Untamed’s Eric Bana about the big turn of the final, possibly season 2
Spoiler alert: This interview contains large spoilers of “Untamed”, which now streams on Netflix.
Eric Bana would not mind changing pace in his more than 30-year career.
Known for drama and action movies with high efforts such as “Black Hawk Down”, “Troy”, “Hulk” and “Munich”, most of them do not know or have forgotten-that the 56-year-old actor started in comedy.
Together with the lead role in the Sketch Comedy series “Full Frontal” in the mid-nineties in his native Australia, he also organized a short talk show, “The Eric Bana Show Live”.
“Most of what I get is quite dark and dramatic, and I really enjoyed the lighter stuff when it comes,” Bana tells me during an appearance on the podcast “Just for Variety”. “So it would be nice to certainly do more light -hearted things, but it doesn’t grow on trees on my desk. There is a lot of darkness on my desk.”
In his latest project, the thriller series of Netflix, ‘Untamed’, he plays as a Kyle Turner, a special horse riding for the National Park Service that investigates the death of the woman dying after the fall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
The murder mystery with six episodes believes that Kyle is being chased by his past while fighting a drinking problem and his complicated relationship with his ex-wife Jill (Rosemarie Dewitt). The cast also includes Sam Neill as Kyle’s boss and best friend and Lily Santiago as a former police officer in Los Angeles who moves to the mountain to work for the park service.
In her review of the series, Variety TV critic Aramide Tinubu praised the ‘deeply layered and moving’ show and described Bana’s work as ‘exceptional’.
This Q&A has been processed for length and clarity. Listen to the full conversation on “Just for Variety” above or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
How did you get involved in “Untempt”?
I got involved a while ago. I received the script in 2019. I read it and thought it was great. I just thought it was such a fantastic combination of the thriller genre, the tension, the murder mystery, but especially in the most incredible setting. I think the idea to follow someone trying to solve a crime, knock on doors and drive a car, I have seen that so often. To see someone doing a horse in a national park, it just seems so much more interesting and much nicer to do. I just really loved the character of Kyle Turner. I immediately confirmed myself. I just removed the elbows and said: “Can we let this happen? And can I be Kyle and what should we do?
Did you film in Yosemite?
No, we filmed in British Columbia. We could not get the type of access we needed, especially in the summer to Yosemite. So we sewn many things together and we were in a beautiful, beautiful part of Canada. Just absolutely amazing.
What is it like to act with a horse?
Oh my God, He was such a sweetheart. I wanted to steal him and take him home, but he was definitely outside of my luggage allocation. Pippin his name was. I immediately fell in love with him. He was a bit like my best partner on the shoot. You just squeeze yourself if you are on a horse every day or for the second or third day in the mountains, breathe the fresh air and play a kind of dream role. I clearly drove earlier and drove in other roles, but I had not driven this kind of territory on film, so that was really, very special.
You learned for the first time how to drive horses when you did “Troy”?
That is correct. It was very different because she had a surprising enough bareback and without stirring brackets on that film. I thought it was very different a few years after that I did “the other Boleyn -girl” and was back on a horse in a traditional saddle and rise bracket. I thought it was pretty restrictive. It was almost like a: “Wait for a moment, what are these things for?” So every horse that you drive in a different country is a bit different for the styles. The way you control the horse is very subtly different.
When you read the script for ‘unfinished’, you are so much: “Oh, I didn’t see that?”
I try to remember in advance how much Mark had told me in advance, because when we signed up, we only wrote the first episode. It took us a long time to go from episode one to “Here is the green light, you go.” It took many, many years. The second episode would come in and then Mark would go and work on another project and get back and work on the next one. I knew that there would be some really smart turns, so I didn’t underestimate him, but I was blown away. I was very happy with the journey of the character and the story and the turns and the opportunities in the rest of the cast to also have all these great characters and great actors.
Your character mourns the death of his very young son. How difficult is that as a father to go there mentally, emotionally?
They are always difficult. I mean, they are in a certain sense easy, how can I say? It’s like they are easy because they are difficult. Some of those things when they are well written and when you read them and when you are moved as a member of the audience or as the reader, you realize that this will not be difficult. It will be sad, it will be uncomfortable, but it will not be difficult. I have always found it very, very moving, and it is a real privilege as an actor when you read something, you think: “Oh, I’m going to go a small journey here, and it gets a bit bumpy and it is going to hurt a little, but that’s fine. That is part of the work.” It is a huge privilege to get that chance from the writer. It’s so of: “Okay, I’m going to be your husband, so I’m better to be good.” Because you have done this character right to the page, we must now have it work on the camera. There is always that fear that you have to live up to what the writer has in mind.
Do you ever look at clips from your talk show?
I don’t remember much about that, because that was just a short second. But the Sketch Comedy Show that I worked on for a long time think a lot about it, just because that is just a kind of how my brain works. Even today when I read a script, it’s like I’m reading the drama, but my brain works as a writer of a writer of Sketch Comedy. Whether I meet someone for the first time, whether I observe people, whether I am breaking a script, I see things in sketching. I cannot change the wiring. There is enough times when I have been on the set and I have to remember myself: “Oh, it’s the real deal. We don’t do a sketch of a movie now. This is really old Troy and I am on a horse, we don’t take the Mickey from a man on a film set.”
Was there a moment in your career when you said, “I’m going to get it into the company.”
Never. It was never really anything for me because I never had expectations. I have always had plans in the short term, such as six to 12 months, two years. I never looked on the road. If I had done that, I would never have had the career I had. I would have failed gloomy because I would have made choices that would derail me along the way. I think if you have stars in your eyes, you can get pretty quickly.
Was there ever a time when you said your team: “Remember your comedy, hello?”
No. In fact, I am probably accusing so much because I remember that it started to go well, I thought: “You know what? The last thing I want to do is try to prove people wrong. I don’t have the energy to try to convince them that I can be fun. It is like I have done that.” I was actually pretty keen out of the comedy by the time I came here to do drama. So there was no part of me that said: “Oh, I have to show them this. I have to show them that I can juggle. Goddamn, they don’t know that I can juggle.”
Will there be an “unfinished” season 2?
We will have to wait.
Did you discuss it?
We spoke about what would happen to Kyle in theory. So you never know.
What did you think when it was revealed that Jill hired someone? [to kill their son’s abuser]?
It is Rosemarie Dewitt. I just thought it was so fantastic and her performance in that episode is just that good.
If she says to her husband: “There is something that I have to tell you and it can change everything.”
I thought that was very powerful. I love the fact that it was and not that of Kyle, right? It’s a great little turn, it’s just like: “What? Really?”
