Three directors, multiple narratives, umpteen gifted actors playing across race and gender... Cloud Atlas is not your standard genre flick. If you've caught a glimpse of the Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer's extended trailer, you'll know that it's actually six genre pieces stitched together into what cast member Ben Whishaw describes as "an egoless chamber piece".

"The six stories are plaited together from the start," explains Whishaw in the new issue of Empire. "But it also means there's this lovely kind of blending so that in a way it all becomes one story. It's a strange thing to describe, but when I read it I thought, 'If they pull this off it could be really unique,' particularly because the actors keep popping up in different stories."

'Chamber piece' is an apt description for Whishaw to use about Cloud Atlas. One of his six roles, and the most substantial, is that of a 1930s composer named Robert Frobisher who becomes entangled in a machiavellian scheme that twists and turns in some very strange directions.

Find out more about this seriously intriguing movie in Empire's October issue. It's onsale right now - [subliminal message...]  buy it now! [...sshhuush] - while Cloud Atlas comes out in the UK on March 22, 2013.