Aaron Taylor-Johnson on Working With Armani, <i>Werwulf</i>, and Watches

When Aaron Taylor-Johnson and I spoke on the phone last week—he was at the Cipriani in Venice; I was in a bedroom in Brooklyn—the world had yet to suffer the loss of a fashion luminary. But Giorgio Armani was on both our minds regardless. Il Maestro was deeply enmeshed with the film industry, outfitting A-listers both on- and offscreen for the better part of 50 years. It’s only natural, then, that the Italian designer was also a supporter of the Venice Biennale, the parent organization of the Venice Film Festival. And it’s just as natural that Taylor-Johnson—an actor, of course, but also an Armani Beauty ambassador—would be in attendance, hitting the red carpet while taking in all the glitz and glamour of the proceedings throughout the city.

“Giorgio Armani has always had one foot in the world of movies,” says the 35-year-old English star of movies like 28 Years Later, Nosferatu, and Kraven the Hunter. “I mean, he’s such an incredible fashion designer, but he’s historically done suits for Scorsese movies, for DiCaprio and De Niro. I think he’s just a huge lover of film. And here, it feels like it all kind of coincides—the film, the glam, the arts.”

Venice moves quickly on any given day. Throw a film festival into the mix, and everything cranks up to eleven. And Taylor-Johnson is a busy man, balancing film premieres—he wore a white dinner jacket and a newly bushy beard to see Frankenstein—with preparation for his role in Robert Eggers’s Werwulf, which begins filming this month. (He also worked with Eggers in Nosferatu.) So our conversation didn’t exactly meander. But we did have time to chat about the important stuff.

Read on to learn about what it feels like to be the face of an iconic fragrance, why he wanted to work with Eggers again, the genesis of his love of watches—and how booking the wrong kind of “diver” for a 15-foot leap off a cliff lead to some additional stunt work from Taylor-Johnson himself.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

"It’s a huge honor and privilege to be the face of an iconic fragrance such as Acqua di Gio, especially considering how close it is to Giorgio."

It’s a huge honor and privilege to be the face of an iconic fragrance such as Acqua di Gio, especially considering how close it is to Giorgio. It originated from his time spent in Pantelleria, which is a little island off Sicily. There’s a photograph of him—around '96, I believe; black-and-white photo—which sort of became the sort of premise of the look of the campaign.

And I love the ethos of it. The man behind the bottle, a guy that's sort of looking out into the distance and wanting to find change in his self and his life. We tried to capture that in the commercial—taking a leap of faith as a big dive. I jump off a cliff, and then the feeling of coming up for air after you've been deep, deep underwater, and just feeling renewed, and refreshed in a sense of trying something different, and being open to something different.

That’s me running and diving off a 15-foot cliff. We had a stunt double for when they were trying to frame up the shot, and he jumped in feet first. We said, “Okay, great. Can you do it as a dive?” He goes, “What, headfirst? That’s crazy.” We’re like, “I thought you were a diver,” and he replies, “Yeah, a deep-sea diver. A SCUBA diver.”

So I said, “Why don’t I just do it?” That was the idea for the final shot anyway—I actually trained with an Olympic diver weeks before to get the perfect openness of the swan dive—but it’s just so funny that there was no one else to line up the shot.

Other than being a phenomenal filmmaker and a strong visionary for these genre movies, I really loved being in his presence. He’s a strong filmmaker, he knows exactly what he wants, and he's very much in control. I like being an actor that is under the influence of a strong director. There are just limitations and boundaries within that, and it allows you to then differentiate between the other things you do, because he's so strong and bold in his style.

I felt very honored and privileged that he asked me to do something else with him. And Willem Dafoe also, and Lily Rose Depp. The company he keeps is just extraordinarily talented people. Same heads of department, same costume. And Jaren, our cinematographer who did Nosferatu and every other movie he's done. I mean, he's got a very strong, distinctive voice. As an actor, you just feel very lucky and privileged to be a part of it, really.

We start September 8. I've actually already started to be fair, but we get the ball rolling and go then.

"I just felt very honored and privileged that he asked me to do something else with him," Taylor-Johnson says of director Robert Eggers.

My father wore an Omega Seamaster. His father was in the RAF; I believe they were issued Omegas in 1943 or something like that. So I've always had a fondness for Omega. And then, I mean, they're official timekeepers of the Olympics. They're the first watch on the moon. They're one of the watches that has gone deeper than any other watch underwater. They're the rule breakers, and they're breaking boundaries. But they're just—how best to put it?—I just think they're sort of sophisticated in the sense that they're not trying too hard. It's very understated cool. I have a Seamaster, so that's what I wear most of the time.