You thought losing your luggage was the worst thing that could happen at the airport? Taron Egerton begs to differ. The Rocketman and Kingsman star is taking on his next assignment: Carry-On. In the new thriller, Egerton plays Ethan Kopek, a TSA agent who’s blackmailed by a mysterious traveler (Jason Bateman), inducing perhaps the most airport anxiety ever.

Carry-On director Jaume Collet-Serra specializes in this kind of one-location thriller; he previously directed Non-Stop and The Commuter, in which Liam Neeson faces bad guys on a plane and a train, respectively. “Contained environments force us to get to know the movie’s characters very quickly and personally — we’re immediately in the thick of the story with them, which creates a genuine investment in what’s happening on-screen,” Collet-Serra said. “It’s also a very exciting visual challenge as a filmmaker to come up with creative ways to shoot every inch of a small space and try to make it look different and find new details of the world in each scene.”

The film marks the first collaboration between Netflix and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, a partnership that was announced in 2021.

What is Carry-On about?

Written by T.J. Fixman (the Ratchet & Clank video games) and Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049), Carry-On follows young TSA agent Ethan (Egerton) as he fights to outsmart a mysterious traveler who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.

Egerton, best known for his turn as dashing secret service recruit Gary “Eggsy” Unwin in the Kingsman franchise and his remarkable transformation into rock legend Elton John in Rocketman, was eager to drop the flash and slip into a more “everyman” character.

“When Jaume first approached me about the role, I told him I didn’t want to do something that felt like an archetypal action hero,” Egerton told Netflix. “Luckily, neither of us thought that’s what was exciting or interesting about Ethan. What we kept our eyes on was making sure that we made him feel as relatable and as normal as possible … whatever normal is in the extraordinary situation he’s in.”

The high-stakes circumstances come courtesy of Jason Bateman’s sinister villain, whom Ethan initially meets as a voice through headphones that threatens his pregnant girlfriend (Sofia Carson) if he doesn’t comply with instructions.

For Collet-Serra, Egerton and Bateman were a match made in heaven. “We all wanted this to feel incredibly realistic, like the events of this movie could happen to any of us on any given day at any airport, and Jason and Taron delivered brilliant performances that helped ground our movie and make it feel real,” Collet-Serra said. “I think they also very much enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game between their two characters and really had a great time making a meal out of those moments.”

Who’s in the cast of Carry-On?

Carry-On stars: * Taron Egerton (Rocketman, Kingsman: The Secret Service) * Jason Bateman (Ozark, Arrested Development) * Sofia Carson (Purple Hearts, the upcoming The Life List) * Danielle Deadwyler (The Harder They Fall, the upcoming The Piano Lesson) * Sinqua Walls (Friday Night Lights, White Men Can’t Jump) * Logan Marshall-Green (Lou, Upgrade) * Theo Rossi (Emily the Criminal, The Penguin) * Josh Brener (Old Dads, Silicon Valley) * Dean Norris (Breaking Bad, Unfrosted) * Tonatiuh (Angelyne, Promised Land) * Curtiss Cook (West Side Story, The Devil You Know) * Joe Williamson (Ford v Ferrari, Lucy in the Sky) * Gil Perez-Abraham (The Batman, Killer Among Us)

The Carry-On cast had help keeping the film’s airport dynamic realistic: a pair of bona fide TSA agents. “We had two amazing LAX TSA advisors on this movie who gave us so much great information on anything we needed,” Collet-Serra told Netflix. “They put our actors through proper TSA training before we shot the movie, and they were on set to advise us if anything didn’t look realistic.”

So yes, even the film’s most outlandish moments were fact-checked by the airport experts. “In our movie, we have a very funny ‘contraband bingo’ game where all of the TSA agents compete to find certain objects in bags throughout the day,” Collet-Serra said. “Our TSA advisors confirmed they had seen all of these items in bags before!”

When will Carry-On be on Netflix?

Carry-On flies onto Netflix on Dec. 13, just in time for the holidays.

Is Carry-On a Christmas movie?

Yes — like Die Hard, Carry-On is a Christmas movie. “My hope is that Carry-On can be enjoyed all year round as a fun, popcorn thriller,” Collet-Serra says. “But of course, the holiday travel theme is integral to our story, and we definitely had fun with it in terms of Christmas decorations in the airport and some classic holiday tunes in the soundtrack.”

Keep your eye on the arrivals board as we prepare the cabin for landing.