Austin Butler and Callum Turner Star In Spielberg’s Spectacular New War Story | This Morning

And stars of Masters of the Air and Spin to Win, Austin Butler and Callum Turner. Not in that order. Join us now, guys. So good to have you with us. It really is. Thanks for having us. So, I mean, we saw it there, it's obviously about the American Air Force and the Second World War coming over here and then, you know, storming Fortress Europe. But tell us, from your description, what Masters of the Air is about. I mean, it really is about the 100th Bomb Group who flew over Germany, Nazi Germany at that time and, yeah, we played two of the pilots that a lot of the young guys looked up to. Yeah. How do you describe it? Just like that. But this is the thing. We love Band of Brothers. Yeah. And so this is Band of Brothers, the Pacific. This is the next in that lineage. It's about the people that saved the world, you know. These guys really changed the direction of the war and without them we wouldn't be doing what we're doing now. So, to honour them and play them and tell their stories is a beautiful thing. Oh, yeah. To do it on such an epic level as well, Steven Spielberg, you can just tell because it has that movie feel to a series. And I heard that you guys did like a proper boot camp to get in the zone for this, didn't you? Yeah, we did. Like in the wind, the rain, the cold. Yeah. The sunshine. What, we do like press-ups? Like drills and stuff? Yeah, we did the sit-ups and push-ups and runs and all that. Would it be like how you would sort of live with each other in the same kind of compound kind of thing? Or how did that work? Yeah, because of COVID we weren't at that time, but we would spend all day there. Because I grew up watching like, you know, Platoon was a big show when I was a kid. And then I was in like, I go into Band of Brothers and a few of my mates that were actors at the time auditioned for Band of Brothers and the name that keeps coming back is Dale Dye. Yeah. Who's this guy who was in Platoon. He was a real life soldier and then he went on to be a military advisor and you mentioned him in my notes. I mean, he's a force of nature, isn't he? I was quite starstruck by him, to be honest. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, because Captain Dale Dye, he led the boot camps for Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, Band of Brothers. He's the guy that Tropic Thunder is based off of. Yeah. Really? Yeah. No. So that kind of gives you an idea of what we did for our training. Yeah. Oh my. And he is, and the thing is he's not a bad actor either. No, he's great. Because he has like bit parts in all these movies and things have been in these and he's really good. You mentioned it Callum, there's a kind of duty to, there's a responsibility I think as actors to get these stories right because obviously, you know, you've played many parts and you know, you've relatively young careers, but there's something about playing like soldiers and airmen like this that you don't want to get wrong, correct? Yeah. I mean, look, these guys, what they did was for us and there is always a level of responsibility and when you're taking on a real person, you know, you've got to honour their legacy. Yeah. And, you know, I'm so grateful to them for what they did. You've got a family connection to the service as well. My granddad was in the war, yeah. He was 16 years old, he came home and he was one of 13 and he gave my great-grandmother a piece of paper to sign and said it's for a school trip, but it wasn't. No! It was to join the army. Wow. At 16? At 16, yeah. Wow. He must have been in so much trouble with that. Yeah, I think so, yeah. So, it's just so amazing to, like you say, you're both portraying real-life people, Buck and Bucky, becoming best mates and there's loads of scenes, obviously, of you two together going through a lot early on. What was it like when you're actually in the cockpit of those planes? There's so much happening and obviously, were you almost surrounded by screens or was it green screen? Yeah, yeah. In the past, you may do this with just green screen, but we had this technology where there were these high-definition screens in a horseshoe shape and we're in a gimbal that's 50 feet in the air. So, you're suspended? So, you're suspended and you're able to see fighter pilots flying by you and flack in the air. Really? That's incredible. Yeah, it's kind of incredible. So, did it help you? But that was matched with the old school way of doing things, so they built the barracks, they built the officers' mess, I think they built like 81 buildings. The place was so big, they had to give us a map and they said, this is where that is, that's where this is. And then we had the runway too, which was just gigantic. The scale is like... Steven Spielberg says this is the biggest production he's ever worked on. So, would they literally pump the sound and everything? So, when you're ducking, would it give you a real reaction? