Smoke’s Jurnee Smollett on Killing [SPOILER], Taron Egerton Car Scene

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “Smoke.” All nine episodes are now streaming on Apple TV+.

In “Smoke,” Taron Egerton plays Dave, an arson investigator who also happens to be a serial arsonist. Dave not only thinks he’s rather clever because he believes he’s outsmarting everyone, but he’s also convinced himself that he is, no pun intended, really hot.

But that all comes to an explosive reveal when he’s been arrested and questioned by Michelle, a war veteran turned detective played by Jurnee Smollett.

As Dave looks in the mirror in the interrogation room, his physical appearance slowly morphs from a hulking hot blonde to a balding man with a belly.

“I think the theme of our show is that we all wear masks to some degree,” Smollett says. “It’s people how they present themselves to be versus who they really are. It’s in the quiet when they’re sitting on the couch and no one’s around and you’re looking in the mirror and there’s the distance you have to travel between that mask and who you are. For some it’s very great.”

Writer and series creator Dennis Lehane adapted “Smoke” from “Firebug,” a podcast that chronicled the story of John Orr, a Glendale Fire Department captain and arson investigator who is alleged to have started 2,000 fires throughout the Los Angeles area in the 1980s and 1990s. One blaze at a hardware store resulted in the death of four people.

In “Smoke,” the sexual tension between Dave and Michelle is undeniable. However, being on the brink of sleeping together is exactly what Michelle was working towards.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game. Part of what I am doing is I know he’s attracted to me, and I know I need something from him, so I’m going to feed into his ego to get what I need to disarm him, to make him feel relaxed, and make him feel that I’m not a threat and I’m not investigating him secretly,” Smollett says. “I have to make him believe that it’s a possibility in order to disarm him so he can’t see me coming.”

Michelle has secrets of her own. Her past includes a mother who left her for dead in a motel fire. She had an affair with her old boss, Steven (Rafe Spall), who has been put in charge of the investigation surrounding Dave’s alleged arson.

RELATED: ‘Smoke’ Star Jurnee Smollett on Her ‘Flawed’ Detective Character in Apple TV+ Series: ‘I’m Not Interested in Just Playing the Strong, Badass Woman’

Toward the end of the series, Steven loses his cool when Michelle rejects his advances to rekindle their romance. When Steven grabs Michelle by the arm, her fighter instinct kicks in, delivering a punch to his throat that causes him to choke and suffocate to death. Instead of trying to save him, Michelle stands over Steven and watches him die. Michelle panics and tries to cover up her involvement in his death by setting his corpse and the house on fire.

“She goes into survival mode,” Smollett says. “I think that’s just what she’s been doing. She’s been operating in a part of her brain that is just about survival. In her mind, I don’t think she thinks she’s killed him. She allowed this to transpire. I think she chose herself over him.”

The series ends with Dave’s arrest, but not before he takes Michelle on a speeding car ride through a forest fire that he started.

“The majority of the fire is real. Yes, there is some CGI where they fill in the blanks and stuff, but they built a forest in a sound stage and had piping throughout. We were surrounded by fire.”

The sequence was shot over a week with each take limited to a very short amount of time. “It was terrifying in the best way,” she says. “As an actor, it just makes your job so much easier to have the special effects be practical. You feel the heat, you’re sweating, your adrenaline is rushing. And there’s all these different elements. The car has to crash. I’m literally shooting bullets at it and emptying three magazines each take.”

While a second season hasn’t been announced, Smollett hopes the series continues because she’d love to see how Michelle tries to get away. “Dennis hasn’t told me what his plans entirely are,” she says. “He’s given me some hints, but I think she has grown up having to survive and she’s a very clever animal. I think she knows the system she’s working in. Unfortunately, she’s not the only one, nor is she the first one to manipulate the system.”