Jessica Chastain leaps into action in this exclusive The 355 image

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Exclusive: Director Simon Kinberg reveals how Chastain came up with the idea for The 355 on the set of Dark Phoenix

Jessica Chastain in The 355
(Image credit: Universal)

The 355 began life as the brainchild of Jessica Chastain, the idea first coming to writer-director Simon Kinberg on the set of Dark Phoenix. “She had this germ of an idea,” recounts Kinberg to Total Film. The pair then spent their downtime on the X-Men shoot riffing about a team of international female agents who join forces to save the world. “We put together an outline, and at the same time we were going
to our dream cast with that basic barebones concept of an idea. And they all said yes.”

Joining Chastain’s CIA agent Mason ‘Mace’ Brown are Lupita Nyong’o’s MI6 tech specialist Khadijah, Diane Kruger’s rival German agent Marie, Fan Bingbing’s mysterious Chinese national Lin Mi Sheng, and Penélope Cruz as Colombian civilian Graciela. And while the movie explores their friendship, the "absolute thrust of this movie, tonally, was to make it feel real and grounded and intense and intimate,” says Kinberg asserts.

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(Image credit: Total Film)
Jordan Farley
Jordan Farley
Managing Editor, Entertainment

I'm the Managing Editor, Entertainment here at GamesRadar+, overseeing the site's film and TV coverage. In a previous life as a print dinosaur, I was the Deputy Editor of Total Film magazine, and the news editor at SFX magazine. Fun fact: two of my favourite films released on the same day - Blade Runner and The Thing.