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you're on the gimbal, so it's in sync with what you see, so if the plane is hit by flack, you're hit by flack. Wow. Seriously? Truly, yeah, it's wonderful. So, did you get the opportunity to go up in an old aircraft as well? Like, did they do that for you? Not to film, just to experience it? No, no, no. That's a shame. But it sounds like you... Well, we were up there for like seven hours at times and we were joked that we had jet legs. You know? Yeah, because it's challenging getting in and out of the gimbal, so they leave you up there all day, basically. Because, like, with Band of Brothers, those guys just about had that connection with that generation that they were still alive, so they could meet them and they could still tap into it. Yeah. Did you guys get a chance, because these guys are in the past now, did you guys get a chance to meet the families or how much did you want to receive? Well, we did at the premiere. At the premiere, I don't like to do that, to be honest, because then you get an idea, someone else's idea of the person you're playing, but we met them at the premiere in LA, it was emotional. It was very emotional. You know, playing someone's father or someone's uncle. Exactly, that Band of Brothers generation, like, those guys that are now in their 40s and they've got those parts when they're in their 20s. But also, think about the people that come through there, Michael Fassbender, Angie Scott. Absolutely. Yeah, Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy. Yeah. Incredible actors that, you know, graduated through that show. What amazes me about the generation you're playing is that they were young men and yet they were seen as kind of the established, like, you know, the officer class that the younger guys coming through were looking up to. The weight of responsibility on their shoulders, did that come across for you guys when you were reading the parts? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, to be in your mid-20s and to be leading a squadron, and some of those guys were 16, you know, they were so young. Yeah. And the bravery, I mean, it was the most treacherous conditions that you could possibly imagine. Yeah, I mean, the bloody hundreds were, I mean, extraordinary, weren't they? Because they were based in Norfolk, around that way, wasn't it? They had a 77 percent, you'd either be shot down or end up in a POW, 23 percent survival rate, you know? Every time you went up. Yeah. The bravery, what these guys had and what they were able to do against the adversity that they were facing was truly astonishing. Yeah. You can see it, and you can see that, obviously, it was so important to get that camaraderie between you all, even just as actors, you obviously spent a lot of time together, became good mates. I saw that you did have a bit of fun on set, as well, with this cockpit challenge. Oh, yeah, the cockpit challenge. Who was the better one of the two? I'll let Callum talk about that. Whose idea was this? I'm glad you brought that up, Sian. Okay, come on. On your first day, as well. Sorry. Yeah, Austin was better than me at that. What exactly was that? Is it you getting... It was a training exercise, so you start on your stomach on the ground, and you have to get into your seat in the cockpit as quickly as possible. But you have to lift yourself up backwards, is it? You have to get in through the hatch, yeah, and you have all the gear on. It wasn't an easy... He did it in 5.5 seconds, and I did it at 8.8, but we don't like to talk about that anyway. To be fair, mitigating circumstances, Callum, you are quite a unit, though, so... I'm much bigger than him. Thank you, sir. Yeah, because I don't imagine the pilots would have been... He did it, and there was no sound in the plane. I did it, it was like... How much time have you been able to spend with Tom Hanks and Kent Spielberg on this? Because obviously, like you said, this is like the culmination, it's like the end of their trilogy, I suppose, having done Band of Brothers and Ryan and The Pacific and now this. Yeah, this has been such a huge part of their life, and I mean, it was so special. The days at boot camp where Tom came and gave a rousing speech for all the guys there, and yeah, it's the best team in the business. Did you know you were doing this when you worked with him on Elvis? I knew right towards the end, right towards the end, because at that time, I didn't know what was going to happen with Elvis, so I was looking for my next job. Tom said, I've got this World War II thing that we're working on, and that's kind of how it came. You're like, great, what do I say? Yeah, yeah. But he almost tells you on the set of Elvis, like, gives you the tap, like, you're in. Yeah, basically. That's so cool. That's amazing. I mean, it's great as well, because obviously you have to get into the accent. You had to do it for Elvis, like, it became a whole, took over your life, didn't it? And now it's a sort of similar Southern draw that you can use again. And Cal, you've had to totally get into the accent, right? Yeah, I did an accent, yeah. Yeah, but it's hard. No, you know what? We had two beautiful dialect coaches, Helen Ashton and Brett Tyne, and we worked every day for hours, you know, at the beginning. Is it like literally that long? Yeah, it's tough. It's that long. Yeah, you want to, you know, this is, like you say, it's a responsibility, and you don't want to slip, and that was an important part for me, and they looked after us. That's amazing. Well, listen, guys, thanks a million. Thank you. We love you chatting to you. Thank you very much. It's so cool. Your work over there. Oh, yeah. That method. Have you got 750? Not to be sniffed at. You know, we'll congratulate us round here, Calum. Yes, we'd have all liked three grand, but it can't happen all the time. Next time. Wow. Hush. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is how it used to be. Come back tomorrow. You can stream Masters of the Air on Apple TV Plus from Friday. Thanks a million, guys. Come on. Thank you so much.