Anthony Boyle on Coming to the Forefront in Apple TV’s ‘Masters of the Air’

Apple TV’s Masters of the Air is not lacking for star power. Oscar nominees Autin Butler and Barry Keoghan, along with rising actor Callum Turner, have bigger names and are given stronger personalities to play. However, the heart of the series turns out to be Anthony Boyle’s character, Harry Crosby, the real life navigator of the 100th flying division that bombed targets in Berlin and helped turn the war in the allies favor. Through Boyle’s delicate performance, Harry Crosby sneaks up on you as a character, and becomes the person the viewer can most relate to. Harry isn’t cool, overly charismatic, or forthcoming. He’s the type of person who goes along with the crowd and becomes one of your best mates, but never the life of the party. But in Masters of the Air, it is his character that feels the most like how the average person would be in such an impossible situation as war. He is the viewer, in a way. And through Harry’s eyes and then actions, he slowly comes to the center, and takes gentle grip of the series in ways bound to surprise those watching the series.

Anthony Boyle and I discuss Harry’s progression, his doubts, his guilt, and also his courage to fight through and become one of the most important men in the 100th.

Awards Daily: What I found interesting is that in a show with Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, and Callum Turner, the character with the fullest arc ended up being Crosby, played by you, Anthony.

Anthony Boyle: They give me a series outline. They give me a sort of breakdown of what was going to happen and who he was and what he was up to. He narrates it, you know, so I sort of knew what I was getting into and what his arc was going to be when I started it. I was really thrilled to do it.

Awards Daily: There’s a slow build for your character. The narration, like you said, is a tip off, but your character becomes more and more significant and I think of all the characters in the show, Harry changes the most. He starts out as a not particularly good navigator, but who eventually becomes the lead navigator for the 100th division. I also think he is the character most viewers will end up relating to.

Anthony Boyle: When I was reading it on the page, everyone felt like a ready made hero. Everyone felt like they had honor. They knew what they were going to do. They were going to go up in these tin cans and bring it to the Nazis, and Crosby just felt like he wasn’t that guy. He was nervous. He was afraid. He didn’t feel like he was one of these sorts of pilots that could get up there and do it. He had air sickness, for Christ’s sake, the most disabling thing ever for someone going up in the air to have. When you read his memoirs, he writes with such humor and such self-deprecation that you really do fall in love with him. And yeah, he’s the most unlikely hero. I think that’s what makes him a great hero, the idea that true bravery is being afraid and doing it anyway. Crosby really embodies that. He’s not just like yeah, let’s do it. Let’s take it to them. He’s genuinely thinking I’m terrified, I’m throwing up, I’m shaking, but I’m going to get up there and I’m going to do it. He’s a real inspiration, a really amazing human being.

Awards Daily: He goes from being in the air, to on the ground when he becomes head navigator. So much of that job at the time was done with eyeballing from the sky and maps on the ground, there’s no technology that really is making this any easier for them. After he gets promoted, the first mission that he leads as a navigator goes poorly. You get that sense of guilt that he has.

Anthony Boyle: Yeah. It’s almost harder to not be in on the missions, to not be actively doing something and fighting against something, to be on the ground and sending off your friends to almost certain death. I think 77% of the men never made it back, they were either dead or captured or shot down. To know that and be sending off your friends, your brothers, and know I’m planning these missions. It’s me that’s putting them into Berlin or wherever, and that’s hanging over my head. It’s the judgment, the onus is on me. It’s me that’s doing this. Just being at the air base and wrestling with that is such a strange thing.

Awards Daily: Then he has to send them back on the same path. When you were playing him at that moment, you have to register the shock and the duty and then somehow get on with it, and Harry is probably the most sensitive character in the show. All of those things swirling together: duty, terror, and is this even a good idea? Am I the right person to be doing this?

Anthony Boyle: I think, in terms of how I was trying to get it across on screen, you’re just trying to put yourself into his mind frame and emotional landscape. You watch a lot of documentaries, you read a lot of books, you think what would it be like if I were this guy, and how would it feel to be doing that? You just try to sit in the nerves and sit in the anxiety that he would be feeling and then I don’t really worry about how it’s going to come across. I just tried to make my body feel what he would feel and then hopefully the camera picks it up.

Awards Daily: The death rate, which I imagine you learned doing your research, just had to be astonishing to take in–especially the early going. Considering the fragility of these planes, was it mind blowing to you at times how any of them ever came home?

Anthony Boyle: It’s just so shocking what these men went through, and they really were like real life superheroes. They saved the world, they really did. I think a lot of film and TV that’s made now exists in the gray area. It’s like well, that’s interesting, and how would I feel, but this is such a simple story. It’s such a parable of good versus evil and good is triumphant. I think it’s kind of important to have these stories these days where we’re the good guys, we won, particularly when everything is so fucked in the world.

Awards Daily: There’s that great scene where you discover the letter that your best friend has written to your wife in case you die and you have to read that. You have to just express that pain and emotion without speaking. Was that a pivotal scene for you to just sort of let people in on what kind of person Harry was?

