NEW YORK, June 16 (UPI) — F1, Better Call Saul and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri star Kerry Condon says she got to know her Pressure co-star Brendan Fraser when they were both on the 2023 awards circuit promoting other films.

Fraser was scooping up statuettes for The Whale, while Condon was nominated for her performance in The Banshees of Inisherin.

Available on video-on-demand platforms Tuesday, Pressure is based on David Haig’s stage play, which takes place in the 72 hours before U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s planned D-Day invasion when the leader is suddenly faced with conflicting weather reports from two respected meteorologists and must decide who to listen to.

Fraser plays Eisenhower in the World War II picture, while Condon plays his assistant Kay Summersby, and Andrew Scott and Chris Messina play rival weather-predictors James Stagg and Irving P. Krick.

“He was a human being and, obviously, there were moments when he was really freaking out over this decision and that was weighing on him. He was going to be responsible for this going right or wrong,” Condon, 43, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

“We had met before, socially. We were nominated for Oscars at the same time and, so, I knew him a little bit,” she said. “Brendan’s a very, very sweet person, very gentle. So, it was just playing the tenderness and kindness you would have towards somebody if they were under the same amount of pressure.”

Condon said she didn’t know about Summersby’s contributions to history until she went up for the role in Pressure.

“This was all new for me and I didn’t know that this Irish lady, Kay Summersby, was the right-hand woman for Eisenhower,” she said.

“She didn’t have to make the big decisions. So, she didn’t have that pressure that the other generals had. So, if lives were lost, they weren’t going to blame Kay,” Condon added.

“So, in the men’s defense, they should have been stressed out, but I think there was a calmness with her. I think it was just her character trait and probably why Eisenhower allowed her to rise up the ranks and be his aid because she was a very diligent, confident woman who was very calm under pressure and took her job very seriously.”

Kay understood her value and wasn’t easily intimidated in this traditionally masculine space — a war room in 1944.

“I think all the generals respected her,” Condon said. “So, she felt very at ease amongst all those men because of the respect they gave her.”

Some of the best moments of the film show the entire ensemble, including Damien Lewis and Con O’Neill, working out the strategy for the Allied invasion of Normandy.

“All of us doing a scene together was a lot of fun,” Condon said.

“Everyone was very quick on their cues, but they were very long days and very dialogue-heavy,” she added. “There’s a lot of smoking and a lot of things you’ve got to consider. Ensembles are always fun. Personally, I tend to enjoy a cast that is more ensemble-based.”

With a movie that has as many moving parts as this, the cast was fortunate to have a talented director like Anthony Maras, whose first film was 2018’s Hotel Mumbai, a thriller about a terror attack on a hotel in India.

“I remember when I saw that movie and was given this script, I thought that it was kind of a perfect second movie for him,” Condon recalled.

“I knew he was going to do a really good job at creating that tense situation and he was a big history buff. He was obsessed with World War II, so he was very knowledgeable about that,” she added.

“Then he assembled an amazing crew,” she said. “That’s kind of how you make a great movie — assemble a really great crew, then everyone has to be great at their job.”

The real Summersby was awarded the Bronze Star for her service. She died in 1975 at the age of 66.

Condon will soon be seen in The God of the Woods on Netflix.