Michael Kelly had imagined his own Dubai moment ever since he saw Tom Cruise scaling Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
When the time came while filming Jack Ryan: Ghost War, however, he discovered he was not quite as fearless.
He had been standing outside a Dubai skyscraper for two or three minutes, some 40 storeys above the ground, while a stunt co-ordinator talked him through what he would have to do. Beneath his feet was a metal grate through which he could see straight down, with railings running along either side.
Kelly thought he was handling it well until the co-ordinator asked whether he felt comfortable and, satisfied with the answer, told him he could let go. Only then did Kelly realise that he had subconsciously been gripping both railings the entire time.
“Consciously, you know you’re safe. But there’s that moment when you look down and say, 'that’s death right there,'” Kelly tells The National. “But then once you get into it, and you’re in character, and you’re filming, and you’re excited, and you’ve got a gun, and you run with it, you forget all about it.”
The visit was a rehearsal for a sequence in which Kelly’s CIA veteran character Mike November would walk out from the building towards a crane.
A few days before filming, the crew wanted him to try the crossing without a harness to establish whether he was comfortable. John Krasinski, who plays Jack Ryan, had already given him some idea of what awaited, sending Kelly a video from the location in a hard hat before turning the camera towards the drop.
Doing it at night was easier than looking down in daylight, he says. By then, he was enjoying the kind of sequence he had readily agreed to when it was first proposed. “I feel like a little kid sometimes on the set. I get to do some really fun stuff on the show.”
Ghost War, which arrived on Prime Video in May, continued the story after four seasons of the television series. It reunited Kelly and Krasinski with Wendell Pierce as James Greer, while Sienna Miller joined as MI6 officer Emma Marlow. An intelligence mission brings the characters to Dubai, where they become embroiled in a confrontation with a rogue operation.
Coming back to Dubai
Kelly has since returned to the city, taking up an invitation that followed the connections he made during filming. He remembers arriving without knowing anyone, meeting a few people and gradually being introduced to others as the shoot progressed.
“They welcomed us with open arms here to do Jack Ryan, and we felt the love from the minute we got here,” he says. “It was really easy to fall into it, and the graciousness, the hospitality that everyone showed us was incredible.”
Away from the set, he explored the food and took a trip into the desert to ride dune buggies. Working on Jack Ryan has taken him around the world, and the practical experience of living in each location becomes part of the job. In Dubai, he particularly appreciated being able to find his way around with confidence.
“You hear a common theme here that Dubai is so convenient, and it’s truly what it is. It’s such a convenient place to be,” he says. “Everyone is so welcoming and kind, and you can trust people.”
The visit also brought him into contact with people who have made the city their home. He noticed how often a conversation would begin with someone describing a holiday or an exploratory trip, only to reveal that they ended up staying for years.
When an invitation to return came up during a meeting on his earlier visit, he was interested immediately. “This opportunity came up, and I was like, 'oh my gosh, I’d love to have any excuse to come back.'”
The future of Jack Ryan
On set in Dubai, Kelly was also campaigning for another Jack Ryan outing. It has become a recurring appeal whenever the cast reaches a new location: “Come on, one more.” Miller has begun joining in, and Kelly has suggested taking his own character further.
“I’ve pitched a spin-off to them,” he says. He gives no details of the pitch or whether it will progress, but is keen to continue working with the cast.
“We’re all very dear friends,” Kelly says. “When you find people that you get on with like that, and you get to travel the world and see places on someone else’s dime, it’s just a treat if you enjoy the people you’re around.”
Those friendships have already changed what audiences see on screen. Kelly joined the series in its second season, when November was a CIA station chief. As the character moved outside the agency, Krasinski began drawing on their real-life bond.
“The way that character was in season two, which was my first season, to the character he became – that was John writing to our friendship and the way that we interacted,” Kelly says. “Once I took the suit and tie off and left the CIA to go do what I thought was the right thing, he just wrote more towards that.”
November has given Kelly more room for humour after roles such as political fixer Doug Stamper in House of Cards. It has also allowed him to develop a character within the world created by novelist Tom Clancy, whose stories have been adapted for the screen by a number of the industry's biggest names.
“That’s kind of one of the cool things about our show is that we keep the theme of the character of Jack Ryan alive, but we’re telling new stories,” he says. “That’s always the hope, is just to keep telling these stories, because they’re cool, fun stories.”
