Apple TV action-comedy Mayday stars Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh as a mismatched American and Russian odd couple, but you might be surprised by which one of them lets their fists do the talking.
Despite Reynolds semi-regularly suiting up as the dual-katana-wielding Deadpool, it’s Branagh’s former KGB agent who’s the far more adept fighter in Mayday. And according to the movie’s directors, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the 65-year-old Branagh wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty when it came to the action, or the comedy.
“He was super hands-on,” says Daley during a conversation with GamesRadar+ at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 to discuss Branagh’s Liam Neeson-style action man makeover. “He did a lot of the rehearsals with our stunt coordinators. He did a lot of his own stunts, and just like he approaches everything, he had deep reverence and deep respect for the material, and was able to put a level of emphasis into all of it that we were so lucky to have.”
In Mayday, Reynolds US Air Force pilot Troy “Assassin” Kelly crash-lands behind enemy lines in Russia, and is saved from a life sentence in a gulag by Branagh’s Nikolai Ustinov, who happens to be obsessed with American pop culture, like McDonald’s and Top Gun. Kelly is a very wanted man, however, so when push comes to shove, it’s Ustinov who does the pushing. And the shoving. And the head-smashing.
Branagh’s wannabe-defector is also a deadpan delight, landing laughs alongside blows. Mayday, then, is something of a change of pace for the typically affable Branagh, who more than holds his own opposite wisecracking motormouth Reynolds on the comedy front.
“We’re big fans of casting the greatest actors we can get, whether they’re drama or comedy people, like Jesse Plemons in Game Night,” Goldstein says. “We just ask them to commit to it like you would a drama, and it turns out to be hilarious. And Ken just brought so much great chops to the thing.”
“There’s this weird misconception that dramatic actors have trouble doing comedy,” Daley adds. “And I couldn’t disagree more with that. I feel like dramatic actors, as long as they play it like a drama, are the funniest.”
The inverse is also true. Goldstein and Daley could be pigeonholed as comedy filmmakers following the warmly received likes of Vacation, Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. But Mayday features some impressively muscular action, including a car chase involving a nuclear missile truck that was filmed for real in Budapest.
“That was very complicated,” Goldstein says with a nervous laugh. “We needed a lot of the participation and help from the good people of Budapest, where we filmed for Moscow. We had over 1000 extras. We had real Soviet tanks. We had an actual ICBM launch vehicle with a fake missile on top of it. I mean, we went through that whole city. Used the airport. It was a big production.”
Goldstein and Daley are currently hard at work on a Star Trek movie, and recently revealed they wrote a Dungeons and Dragons sequel that might never be made. As for Branagh, it’s not too late to give him his own action franchise. Nikolai Wick, anyone?
Mayday releases on Apple TV on September 4. For more, check out our list of the best Apple TV movies, or fill out your watchlist with our guide to the upcoming movies heading your way.