Academy Award-winning actor Rami Malek and Oscar nominee Laurence Fishburne joined forces for the latest spy action film The Amateur. The movie, which is now in theaters, also featured some improvising.

Malek plays Charles "Charlie" Heller, a CIA cryptographer who loses his wife in a terrorist attack, and starts on a hunt to track down his wife's killers. Fishburne plays Robert Henderson, his mentor, in the film based on Robert Littell's novel of the same name. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, director James Hawes revealed that Malek's surprise as Charlie was genuine after Fishburne improvised the slaps in a key scene.

Malek's character Charlie had no experience out in the field, so he needed Col. Henderson to help him train. However, he didn't have what it takes to become a killer. During one scene, Henderson gives him a loaded gun and tells him to point it at...