‘Hijack’: Idris Elba Says ‘Sam Is a Little Naive’ About His Situation on Plane
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Hijack Episodes 1 “Final Call” and 2 “3 Degrees.”]
All Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) wanted to do was get home to London and win back his ex-wife (Christine Adams‘ Marsha). Instead, in Hijack, told in real time over the course of the seven-hour flight, he must use his skills as a corporate negotiator to keep himself (and everyone else on board) alive.
Over the first two episodes (now streaming on Apple TV+), Sam tries to talk to the hijackers and stop passengers from making any moves, sends a text to his ex about the “serious” incident on the flight, and starts to work with the pilot, Captain Robin Allen (Ben Miles), to alert those on the ground of what’s going on with a change of heading.
Here, Elba explains why Sam is “naive” at this point in the season.
Given the real-time aspect and the space in which the action takes place for Sam, talk about filming the series.
Idris Elba: Yeah, I joke and say that this was the longest flight I ever took in my life. It was like six months to make this show, and I was in the same costume, same seat, on the same flight for a long time. But that was part of, I guess, the dramatic license for us is to try and find a way to show that claustrophobia that we’ve all felt on a plane. Especially if you get a bit of turbulence or someone starts acting a bit weird on the plane, you’re like, “Whoa, I’m stuck in this environment.” And we wanted to really pull that across and get people to just really feel the reality of the situation. It was hard to make, there were 400 actors on the plane, and it was a long and hard struggle.
.@idriselba talks the difficulty of filming @AppleTV‘s #Hijack pic.twitter.com/5u2vJYju9B
— TV Insider (@TVInsider) June 28, 2023
Sam is working with the pilot and communicating with him via that game. How is he feeling about that situation? At all hopeful that he can find a way out of this?
At that point, Sam is a little naive. He’s like, “OK, I’ve got this figured out.” That’s the thing about the Sam Nelson character is that he goes in there using — he’s got a great intellect and he’s good at trying to pit people up against each other in his normal day job as a negotiator of businesses. But in this scenario, he’s just a little naive. And I think Sam’s feeling that if he can find a way to manipulate the pilot into doing something, he might have a way out of here, but — no spoilers and you see what happens later on down the line — you’re like, “Oh man, why did he get him involved?” You know what I mean?
What does Sam see in the hijackers at this point? Anyone that he thinks he can manipulate to the point of success, even if he is a little naive?
I don’t know if he can see a personality type that he can manipulate, but I think he thinks that there are holes in their structure. And again, that’s a thing as a negotiator when you’re doing acquisitions and mergers, you’re trying to get this guy to sell cheaper or pay more for this, and you’re going to highlight why. And the way you do that is really analyze quickly what the weak spots are and what’s really not worth the money. And so with Sam, I think he does that very quickly. He’s the kind of guy who says, “You guys, do you know what you’re doing?” And it turns out they actually don’t and he was right. So yeah, I think it’s more not one person, but their whole structure seems a bit weak.
What about the passengers? Is there anyone he feels he can trust on the plane? Because he does not seem like someone who trusts easily at all.
Yeah, Sam doesn’t trust anyone. And I think Sam feels that he knows that no one’s going to trust each other and he uses that as a little bit of a mechanism and he does it quite cleverly. He knows people are going to think that he’s a sellout and he needs them to do that. What you start to realize is that he’s manipulating them to go against him so he can penetrate the sell, if you like, a bit more.
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Because there’s also so many more people involved with this than he’s used to dealing with. If he’s dealing with a couple of companies, how many people are there really going to be in a boardroom versus a plane full of passengers and a group of hijackers?
This is true, but that said, in acquisitions and mergers, it turns out the two bosses are being advised by the board to make the right decision. And it’s not unheard for the negotiating team to just be, “Hey, your board member over there, he’s already applied for a new job. Just saying,” you know what I’m saying? They will go really deep in their tactics to get information.
He’s used to being in control with his job, so how is he handling this feeling where he can’t really be in control?
Sam doesn’t like that. Sam does not like being told that this is impossible, that your fate has been decided, just sit there with your seatbelt on. He doesn’t like that. And also I think when we meet Sam, we realize that his life, his personal life is in shambles, and he’s only on that flight because he wants to go home and try and fix that. Suddenly he gets on one flight where they decide to hijack and he’s like, “No, no, no, no, no, no. You can hijack another flight, not this one. I’m going home.” That becomes his real drive.
Does he want to fix his personal relationship because he wants that fixed or also because he doesn’t want to fail at something?
I think it’s because he knows he’s failed and now he’s in a situation where his life is going to be taken. And I think he feels like if there’s anything to throw my entire life at, it’s this moment, and that’s what he does.
Hijack, Wednesdays, Apple TV+
