Ryan Gosling in Netflix's The Gray Man Shows Us a Spy Hero's Watch Does Not Need to be Complicated

TAG Heuer

Shot on a 200 million budget, The Gray Man is Netflix’s most expensive original film ever. Directed by the Russo Brothers — the duo behind the Avengers’ Infinity War and Endgame, as well as Captain America — this new action flick has a lot to boot, ranks first in Top 10 Films in Singapore and major cities around the world. 

Photo: Paul Abell/Netflix

The spy thriller stars Hollywood heavyweights Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans. In a nutshell, the two play former CIA colleagues; Gosling, codenamed Sierra Six who uncovers damning agency secrets and Evans plays Lloyd Hansen, a sociopathic rogue operative man-hunting Six around the world. But as with every ending of a spy action film, we know that Gosling will miraculously escape in one piece, even after a grueling two-hour chase, pepper-sprayed on, handcuffed to a bench, trapped underwater… 

Photo: TAG Heuer

Other stars in the cast include No Time to Die Ana de Armas, Bridgerston’s Rege-Jean Page, and The Matrix Resurrections’ Jessica Henwick, but moving away from the typical spy thriller film with a lead and his hot love interest, Ana de Armas plays Dani Miranda, that one sidekick who always know when to help Six, and child actress Julia Butters plays Claire Fitzroy, someone Six protects like a family.

Photo: TAG Heuer

And as with every spy movie, it is a given that their protagonists are outfitted in iconic watches. The Gray Man sticks to this unwritten rule, with the TAG Heuer Carrera Three Hands. No surprise here considering Gosling announced his partnership with the Swiss watchmaker as its ambassador in October 2021, but the disbelief here, if you will, is the fact that the watch does not conceal a weapon or hide a code to open a secret door — it is just… a watch that can keep up the with The Gray Man.

TAG Heuer Carrera Three Hands, as seen on Ryan Gosling in The Gray Man. 

Reportedly, Six was supposed to wear another watch, but it was “too big” and “impractical” and the man who would play Ken in the upcoming Barbie movie commented that, “It felt like something a spy would never wear.” Gosling then asked TAG Heuer to send a few pieces just two days before filming was set to start. The TAG Heuer Carrera Three Hands was chosen because it is simple and understated, always blending in with Six in different action sets — whether escaping a plummeting plane outnumbered by henchmen, or handcuffed to a bench in Prague city square trying to escape the chaos, but most importantly he said, “could realistically survive some of these situations I was in.”

And of course, there’s nothing more befitting than assassins and actions jam-packed in a movie to encapsulate TAG Heuer’s famous tagline, Don’t Crack Under Pressure. It rings even louder with the Carrera, an iconic timepiece known for its precision and high-speed pursuits on the racetrack. 

The Gray Man is available to stream on Netflix