One of the movies we’re most excited to see Damian Lewis in this year is The Runner, written by Mark Gibson, directed by Kevin Macdonald, and starring Gal Gadot in the lead role. The film was shot across London during the spring and summer of 2025.
Amazon MGM Studios has now released the official trailer and poster for The Runner. The psychological thriller will premiere globally on Prime Video on September 2, 2026.
When we published our first article about The Runner, we knew very little about Damian’s role. All we had were a plot synopsis, some intriguing photographs from the set, one magnificent mustache—and a great deal of enthusiasm for endless speculation!
Damian had been photographed near Gal Gadot and the young actor playing her son, Noah, dressed in a black double-breasted Burberry trench coat with the collar raised, black leather gloves, and the most serious Wyatt Earp–style mustache of 2025.
Damian’s character looked controlled, watchful and deeply suspicious. And we couldn’t help speculate about what role he’d play in the movie. As Gingersnap kept rooting for the “bodyguard” I kept championing “villain.”
Well…
The official trailer has arrived, and it appears that the villain has won 🙂
Gal Gadot plays Maia Marten, a powerful London lawyer whose morning goes from routine to nightmare when her young son is kidnapped. And Damian plays the mysterious caller who has kidnapped Noah.
The trailer carefully avoids giving us a clear look at the mysterious caller. We see him in shadows, as a silhouette, or only in brief glimpses—but that voice is impossible to disguise. Damian Lewis fans recognize it right away, don’t we?
Damian’s character gives Maia one hour to “take care of business.” She must keep running across London, follow every command he gives her and tell no one what is happening.
He makes it clear that if Maia fails, not only Noah but many other people will die. The trailer shows what appears to be an explosive device with a phone attached to it that reads “ARMED: STANDBY.” So this isn’t simply a kidnapping. He is threatening mass murder.
It turns out Maia has a star witness, a person who appears to be preparing to testify against the caller’s boss. The star witness is waiting at the Excelsior Hotel ahead of his court appearance. And Maia needs to go there and kill him. In one hour. YIKES!
Gal Gadot became a household name after bringing Wonder Woman to the big screen. In The Runner, she appears to be playing a different kind of superhero: a “wonder mom” prepared to do absolutely anything to save her child.
Maia is a successful lawyer, a devoted mother and a serious runner. She even seems to have a “rabbit”—another runner who sets the pace and pushes her to run faster during her morning routine. And that kind of training is about to come in very handy!
The trailer shows Maia racing through streets, tunnels and stations, fighting off men on public transportation, holding a gun on a bridge and eventually jumping from that bridge… which makes me ask: Are these simply the actions of a mother desperate to have her son back, or has Maia done things like this before?
We also find out that the people behind this operation appear to know something about Maia’s past. Damian’s character tells Maia on the phone that she’s been running from her past. And when she says she can’t kill anybody, he says he thinks she can. Then we also see Maia in a church where a priest asks her whether she wants to confess.
So what’s Maia’s secret?
Was she once involved in criminal activity before reinventing herself as a lawyer? Did she work for the kind of people who are now threatening her? Did she kill someone?
Maia may possess skills that don’t belong to the ordinary life she now leads. A powerful lawyer and serious runner can certainly be resourceful and physically capable, but the gun, the fighting, and the bridge jump make me wonder whether the caller is forcing her to become someone she used to be.
That possibility also gives the title two meanings.
Maia is literally the runner, racing across London to save Noah. But perhaps she has also spent years running from her past. And that past has finally caught up with her.
Damian’s character speaks to Maia with chilling control. For most of the trailer, his voice is calm, mechanical and almost robotic. He delivers his instructions without emotion, as if Maia is merely another piece moving across a game board.
But there is one tiny moment when that changes.
“Maia?”
For just a second, his voice sounds human. Has he lost the connection? Has Maia stopped responding? Is he simply checking that she is still listening—or is there something almost worried in his voice?
I may be completely off here. Or it may be Damian doing what Damian does so brilliantly: allowing one small crack to appear in a character’s carefully controlled facade.
The caller also makes a point of telling Maia that he has forgotten nothing. That sounds personal. It makes me wonder whether he knows more than the dark secret he is using against her. Could he actually have been part of her past?
Was there some kind of relationship between Maia and the caller?
