Interview: Tiffany Smith discusses her badass role in the thriller ‘In Flight’
Claire Reynolds is just a girl looking for adventure, a girl who wants to live out her favorite movie fantasy in Paris. When she meets a good-looking stranger at a bar the night before she’s supposed to leave, it seems like everything is going her way. All that changes when she wakes up on an airplane with no memory of how she got there. What happens next, in flight, leaves Claire Reynolds wondering who and what she should believe.
In Bo Youngblood’s directorial debut, Tiffany Smith (Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3, Masters of the Universe: Revolution) takes on the lead role. “I would go to New Zealand and live out my ‘Lord of the Rings’ dreams for sure,” laughs Smith as she shares where she’d go in her own favorite movie fantasy.
Smith, who played Meghan Markle in Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal, came to the project through Youngblood. The two had done a short film together in the past, so the director contacted Smith to be a part of her first feature. “I hadn’t gotten to do a thriller like this before,” Smith tells Hollywood First Look. “I love a strong female character who is smart and active in everything that’s going on. I think the least active thing she’s a part of is what happens at the very beginning, but she doesn’t sit around and do nothing the rest of the time.”
Claire is daring, which is something Smith says she relates to. “I think what makes ‘In Flight‘ a great thriller is because things are just a little bit off. You don’t quite pick up on them until there are so many things that are off [you wonder] what’s going on? Those things build upon each other. Also, every one of the characters is so grounded and believable. You could meet these people in real life, and maybe they’re a bit off, but they are actual personalities you might meet on an airplane,” Smith suggested as she spoke more about the film.
“Claire is very smart. She’s scrappy. She does everything she can to figure things out, and when she’s pushed into a corner, she will fight back. She’s strong,” Smith adds. “I loved playing her because of all those qualities that she has. It makes her a character you want to root for. She actually has agency, is working to figure out what’s going on around her, and is trying to help everyone else around her, too. Her journey is a cool one to me because we get to the end, and it’s like, I want to see this new chapter now. I want to see what she does with what she knows now. Like, what’s next? She’s a badass. In my mind, the journey for her is that she continues to get more and more badass. I love it.”
In Flight will be released in LA theaters on November 8 and is available on demand on November 15.
