Michelle Dockery reveals first reaction to Mark Wahlberg’s unexpected new look in Flight Risk

When Michelle Dockery first saw Mark Wahlberg's new look for their film Flight Risk she couldn't help but laugh because of how unexpected it was to see the action star with a toupee.

The blockbuster, directed by Mel Gibson, sees Dockery play Madolyn, an air marshal tasked with flying a fugitive (Topher Grace) safely across the country so he can testify in court. Wahlberg's pilot Daryl appears friendly at first, but is soon revealed to be a man hired to kill Grace's Winston and Madolyn has to try and stop him while they are still in the air.

But what is surprising about Wahlberg's performance is that the actor partially shaved his head for the role, for real, and is revealed to be wearing a toupee. Dockery admired her co-star for going all out for the part: "When I first met Mark he hadn't yet shaved his head so it was Mark with his regular hair, and then it was just the week before we sort of had some prep and he decided to go for it and do it.

"It was funny actually, the whole gimmick of the piece of hair being in the hat and we all just found it really humorous that this character would have this fake little bit of hair. As weird and intense as the story in film is, there was a lot of humour behind it."

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Dockery wanted to appear in Flight Risk because it's so very different to her past work in projects like Downton Abbey and even other action films like Godless and Boy Kills World. And Wahlberg was a big supporter of hers during the process of making the thriller.

"It was great and for me something very different from anything I've done before," Dockers says. "I really enjoyed the preparation for it, the combat training and the type of film that this is is different for me [so it was great] coming into it with someone like Mark, who is very seasoned in this genre and has a really great group of people who help create what looks so brilliant on screen.

"He has a fantastic stunt team and I worked with all of them quite closely. But I think the difference with this film for all of us was the confined space that we were filming in because that plane [was real], there wasn't any sort of walls or roof taken out of the Cessna — it just stayed exactly as it is.

"So we had to just work within the space that we had, it made the fight sequences really small and contained. Normally you would be able to stand up fully upright and have much more freedom in your movement, so it had to be choreographed really well. And [Mark] and his team clearly have such a shorthand that it was done really, really well."

Dockery, Wahlberg, and Grace filmed in a real Cessna plane which was put on a system of hydraulics in a studio fitted with screens showing the mountain ranges they were supposed to be flying over in scenes, so that their flight sequences could appear as realistic as possible.

"The plane could move forwards and backwards and we were completely surrounded by these screens, we could see the scenery of the mountains so when you sat in the plane and looked at them front on it was like you were in the air. It was incredible," Dockery explains.

"You have to sort of adjust to that, you have to get acclimated to that visual because at times if you kind of looked one way or the other you could sort of feel a bit crazy."

"It's a very unusual way of working," she adds. "You're basically sat the whole time, and you're crawling through the space without being able to stand up so it's very unusual. But, really, a lot of fun."

Dockery describes Gibson as an "actor's director", detailing how he is "such a incredible filmmaker and such a professional" on set.

"Really, we were stretched for the amount of time [we had], it was just a three to four week shoot [but] he was incredibly prepared and he, [being] an actor himself, is an actor's director so I really loved working with him. He has such a great rapport with actors and gave really detailed direction, it was a treat."

Flight Risk premieres in UK cinemas on Friday, 17 January.