Did she help send him to prison?
Or is he someone who lost a loved one because of something Maia did?
OMG, I could sit down and write an entirely different script at this point. I have far too many ideas!
Hmmm…
Could the caller be Noah’s father?
Yes, this may be a stretch.
But hear me out.
The way Damian’s character touches the sleeping Noah in the trailer doesn’t look entirely cold or detached. There seems to be something almost affectionate about it.
That doesn’t necessarily mean he is Noah’s father. His gesture could express possessiveness rather than love—or it could be another way of psychologically tormenting Maia.
But what if he has a more personal connection to Noah?
There is one more tiny detail feeding this theory: we don’t see—or even hear about—Noah’s father in the trailer. The morning scenes appear to belong entirely to Maia and Noah as they get ready for school and talk about their day. Of course, the absence of a father from a two-minute trailer proves absolutely nothing. He may appear in the film, be separated from Maia or simply be irrelevant to the story.
But if Damian’s caller really is Noah’s father, did Maia take the boy away from him and build an entirely new life? Did she allow Noah to believe that someone else was his father—or that he had no father at all?
No. Stop, Bahar. You are now writing an entirely different film.
Or, perhaps more plausibly, did the caller once have a child of his own who died because of Maia?
That last possibility could explain two apparently contradictory sides of the character: his cruelty toward Maia and his unexpected gentleness with Noah. Is he forcing Maia to experience the fear or loss that he once experienced himself?
We don’t know.
But his behavior toward Noah makes me suspect that the boy may be more than a hostage.
The photographs from the set show Damian’s character outside Noah’s school with Maia and Noah before the kidnapping. After seeing the trailer, his Wyatt Earp mustache and carefully styled hair look like more than eccentric fashion choices.
He certainly appears to be in disguise.
While the school photographs show him hiding in plain sight, the trailer later places him in a very different setting: sitting comfortably in an elegant room, surrounded by screens and calmly following Maia’s every movement across London.
The elaborate hair and mustache he wears outside the school appear to be a wig and false facial hair. Combined with the black trench coat and leather gloves, they create a complete operational disguise.
False face.
False hair.
No fingerprints.
Perhaps he wants witnesses and London’s security cameras to record a man who doesn’t really exist. If someone later describes him to the police, they will be searching for the wrong person.
But there may be a more personal reason for the disguise.
If the caller was part of Maia’s past, he couldn’t risk the possibility of her recognizing him outside the school. He needed to get close to her and Noah without triggering her memory.
Or perhaps Noah has met him before without Maia knowing. In that case, the wig and mustache may be there to stop Noah from recognizing him, calling out to him and introducing him to his mother, ruining the entire operation before it begins.
Whatever the explanation, Damian’s character gets remarkably close to Maia and Noah without alarming either of them. He may be posing as another parent, a school employee or simply someone who belongs there. Noah doesn’t appear afraid, and Maia doesn’t react as though a dangerous stranger has entered their personal space.
Then there is that moment when his gloved hand comes very close to Maia and Noah while they are hugging.
Is he politely indicating, “Oops, sorry—I didn’t mean to step into your space”?
Or is the apparent accident the whole point?
In the image below, Damian’s character walks away as if he is simply continuing with his day while Maia and Noah say goodbye. Nothing about the encounter appears significant.
Then we see in the trailer that Damian’s character sits comfortably in an elegant room, surrounded by screens, calmly following Maia’s every movement across London.
He leans back in his chair with his hands loosely clasped. There is no visible panic, urgency or physical strain. He looks completely chilled—like a man settling in to watch his favorite television show rather than directing a kidnapping and threatening potential mass murder.
Maia, meanwhile, is running for her son’s life.
She is terrified, injured, sweating and desperately trying to stay ahead of the clock.
The contrast between them couldn’t be greater. Maia is constantly moving while the caller barely needs to move at all. From the comfort of his room, he controls the clock, the route and, at least for now, Maia herself.
He believes he has anticipated her every move.
That “believes” may prove important. Characters who think they have planned for every possibility are often at their most vulnerable when their victim finally does something they didn’t predict. Maia may be running along the route he has designed, but sooner or later, she may stop obeying him.
For now, though, he appears to be in total control.
