Image Source: 20th Century Studios, IMDb, Variety

Simon Kinberg is one of the biggest names in the Hollywood industry. The writer, director, and producer has undertaken some really exceptional films over time and is presently amassing appreciation with his film The 355. 

The film is written by Theressa Rebeck and Kinberg and stars Jessica Chastain as Mason "Mace" Brown, Diane Kruger as her rival German agent Marie. Other stars are Lupita Nyong'o and Penelope Cruze in the roles of a computer specialist, and Colombian psychologist, respectively. The film is exceptional for its mostly female cast while being shot on the lines of a Bond movie. 

Recently, Simon Kinberg talked with Collider and gave inside details about the workings of films like Deadpool, X-Men, The Martian, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and more. 

When asked which of Kinberg's works would the director recommend to people who first got acquainted with his works, he answered, "I'm going to give you two answers. The movie that most expresses me as a person is X-Men: Days of Future Past. And the reason for that is I love comic books, as you know. I love the X-Men, as you know. I grew up loving those books." The writer elaborated, "It was, in every way, the most complex script to write I've ever written because of the time travel and all of the time paradoxes and all of that." 

The writer went on to give a sneak peek into his life, saying, "Also, and then this is the part that might be surprising, and maybe we've spoken about this before, it was the most personal movie I've ever written. It was a time in my life I had just gotten divorced… where what Professor Xavier was going through in that movie, a man who needed to find hope again, was what I was going through as a man who needed to find hope again."

His next movie of choice is Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Insisting that he is a fun guy, Kinsberg shared, "I think Mr. & Mrs. Smith has a tone. I wrote it when I was really young. I was in film school, and I just was... I kind of wrote it really free. It's a long time ago, and I've evolved since then, and I have four kids since then, and the world has changed, but there is a playfulness to that film, and a sort of riskiness to that film that I think is also me." 

The writer then proceeded to share his experience with Deadpool. He revealed, "What's interesting about Deadpool one is it one of those films, and this is really a testament to Ryan and Tim, and to Paul and Rhett, the writers, but to Ryan Reynolds and Tim Miller is that it just kept testing higher and higher and higher in post as they kept doing more and more work."

Simon Kinberg is also famous for Sherlock Holmes, The Martian, and 355. Regardless, Deadpool continues to be the best of his works yet. He himself admitted, "Deadpool was one, where I can't remember if it was one or two, where it was 99 with a 90% definite recommend. It was numbers that the studio had never seen before." "It might have been Deadpool one," he finally decided.

The producer shared that Deadpool was such a surprise that he literally fell down the stairs and gave himself a black eye after partying too hard from the excitement. 

Recounting that one particular event, he shared, "I remember I partied a little too hard on Valentine's Day, just drinking, which I barely ever do. Drinking even, I mean. I'm just a clumsy Jew." He continued, "And I fell down, and I gave myself a black eye by falling down, and I had to show up on set on that Monday or Tuesday with a black eye having gone to New York and been like, "I get it. I partied too hard. Blame Deadpool. None of us ever saw this coming." I got smacked in the face by this historic release."

The producer and director then continued to talk about the Bond movies. The film has an impressive handheld camera shoot setup, where DP, Tim Maurice-Jones helped direct the video for the scenes. Sharing why so much of the film is not shot on cameras on stands but by hand, Kinberg shared, "I really liked his work because it's so kinetic. That's the word that we kept using throughout the movie. I think it's the aesthetic he brought to the film. We have a handheld in pretty much every scene."

He revealed, "We have it throughout the action, but we also have it into dialogue scenes so that nothing feels too static and staged and too much like you're watching a play. It just feels like it's moving the way that life moves, right?"

The 355 is a spy movie, just like the Bond films, and while the Bond films featured a lone woman as the Bond girl, The 355 plays with elements, exactly the opposite. Kinberg shared, "We joked about Sebastian and Edgar Ramirez being the Bond boys."

Sharing how Sebastian Stan and Ramirez got their roles, the producer said, "We chose them because, one, they're obviously great actors. Two, they're great-looking guys, the way that you would choose a Bond boy, but also because they're friends."

The 355 has a mostly female spy cast; Credits: The Wrap

"There was no audition. We met for breakfast in New York. He read the script. He liked it. He was in," he revealed. "Edgar is a really close friend of Jessica's and then became a really close friend of mine once we made the movie." The cast of the film is one of the most beautiful ensembles of castmates, and Kinberg joked how all his male and female spies are so "gorgeous." The film is now running in theaters.