Anthony Boyle: Up until that point, Harry’s appeasing people. He’s very quick to smile and go along. You kind of feel that in your shoulders a little bit. Then there’s so much stress and anxiety built up and then it’s just this one release. I made up a lot of fake memories of what me and Bubbles (played by Louis Greatorex) would have been up to and what we would have been doing. Then I got him to record the letter on WhatsApp, and then sent it to an AD and said, I just want to hear it. I don’t want to actually read anything. I just want to hear the actor’s voice. And then your emotions just take over and whatever happens, happens. It was emotional, because then until they call cut, you really do feel like you’ve lost someone. It’s like you’re really in it and then “Cut”. Suddenly you’re like oh, okay, let’s have a cup of tea. (Laughs). It was great. Louis did a really good job with the voiceover. It was really emotional.

Awards Daily: What your character goes through is so difficult that the military recognizes that he needs a break, so they send you off to Oxford. Harry is the epitome of an honorable character. He’s married, and he loves his wife, but he does have this affair in Oxford. It’s against Harry’s morals to have an affair, but you make us understand why Harry, so far away from his wife that he might as well be on a different planet, and dealing with all of this uncertainty, would step outside of his marriage.

Anthony Boyle: Crosby has a good line in the show. He says some people drank, some people slept around. If you got a chance to forget, you took it. When we talk about mental health or therapy or whatever, these are all new buzzwords the last 15 years. This is the forties. These people are watching people get their heads blown off and then just “stiff upper lip.” There’s no sort of oh, let’s talk about that. So, you hit the bottle or you find solace or comfort in a woman. That was what they did, and I think we can’t judge it through a modern lens or judge it through our own moralistic standpoint. I’ve never been to war. I don’t know what that’s like. There was a bit of a conjecture of whether he did have the affair or not. I spoke to Crosby’s family. All of the daughters say that he didn’t and all of the sons say that he did, which I think says a lot about men and women, more than it says about Crosby. (Laughs).

Awards Daily: Your affair is with Sandra, played by Bel Powley. Her character’s actually a stronger personality than Harry’s. She’s the more forward of the two of you, which is not how we typically think of men in general, but certainly not men of the forties. Was it interesting to play a man who is more of the pursued than the pursuer?

Anthony Boyle: It was a lot of fun. I know what you’re saying. He’s a nervous kind of guy, and she’s more forthcoming and forthright with her sort of sexual advances. I think that was probably all new for him and that was very exciting. Working with Bel was great. She’s a legend. She’s such a good actress. I’ve been a fan of hers for so long, so when they told me Bel was going to do that role, I was beside myself. I think she’s such a talent. Some of my favorite scenes in the whole show are the scenes with her and I. There were 250 lads on set, it was all men. Then suddenly I was just in Oxford with Bel walking around these lovely sort of sets and these little cocktail parties. This feels like a holiday. This doesn’t feel like work. This feels really nice. So it was a real treat to get to work with her. I’d love to work with her again.

Awards Daily: Sandra is more realistic about the affair than Harry is. It’s not only her who starts their relationship, but she’s also the one who decides what it really means, which is another moment when Harry suffered a personal loss.

Anthony Boyle: Just before I shot that scene, I just got told my grandfather died. So I can’t really remember what I was thinking in the scene. I just remember going all right, I have to get a flight back to Belfast. But I remember it was really well written, and I thought it was a cool moment. Maybe if there was any emotion or any acting in that scene, it’s just from a lot of grief or something. It was a good scene. Working with Bel was a real treat, man. A real delight to get to work with an actress of her caliber and to have all those scenes. It was a real joy.

Awards Daily: These three shows are more like cousins than brothers: Band of Brothers, The Pacific and then Masters of the Air, with Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman standing behind each show. Considering the two predecessors, did you feel the enormity of being a part of this trio of series?

Anthony Boyle: I was filming a thing called Tetris in Glasgow, and it was in complete lockdown. Restaurants were shut, everything was shut. I was just in a hotel room and they were like yeah, the director’s okay, he really likes it. Tom Hanks is okay, he really likes it. The other guy, Gary Goetzman, is okay, he really likes it. We’re just waiting on the last producer to give the okay. The last producer was Spielberg. And I was just like fuck me, man, just pacing around this apartment because there was nowhere to go. Then I would go out and walk the streets of Glasgow, and it was freezing, and then I’d walk back to the apartment. Then I got the call on Thanksgiving from my team, and they were like yeah, he loved it, and everyone’s okayed you, and you got the job, kid. I had no one to celebrate with because I was just in a hotel room on my own. (Laughs). I thought do I ring people? I want to tell them in person, so I just sat on the information for about a week. When I got back to Ireland, I told my whole family and we had an excellent celebration. Because of the history of Band of Brothers and The Pacific, I sort of knew that it would be a big deal, and it was. It was great, man. It was amazing to get that phone call.

Awards Daily: To be a part of television history must feel wonderful. 

Anthony Boyle: It’s so cool, man. It feels so special. Growing up watching Band of Brothers, watching The Pacific, it was like the pinnacle of TV. It’s the pinnacle of what you want to do as a young actor. To be a part of telling that third installment and that third story feels like a real honor.