Crime thriller The Infiltrator takes a look at the real story of U.S. Customs agent Robert Mazur, who, in the 1980s, went undercover to take down infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Based on Mazur’s memoir, the always reliable Bryan Cranston portrays Mazur, who comes up with a scheme to get to Escobar by following the drug money and infiltrating the corrupt banks laundering the cash, using the alias “Bob Musella.”
Still, there’s a cost to being involved in such deep undercover work, namely how agents can actually form friendships with the people they are eventually going to take down. For Mazur and his pretend fiancee (Diane Kruger), they become close with an Escobar lieutenant (Benjamin Bratt) and his wife, which makes things rather complicated.
At the recent L.A. press day for the film, we spoke with Cranston about how undercover work is much like acting, except a lot more dangerous, and about what kind of mindset you’d have to have to be an undercover agent.
Check out what he had to say in the video above and be sure to catch The Infiltrator as it’s now in theatres.