Truth be told, Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller‘s latest film The Gorge is a unique, slightly confusing offering for a Valentine’s Day release. The Gorge combines guns, action and mysterious, deadly beings with a romantic love story for the ages. But while the action-romance film may be a mixed bag, I think it’s important to remember what Charli xcx says — everything is romantic — before you move on to the next film on your watch-list.
The Gorge is about two trained snipers: an American soldier named Levi (Teller) and a Lithuanian assassin named Drasa (Taylor-Joy). For separate reasons, the pair are appointed a very mysterious year-long job guarding a watchtower on either side of a giant, cavernous gorge. For a year, they are completely alone, unsure of what exactly they’re guarding and completely forbidden to make contact with the person occupying the other watch tower.
However, despite the very unique circumstances, love starts to blossom.
According to Anya and Miles, it was the genre-bending aspect of the script that attracted them to the project. While their characters are cold-blooded killers, the romance they encounter is wholehearted, pure and fitting for a Valentine’s Day release.
“Without giving anything away, this movie truly tests the limitations of Levi and Drasa’s relationship,” Miles explains to PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“I think that they show the fullest version of love and what that means is sacrificing yourself, if need be, for someone else. There’s truly nothing that can keep them apart.”
Despite being long-time friends with a “familial bond”, The Gorge is the first time that Anya and Miles found themselves sharing the screen. They say it’s been a long time coming.
“I’ve always felt like you were family,” Anya tells Miles.
“And then we went through this experience together and now that’s just strengthened that in such an intense way. I think the beauty of how well you get along with my husband and I get along with your wife, and the adventures that we all go on together — it’s really beautiful.”
For Miles, his friendship with Anya made the endless days spent filming so much easier.
“When you’re filming, it’s really long days. And for this movie, it took place over several months. It’s a long time to spend with one another,” he said.
“You’re relying on someone, not only just in a professional matter but, in a sense, there’s an intimacy there that when it’s already kind of built-in, it allows freedom, because you just know that the other person has your back but there are going to be times when you really need to step up and make sure that everything’s okay for that person too.”
In the first half of the film, there are moments where Levi and Drasa are communicating across a gorge purely through signs and body language. Although both Miles and Anya wanted to be there for each other during those scenes, they quickly learnt that it was kind of impossible.
“We tried really hard, and in rehearsal and pre-production, we were like, ‘okay, no matter what, we’re going to be there for the other person off camera’ because it’s so important,” said Miles.
“I promise the will was there,” Anya chimed in.
“The will was there,” Miles confirmed with a laugh. “Then, on the first day of filming, we put Anya up on a lift, and she’s 100 feet away. It wasn’t the right eye line, and I couldn’t even see her. I had no idea what she was doing. And so then we lowered her down and said, ‘Okay, you’re here in spirit’.”
However, Miles and Anya are still convinced their tight bond came in handy when they put together the pieces they missed.
“I think our friendship definitely lent itself towards that easy chemistry,” Anya explains.
“What we would do is we would show up and we would watch whatever the other had done the day before, so we knew what we were reacting to. But then, it also made it really exciting when we actually got to cross the gorge and be with each other. That was a really fun day on set.”
The Gorge starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy premieres 14 February 2025 on Apple TV+
