Michael Fassbender is no stranger to intense scenes, but the polygraph test sequence in Black Bag pushed him to his limits. Surprisingly, it wasn’t because his character, George, had to pass the test—he was the one administering it! Instead, the real challenge came from the way the scene was structured during filming versus how it was originally written in the script.
Screenwriter David Koepp had designed the scene to be fast-paced and cross-cut between George interrogating his colleagues—Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), and James Stowell (Regé-Jean Page). However, when it came time to actually shoot, director Steven Soderbergh opted for a more methodical, linear approach. He wanted to capture each character’s coverage in full rather than jumping between them as the script suggested. And that completely threw Fassbender off his game.
“That was definitely the most challenging scene for me,” Fassbender admitted. “The way it was written, I learned it exactly as it played out in the script—jumping between characters. But then, on the day, Steven goes, ‘You're just going to do all of Clarissa’s dialogue in one, then all of Stokes, then all of Freddie.’”
That sudden change had Fassbender scrambling. “I hadn’t memorized it that way at all,” he continued. “And I was asking pretty similar questions to each of the characters, but there were subtle differences in the wording. It was enough to throw me off completely. I was panicking, with pages scattered everywhere in front of me.”
Soderbergh, for his part, had no intention of making Fassbender’s life difficult—he was simply looking for the most efficient way to shoot the scene. “It makes total sense on a normal film set to memorize the script as written,” Soderbergh quipped. “But in order to do this quickly and smoothly, we had to shoot from four different angles. I’d set up two cameras at a time and just rotate the actors in and out.”
That revelation didn’t exactly put Fassbender at ease. “As soon as I explained it to Michael, he went, ‘Oh s---.’” Soderbergh recalled with a laugh. “He had to completely rewire his brain on the spot.”
But Fassbender wasn’t the only one who found the scene difficult. Marisa Abela, who plays Clarissa, had her own set of challenges. Her character is skilled at beating lie detector tests, which meant she had to exude complete control under pressure. “I watched a lot of videos of people taking polygraph tests,” Abela shared about her preparation. “It’s all about controlling your breath and staying calm. Even something as simple as doing a cold plunge helped—forcing my breath and heart rate to slow down under stress. That was the closest I could get to experiencing what it would feel like to be in that high-stakes moment while trying to appear cool and collected.”
She also dove deep into the science behind polygraphs. “I read a lot about what they actually measure—things like heart rate, pulse, and pupil dilation. It became a game of imagining what it would take to suppress all those natural responses.”
While polygraph tests have long been debated in terms of accuracy, with experts often questioning their reliability, Soderbergh was fascinated by their continued use in intelligence operations. “The agencies still use them a lot,” he noted. “And the technology is way more advanced than people think. We had a real polygraph expert on set—someone who does this for high-level agencies—and he was very confident in his ability to tell if someone was lying.”
Soderbergh added an interesting insight from that expert: “He told us, ‘Yes, it’s possible to beat a polygraph, but it’s really f---ing hard. You practically have to be a sociopath. They measure everything—hand tremors, blood pressure, micro-expressions, even the tiniest changes in pupil dilation. It’s way more intense than most people realize.’”
Despite all the initial chaos and stress, everything came together in the end. Soderbergh explained, “I shot all the other actors first, then circled back to Michael. That way, he finally got to do the version he had memorized. It all worked out, but there was definitely a moment of, ‘Wait, what are you doing?’”
This kind of behind-the-scenes insight into Black Bag only makes the film’s tension all the more compelling. The scene, with all its psychological cat-and-mouse dynamics, already promised to be gripping on screen. But knowing the real-life pressure Fassbender and Abela faced while filming makes it even more fascinating.
With a powerhouse cast, a masterful director like Soderbergh, and a screenplay that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, Black Bag is shaping up to be one of the most thrilling espionage films in recent memory. Whether or not you believe in the power of a polygraph test, one thing’s for sure—Michael Fassbender and the cast certainly had to pass their own real-life test of endurance and adaptability on set.
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