4 days ago
'Untamed': Eric Bana needed the confidence to be 'quite rude' in Netflix thriller
In another show that showcases British Columbia's breathtaking landscape, Eric Bana stars in the new Netflix series Untamed, a dark thriller centred around a murder investigation in the wilderness of Yosemite National Park. Also starring Rosemarie DeWitt, Lily Santiago and Sam Neill, Bana plays an Investigative Services Branch agent of the National Parks Service, Kyle Turner, who's trying to catch a murderer.
But for Kyle, his past ends up playing a bigger role in his investigation than he anticipated. As each of the six episodes unfold, more secrets around Kyle's life, and the murder case, are revealed.
For Bana, a core element of playing Kyle was allowing himself to be "quite rude" as the character.
"Early on, especially in the first episode or two episodes, it's just having the confidence to actually be quite rude," Bana told Yahoo Canada. "He's going to be quite bristly and quite a grisly character until we really get to know him more."
"So I really just immersed myself into the writing and just kind of committed to the gruffness that he has, especially initially with Lily [Santiago's] character, and knowing that eventually there's a softness there that will play out."
'Beautifully written' relationships
While there are a lot of twists and turns in Untamed, a highlight is absolutely the relationship Kyle has with his ex-wife Jill Bodwin, played by Rosemarie DeWitt. This isn't your typical tension where one ex-partner moves on and gets remarried, Jill and Kyle suffered an incredibly traumatic experience together before their divorce, which has created this lasting link between them.
"I was thrilled when Rosemarie agreed to play Jill. I thought those scenes were really beautifully written," Bana said
"Obviously, they're sharing something, which gets revealed to the audience at some stages, which really affects their dynamic, but ... I hadn't really seen that kind of relationship before on screen. And so it was a real thrill to read that and to think that there was something different in the way that you'd be able to play an ex-husband and an ex-wife."
Kyle isn't investigating this murder alone, he's joined by Naya Vasquez, played by Lily Santiago, a cop who just moved from Los Angeles with her four-year-old son. Bana stressed that establishing the nuances in Kyle and Naya's relationship was critical for the show.
"We were really careful with the casting of that, we wanted that to be, not equals, because he's so much more senior to her, but that they would become equals in terms of the way that they try and go about solving this crime," Bana said. "But there had to be this kind of paternal quality, in both directions."
"I feel like in some ways, she's almost kind of mothering him. ... So the casting of that was really important and Lily's ability to come in and just kind of go toe-to-toe with with Kyle was really wonderful."
B.C. landscape was 'hugely important'
Bana, who's also an executive producer on the show, stressed that filming in B.C. was a crucial component of making this show right.
"I'd spent time in your beautiful part of the world in winters, but not in summer," Bana said. "So to get a chance to set the show there cinematically, and to get the scope and everything, was just incredible."
"It was a hugely important element in the show. We felt like the character of Yosemite National Park, and the role that nature plays, is one of the characters in the show. So we were thrilled to film there."
