007 frontrunner Aaron Taylor-Johnson reveals all about explosive bootcamp training with bomb disposal expert for new role

Since starting out as a child actor in the early 200os, Aaron Taylor–Johnson's career has seen him take on a vast array of varied roles – everything from a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy to vampire skeptic Friedrich Harding in Nosferatu.

But his latest role in crime thriller Fuze – out next week in UK cinemas – required him to do something very different to all of his previous credits: attend a boot camp run by an expert in explosives.

The film sees Taylor-Johnson playing a bomb disposal expert who is called in when an unexploded World War II bomb is found in central London, and it seems that no stone was left unturned in the production's efforts to make him truly understand the nature of the assignment.

"That experience was a lot of fun, and a real honour and a privilege to be able to do something like that," the star explained in an exclusive interview with Radio Times at the film's London premiere. "Because it is interesting where your jobs take you, where you get to sort of experience and work with expertise.

"We worked on a military ground – it all had to be very safe and you had to go through all these different protocols and stuff like that," he added. "But yeah, [it was] amazing to understand the process of what needs to be done in order to dispose of a bomb. It is an extraordinary experience.

He added that the cast "brought a lot of that to the movie," explaining that the goal of director David McKenzie was to make sure everything that featured in the film was "authentic and real, and rooted in reality."

He continued: "Even though [it's] high concept and it's a heist movie, it's a popcorn movie, everybody had to do their routine and work with the people.

"I worked with an EOD specialist, Gugu Mbatha-Raw worked with someone in the police department, and we all had to do our research and our work so that we could do it justice in a way."

Ahead of the film's release Radio Times also spoke to the man who ran the bootcamp – EOD specialist Nick Orr – who revealed that he didn't want the cast to have an easy ride of it.

"I needed to introduce the cast to explosives, and the range is run by a friend of mine [so] I said. ‘As safely as you can, I want to scare them.’," he explained – before revealing one of the first courses of action.

"We blew up a pig's head from a butcher’s to show what explosives do to flesh," he said. "It's grim, but it's true. It's factual. And it gives them something to base their response on."

Fuze is released in UK cinemas on Friday 3 April.

Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.