Several screens are arranged in front of him. One displays a map. Another appears to contain a different monitoring or control system. On the largest screen, he watches Maia running through the streets of London.
But how is he following her every movement?
The phone strapped to Maia’s upper arm may provide the simplest explanation for the map. Perhaps he has compromised it and is using its GPS to track her. The earpiece through which she receives his instructions may also be connected to his system. Or perhaps he used that encounter outside the school to slip a separate tracking device into her pocket or belongings.
But GPS alone doesn’t explain everything. The large monitor shows Maia from a distance, so that image clearly isn’t coming from her phone. Has the caller hacked into London’s CCTV network? Is he using traffic cameras, drones or accomplices positioned along her route?
Whatever the explanation, Damian’s character, or his boss, has built an extraordinary surveillance operation. He doesn’t simply telephone Maia, give her instructions and hope that she obeys him. He watches her journey unfold in real time.
He is clearly not a petty criminal. He is either working within a sophisticated criminal organization or is some kind of criminal mastermind.
And he is CREEPY AS HELL.
As if kidnapping Noah and threatening countless lives weren’t enough to establish that something is very wrong with this man, the trailer gives us another disturbing little character moment.
He traps a mosquito beneath a glass. Then he stabs it with a knife. What kind of person does that?
It is such an elaborate and unnecessary act of cruelty. He doesn’t simply swat the mosquito away. He captures it, studies it and kills it.
The moment may even serve as a miniature version of what he is doing to Maia. He has trapped her inside an invisible glass, is watching her struggle and retains the power to destroy her whenever he chooses. It suggests someone who enjoys having absolute power over another living creature. He appears to have a sadistic streak.
However, the image of the mosquito under the glass may also reveal his greatest weakness. He sees Maia as something he has trapped.
But Maia isn’t a mosquito.
And yet, despite his apparent cruelty, I suspect there may be a human side to him—particularly in the strange tenderness he appears to show Noah.
Not that this excuses anything he does. A villain can experience love, grief, fear or affection and still be a villain. In fact, those human qualities often make a bad guy much more unsettling than a one-dimensional monster. And Damian is brilliant at bringing such characters to life. Think of Rizza in The Escapist, for example.
Some fans prefer to see their favorite actors always playing good men. I’m the opposite. I want to see Damian in as many different kinds of roles as possible, and I particularly love watching him play complicated, morally gray characters.
I adore Dick Winters. How could anyone not?
But Brody, Soames and Bobby Axelrod are far more contradictory and complex. They allow Damian to explore moral ambiguity, emotional damage, charm, darkness, vulnerability and danger—sometimes all within the same scene.
Damian has an extraordinary ability to show us the human being inside a deeply flawed character without asking us to forgive that character’s actions. He can make us understand a villain without turning him into a good man.
Damian’s character in The Runner may be cruel, vengeful or simply carrying out his boss’s orders. Or he may have a far more personal reason for choosing Maia. Whatever the truth is, Damian will find the layers and make us understand him.
While Damian’s caller sits comfortably in his control room, Maia must keep running. And I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear “woman running through a European city to save someone she loves,” my brain immediately screams: LOLA!
What a great movie Run Lola Run was.
That film followed a woman racing through a city to save someone she loved, with the clock always working against her. Where Run Lola Run experimented with multiple timelines, bold editing and second chances, The Runner appears to take a more direct approach: one timeline, one continuous run and no reset button.
Maia must travel through streets, bridges, underground tunnels and crowded public transportation while injured, terrified and under constant surveillance. London isn’t simply the backdrop; it’s a character in the movie.
Although we can safely assume Maia will eventually save Noah – this is a Gal Gadot action thriller, after all – that isn’t the most important mystery. The real story is what happens during that one terrifying hour.
What will Maia be forced to do?
What is she capable of doing?
What past has she been running from?
Why did the mysterious caller choose her?
Why does his statement that he has forgotten nothing sound so personal?
Is Noah simply leverage—or does the caller have another connection to him?
Is he following orders, seeking revenge or carrying out his own private plan?
Will Maia eventually come face-to-face with the man who has been calmly controlling her every step?
And when this is over, will she still be the same woman who started running that morning?
Mark your calendars. We’ll find out the answers to our endless questions on Prime Video on September 2.
