Blazer by Joseph.

Collaborating with the director throughout the filming of A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE was a true gift for Ferguson. “The thing you know about a Kathryn Bigelow film is that everything will be impactful. You are a part of a journey that is impactful,” says the actor. “The whole experience of how she films, that is the thrill. The process of being in her environment — that's exciting.”

Ferguson marvels at Bigelow’s direction, how she plays with the balance between precision and accuracy and the messiness of human emotions. “I could see her sit behind the monitor and see it all come together like an orchestra piece. She could go, ‘The violins are not tuned,’ or ‘The cello isn’t loud enough,’ ” says Ferguson, picturing it. “And then she’d either adjust with the camera or maybe in the edit later. It was a dance between soldiers, actors, cameras — and she was a conductor.”

Filming on A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE wrapped many months ago, yet Ferguson is still mulling the project over, doing her best to distill what the film means to her, what she hopes it will mean for its audience. When an existential threat is upon us,” she says, “it is the domino effect of decision-making and what the repercussions are of that for humanity.” But it's more than that too, Ferguson emphasizes: “It’s one of my favorite films that I’ve been in.”

This feature originally appeared in Issue 21 of Tudum Magazine.