“My fear was it might be a TV movie if it doesn’t have enough energy.”

Modern warfare has changed so much over the past decade that it’s hard to keep up with the constant advancements. In this day and age, drone attacks are the method of choice in the Western World’s wage on terrorism. Director Gavin Hood’s terrific thriller EYE IN THE SKY captures what goes into the arduous decision-making process to fire those missiles – and also what the price is on humanity. Over the course of a day, UK-based military officer Colonel Katherine Powell (Dame Helen Mirren) is put to the test during a top-secret drone operation that morphs from a routine surveillance mission to a capture and kill strike. Morals, ethics and political ramifications are debated as the emotionally taut narrative unfurls.

Mirren’s role was actually written for a man. Gavin Hood said,

The character was not written for a woman – Colonel Powell was a man. I kept thinking, ‘I’ve got to have an actor who’s steely, determined, intelligent, has a real presence.’ For some reason I kept thinking of Helen. This is a subject that should be talked about by as many people as possible and women shouldn’t be excluded from this conversation by having a male dominated cast that makes it look like a sort of “boys only” war movie, because it’s so much more than that. Helen brings an incredible strength and power to this role and the ability to play those still moments.

When Mirren received the script, she had no idea her part was originally written for a man.

I so applaud Gavin for casting me – but any woman. It makes it much more universal – that we are all a part of this conversation.

Mirren relished the opportunity to utilize tools in her actors toolbox for this complex, introspective and reflective role.

We were very lucky that, in a sense, the film opens in real time, over a two hour period. I was first up to be shot. We all shot completely separately from each other for financial reasons. The people in the bunker with me were all brought in and we just shot our stuff – when I was talking on the phone to Alan [Rickman] or to Aaron [Paul], I was actually talking to Gavin. I’ve never shot a movie like this – it was extraordinarily complex. We spent half a day thinking about how we were going to shoot it and in what sequence. I was very lucky I was able to keep in the sequence of what happened.

Hood felt it was imperative to spotlight the narrative’s epically small moments his actor brought on set.

One of those things that is so important to me is those tiny moments. The way I felt I would approach those moments was by keeping my actors eye lines very tight to the lens. If I’m off a mark by half a foot, the impact is slightly profile. I remember thinking, I have to say to Helen, ‘I really need this moment.’ And she said, ‘All right then.’ I knew that she knew what I was trying to do.

Staging was key for Hood to give EYE IN THE SKY a kinetic quality – even being trapped between the walls of a stuffy bunker.

How do you give energy to a great deal of static people? My fear was it might be a TV movie if it doesn’t have enough energy. So with Helen, we placed her desk at the back of a large room. The idea was to allow my actors, especially Helen, to move towards the screen. That’s something you also do in production design – if the space is not the right size, there’s no space to move. That’s just staging.

When it came time to shoot Aaron Paul, who plays a Las Vegas-based drone pilot who has the unenviable task of questioning Col. Powell’s orders, Hood took a risk.

Aaron couldn’t do that so it became, Where can I put the camera to get that kind of energy? The camera was either very profile to create that bond between him and the young sense operator, or it was right in their face. I chose, which is a bit of a risky moment but I think it pays off to play their eye lines into camera, so in your face that you feel his pressure looking at the screen. Those are unconventional ways to get inside the minds of characters by going to the place where actors are best are in the eyes. The subtlest of moments happen [there]. We read each other’s emotions without realizing it through subtle changes in the iris. As a director you want to be there.

Hood had to juggle a lot of his actors schedules to work in this manner.

It was quite intimidating to figure out as to how were we going to do this; Helen was available for a certain window. Alan Rickman was for a different window. Aaron Paul was available for a different window. In a perfect world, everybody is there. If you had the money and the time you’d keep everybody for the full six weeks and off you’d go. But that wasn’t the case. All those screens you see in Helen’s bunker are just green – in fact, they were just a big white sheet. What Helen had was a bunch of little crosses in the middle [to guide her eye]. It’s a credit to all the actors in this movie that their power of imagination – imagine a scenario that in many cases does not exist – and in this film, more than any other, did not exist.

Mirren thinks EYE IN THE SKY will stand the test of time because it’s so prescient – and gives audiences something important to talk about.

This is the reality of war that I can only assume will be more and more prevalent as we travel through time. We need to discuss this and be aware of the various issues are. I thought this film was a great war film. It’s not just about the good guys and bad guys. It’s about the terrible moral decisions that any war throws up. I hope this will go into the canon of great war movies. I’m really hoping people will leave the theater, go out to dinner and have intense, great conversations about morality, philosophy and the human factor.

EYE IN THE SKY opens on March 11 in limited release.