Taron Egerton faces down the KGB in trailer for Cold War thriller about the true story of Tetris

One of the most iconic video games in the world, Tetris is renowned for its simplicity: Differently-shaped blocks fall down the screen, and it's up to the player to arrange them to fit with each other. But the story behind the game, as you can see above in the trailer for Tetris, is anything but basic.

When director Jon S. Baird first read the script for the upcoming film, which hits Apple TV+ next month on March 31, the screenplay was titled Falling Blocs. That's not a typo, but a pun, with "blocs" referring to countries divided during the Cold War. It turns out that the invention of Tetris in the mid-'80s is tied up in the final years of the conflict between capitalism and communism.

When the film begins, the game Tetris has already been invented by Soviet computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Yefremov). That's the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to license and distribute the game to a worldwide audience at a time when Eastern and Western countries fundamentally disagreed about concepts like "profit" and "intellectual property."

"I'm a politics graduate, and I was particularly interested in the Cold War period," says Baird, who previously directed the 2018 Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie and this year's BBC docudrama Stonehouse. "I knew a lot about that, and that thriller aspect drew me into this story. A lot of the work that I've done has been based on true stories."

Courtesy of Apple Nikita Efremov as Alexey Pajitnov in 'Tetris'

This Cold War backdrop, Baird says, "Automatically gives you that thriller aspect because it's communism vs. capitalism, East vs. West, this clash of cultures and clash of ideas while this huge bloc of countries was disintegrating. People were stealing natural resources, and the whole thing was falling apart. It lends itself to this high-stakes, high-paced, high-impact sort of thriller, which just so happens to be about the world's most famous computer game."

As a global story, Tetris features an international cast of characters. Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, a Dutch entrepreneur who sees the potential in Alexey's game and is determined to secure its international distribution rights. Standing in his way are Soviet authorities, ranging from low-level KGB agents to Mikhail Gorbachev (Matthew Marsh) himself. British media mogul Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and his spoiled son Kevin (Anthony Boyle) are also eyeing a stake in the game, as is longtime Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi (as seen below, played by Togo Igawa). Although the Maxwells initially purport to be on Henk's side, they really want Tetris for themselves — and believe they can cheat a good-natured communist like Alexey out of the profits of his own creation.

Courtesy of Apple Togo Igawa as president of Nintendo Hiroshi Yamauchi, along with Nino Furuhata and Taron Egerton in Tetris.'

"It's a great thriller, and everyone's fantastic," Egerton tells EW. "It's a great supporting cast. There are some real top-tier British stalwarts like Roger Allam. He's amazing, and they did an incredible job of making him look like Robert Maxwell. It was quite eerie, actually, when I first saw him. Then there's a host of really brilliant Russian actors as well. So it's a really strong cast, and it came together really well."

Egerton first broke out with his starring role in Matthew Vaughn's 2015 action-packed comic-book adaptation Kingsman: The Secret Service. Since then, he's proved his skills range much farther than punching and parkour. In 2020, he won a Golden Globe for playing Sir Elton John in the biopic Rocketman, and last year, he was nominated for the award again for his role in the Apple TV+ miniseries Black Bird. Now, in Tetris, he plays a desperate businessman who bets it all and risks everything for a product he believes in.

Courtesy of Apple Toby Jones as Robert Stein, Roger Allam as Robert Maxwell, and Anthony Boyle as Kevin Maxwell in 'Tetris.'

"I'm really lucky in that I've had some variety and diversity in the types of projects I've been able to do, and Matthew, to his credit, has really been a huge part of facilitating those opportunities for me," Egerton says. "When I started out doing that Kingsman movie, the action stuff was really not anything I had any experience with. Matthew cast me because he believed that I could play both the rough-around-the-edges street kid and then also the more refined, well-spoken guy. The action stuff was something I had to learn."

He continues, "Because that was the first thing I did, it tends to be what people think is my MO. But really, those are the things that feel like a departure for me. I feel more at home with stuff like this or Black Bird, which I did last year. But really, I'd like to try and preserve doing as many different things as possible. I enjoy the feeling of making each character as distinct from the last as I can."

Vaughn, who is a producer on Tetris and got both Egerton and Baird involved, adds, "This film completes a trilogy that grew organically from our creative relationship together. Taron has played three characters based on real-life individuals: Eddie the Eagle, Elton John, and now Henk Rogers. There is no role he cannot play. Taron is a brilliant actor who I hope will keep on finding those characters that demonstrate his amazing range."

Courtesy of Apple Taron Egerton and Nikita Efremov (as Alexey Pajitnov) in 'Tetris.'

Egerton's contributions weren't limited to acting, either. It was his idea to incorporate the aesthetics of '80s video games like Tetris into the film's storytelling. For example, breaks between acts are denoted as "Level 1," "Level 2," and so on. Viewers are also introduced to new locales by seeing them constructed from Tetris-style blocks, and each character is identified with an 8-bit avatar. Even the score sounds like an arcade.

"It was originally Taron's idea, but Jon wasn't too keen on the 8-bit graphics, and the concept was dropped," Vaughn says. "But as we worked on the edit, we realized that the graphics would not only pace the film up and add an element of fun but would also help us solve some exterior and CG shots that we couldn't afford. So, in the end, we showed them to Jon, and he decided to play our game!"

Courtesy of Apple Henk Rogers (Egerton) and Alexey Pajitnov (Efremov) enjoy a night out in the U.S.S.R. in 'Tetris.'

There's just one thing Egerton can't do: Grow a mustache. So soak in the visual of his very '80s prosthetic in these first-look photos and the film itself because you probably won't see him this way again.

"My mustache-growing skills are not what they could be," Egerton admits. "I did it for Eddie the Eagle as well, and I promised then that I would never do it ever again. But in the ensuing six or so years, I forgot how horrendous it was wearing a fake mustache, and it was really quite awful wandering around with that thing on for three months. I will never, ever do it again. I'll either have a patchy mustache, or I just won't have one at all."

Tetris premieres at this year's South by Southwest festival next month before streaming on Apple TV+ on March 31.

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