With a staggering 77% loss rate, “The Bloody 100th” bomb group required 25 missions from its crew members before they could return home from the horrors of World War II. That meant that every time they got on a plane, they knew that in the next few hours they would probably die a violent death.
“It's an insane statistic,” says Callum Turner of the number of men sacrificed. He plays Major John “Bucky” Egan in Apple TV+’s “Masters of the Air,” an epic nine-episode limited series about the number 100. “The journey they took for the greater good, placing them in the most vulnerable atmosphere ever.” known to mankind,” he says, noting that the B-17 bomber's skin was as thick as a Coca-Cola can.
Produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, the $250 million series is based on the book by historian Donald L. Miller. Together with “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific”, it forms a brilliant trilogy of American military power during World War II. A cast of hundreds is joined by Turner and Austin Butler as Gale “Buck” Cleven, both characters based on real-life flyers.
“They were high-flying Hollywood guys, top pilots,” Turner says of his characters. “They came together before Pearl Harbor. If a plane crashed, Egan would write personal notes to the family because he wanted them to come from someone. [the downed flier] he knew it better than someone in the army. For me, the whole journey is about finding the truth and embodying someone who is going through hell. It is very important not to simply show them as two-dimensional heroes. In reality, they are men experiencing something horrible. Finding that truth was about honoring their history.”
Turner's Egan brings a joyful energy to the group, the actor says. “He shows up with this arrogant attitude and this determination to fight the good fight.” He complements a quieter, more internalized performance from Butler. “It's well documented that they were yin and yang, so it happened naturally. The more rooted he was, the more he could fly.”
Acting since he was in his early 20s, Turner broke out playing Theseus in 2022's “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” followed by last winter's “The Boys in the Boat,” directed by George Clooney. When he and his partner, singer Dua Lipa, aren't being hounded by the tabloids, he's in pre-production on “Eternity” with Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen. Not bad for a working class kid from Chelsea.
Callum Turner, left, stars alongside Austin Butler in “Masters of the Air.”
(Apple TV+)
“It gave me an incredible boost,” he says of the disadvantaged circumstances in which he was raised by a single mother, a former aspiring actress who worked as a nightclub promoter in the London scene of the 1980s. “I didn't really have anything else.” . I couldn't No succeed. There was a lot of determination, he had no money and he had four jobs when she was 21. I don't know if I had financial stability behind me, I would have had that drive. “It was really about survival.”
Very soon she began working as a bench model for Reebok and Burberry. She then came on television shows such as the British miniseries “Glue” and a small role on Showtime's “The Borgias.” Playing a swaggering Yankee like Bucky Egan on “Masters” required countless hours with a dialect coach and maintaining his accent for most of filming. The research included documentaries filmed by Hollywood heavyweights such as George Stevens and John Ford during real-life combat situations.
Callum Turner enjoyed filming a scene where his character climbs to the top of a prison camp and replaces the Nazi flag with the Stars and Stripes.
(Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)
He didn't get a chance to talk to many wartime airmen, except at the premiere, where they had five original members of the 100th, all of them centenarians. “We talked to hundreds of veterans,” says executive producer Goetzman. “We talk to the families. We do this on all of them, 'Band of Brothers', 'Pacific'. We have a long tradition in that. We get our best stories from them. It teaches you a lot. Worst [the] “The more experiences the men had, the more reluctant they were to talk about it.”
Some of the 100 went to fight in Korea, perhaps inspiration for another limited series. “There are still many, many fabulous stories from World War II,” Goetzman says. “As for us, I don't know if we'll ever tackle the multi-hour limited series again. We could make a movie instead of these series that take three years to make and are expensive. Studios probably aren't interested in that length of this type of show either. They don't want to spend more money. “They want it cheaper and faster.”
Isolated on location in the north of England, production was halted during COVID-19 and some cast members had to be quarantined. In total, the series took 10 months to film and, although it is a fondly remembered experience, Turner is glad it is over. The worst was COVID, and the best was the climactic scene in the prison camp, when the Allies start bombing and the inmates see their Nazi guards fleeing. That's when Bucky climbs to the top of a building and replaces the Nazi flag with the Stars and Stripes.
“As an actor, that sequence is really wonderful. We filmed it right at the end, and there was kind of a parallel to what I was going through, because we were getting to the end of this and we had made it.” He pauses, composing himself. “There aren't many people left who have experienced it. We want to remind people of what happened. “We never want to make those mistakes again.”
