Chris Hemsworth is perhaps best recognised for his role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he also plays Tyler Rake, the main character in the first instalment of the action movie series Extraction on Netflix. Extraction 2, the original installment’s follow-up, aims to top the previous movie’s attention-getting action and set pieces from when it aired back in 2020. Hemsworth recently discussed how, in contrast to Marvel, he finds the process of filming these action-packed scenes in Extraction to be “very satisfying.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly about the planned sequel to the action movie from 2020, Hemsworth and director Sam Hargrave discussed the experience of working with all the many departments to actually make these action set pieces come to life. He says that as Extraction is set in a more realistic setting than a Marvel movie, the action they wish to include in the movie must be performed physically rather than using CGI.
He said, “There’s something so satisfying about that. Not to take anything away from the special-effects-filled sort of Marvel film, but you have a lot of help in post-production there. Obviously, I can’t fly, so they help me through that. Whereas in this film, the action is grounded in reality, and so much of it is on camera. So, it’s a different energy, and the preparation is a lot more extensive.”
The helicopter’s actual landing on a moving train was the most notable of these action scenarios that we have witnessed. “I will never forget standing underneath that helicopter,” the director says. “I was our camera operator for that moment, so I was filming. I could reach out with my hand, and I could have high-fived our pilot. It was amazing.” Hemsworth added, “Probably the most intense part was not so much the exhaustion levels, but just the sheer terror of all the things that could have gone wrong, but thankfully didn’t.”
Based on Ande Parks’ 2014 graphic novel Ciudad, Extraction Hemsworth played Tyler Rake in the Netflix version of the 2020 novel, an Australian special forces veteran turned mercenary entrusted with rescuing a kidnapped criminal lord’s son. The new movie picks up after Rake appears to have died at the end of the first movie, though Hargrave did give a small hint in this EW interview. The specifics of the new movie’s plot are being kept largely under wraps.
