‘Tenet’: How Script Leaks Were Avoided – Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh has opened up about the old-fashioned but effective way that director of Tenet, Christopher Nolan, employed to avoid the script leaking out.

As an actor and filmmaker himself, Branagh (who directed Thor) admires and respects Nolan, and reveals that the level of secrecy maintained by the actors involved in a Nolan film has led to a honorable agreement which makes script leakage not an issue.

Branagh recently spoke in an interview with Collider, and said:

With Christopher Nolan, in a very old-fashioned way, it’s like a handshake. I’ll tell you how I got the script. The door knocked, I opened and standing at the door was an international film director called Chris Nolan. He had an envelope under his arm, and he said, ‘I’ve come to deliver the script to you.’ It doesn’t get more personal than that. And then I asked, ‘How will we talk about this?’ Nolan said, ’24 hours from now, sir, I will give you a telephone call and we will discuss it.’ It’s as simple as that.

He says, ‘It’d be nice if we maybe kept this to ourselves. Nobody signs anything. It’s a handshake and a level of trust.”

In Tenet, Branagh plays a Russian agent who has the ability to communicate with the future.

The premise of the movie revolves around the attempts of international spies (John David Washington and Robert Pattinson) to prevent Armageddon by using a new piece of technology that allows for time invasion or the reversal of cause and effect in small pockets of time.

Speaking further, Branagh stated:

It’s a loaded thing. When there are new scripts, I run to Chris’ associate, producer Andy Thompson, who will take from me either my script or replace the pages that are changed. But I don’t ever want to have a script that isn’t locked in my bag.

Like on an airplane, if you’re traveling to a location and you’re reading it, frankly on a Nolan film, you think about that before your passport. It will be fine of they don’t let me into Estonia, but if they do let me into Estonia and I don’t have the script for Tenet, I’m done. It’s over.”

Tenet is scheduled for release on July 31, 2020. It stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, and Michael Caine.