In late 2020, Kai Alexander received an e-mail from his agent that was both opportune and frightening. Its subject line read: “Untitled Apple TV Plus miniseries with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.” He clicked on the e-mail and learned that the show, Masters of the Air—which premieres on Apple TV+ this Friday—is based on Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction book about the 100th Bomb Group, an air-force unit during World War II. Alexander imagined a clean-cut, muscular, all-American actor for the role. He took a look at his slim frame and shoulder-length ginger locks in the mirror and said to himself, “Oh God, this is all wrong. This is not it.”
Alexander, a 26-year-old actor from the West Midlands, in England, tied his hair back for his first audition and was sure the casting team wouldn’t give him a callback. But a few months later, he was summoned to a two-week basic military training course in the outskirts of London with the 40 other cast members of Masters of the Air, including Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, and Callum Turner.
“The cast is stacked,” says Alexander, eyes wide, looking awestruck. “Nothing quite prepares you for [working with] Steve and Tom … these Hollywood titans who set the bar at the highest level. As a new guy coming in, it’s such an amazing opportunity.”
“The cast is stacked.”
Alexander spent his days at boot camp marching, disarming and arming bombs, shooting and reloading .50-caliber machine guns, and doing sit-ups and push-ups alongside Hollywood heavyweights. The actors had to wear gloves while holding the guns because their hands could stick to the weapon in the freezing London weather. They were taught how to board a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress—a bomber aircraft used in World War II—and Alexander learned, much to his relief, that airmen had to be slender to fit inside the tight confines of the bomb bay. After drills, the actors ate together and watched movies from the 1930s and 1940s.
The meticulous instruction and training were done under the supervision of Captain Dale Dye, a decorated army veteran turned Hollywood technical adviser for war films and shows, such as Band of Brothers and The Pacific. “He taught us how to work as a unit because you’re only ever as good as the other guys that you’re playing with, and you’re all fighting for the same thing,” Alexander tells me. “What boot camp instilled in all of us was that we had the platform to represent these veterans.... We’re the vessels to them.”
The first glimpse of Alexander’s character, Sergeant William Quinn—who is based on a real-life young radio operator from Washington—is in the pilot episode. The soldiers are eating breakfast at the base before going on a mission when, suddenly, one of them spills the salt shaker on the table. Quinn soberly asks him to toss the salt over his shoulder to reverse the bad luck.
“All of those guys are completely nervous before going on a mission. It comes out in different ways. Quinn gets obsessed with superstitions,” explains Alexander. “Captain Dale told us that a lot of these guys took lucky charms with them [on missions].... I bought a sterling-silver salt shaker that was made on the West Coast in the 1930s on eBay.” Alexander put it in his pocket whenever he went to set, using it as Quinn’s lucky charm.
Alexander wanted to completely embody the soldier by only speaking with a 1940s American accent for the duration of filming—both on and off the set. The shoot was extended from four months to nine because of coronavirus restrictions, so by the time Alexander arrived home for the holidays in December 2022, he had forgotten his own voice.
“On the day we wrapped, some guys came up to me and said, ‘We finally wrapped! Let’s hear British Kai again. Where is he?’ But I sounded like a bad impression of British Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins,” says Alexander. “I was like, What is this? It came out all wrong, and I immediately reverted back to Quinn’s voice because my voice was not ready for public consumption.”
On January 10, Alexander attended the Masters of the Air premiere, in Los Angeles. “You see everybody again as a group—we were so separated during filming—and it took me right back to the beginning, that moment when you’re reminded of the weight of the whole thing,” says Alexander. He left his salt shaker back home in Worcestershire, and his American accent is gone.
“The [soldiers] jumped on a plane knowing that they would stare death in the face every single time,” says Alexander. “If we can show and portray to viewers a tiny bit of what that was like, the facts and realities of it, and pay respects to these guys who we owe our lives to, then that’s just incredible.”
Masters of the Air will be available for streaming on Apple TV+ beginning January 26
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Carolina de Armas is an Associate Editor at AIR MAIL
