Chris Hemsworth Says Extraction 2's Brutal Prison Fight Scene Was 'The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done'
Last year, Chris Hemsworth announced he'd be taking a well-earned break from acting after discovering he's at a heightened risk of developing Alzheimer's disease — and it seems he's kicking off his brief hiatus with a bang. We already knew that "Extraction 2" was going to be an all-out action extravaganza, with director Sam Hargrave promising "at least twice the action" of the first movie. According to Netflix, "Extraction" broke viewing records when it debuted in April 2020, which made a sequel damn near guaranteed despite Hemsworth's Tyler Rake seemingly dying at the end of the first one.
But thanks to a murky shot depicting a distorted figure in the film's final moments, Hargrave and producers Anthony and Joe Russo were able to resurrect Hemsworth's black market mercenary for another go round. And this time, they haven't gone easy on him.
In fact, Hargrave's promise of double the action seems to be underselling the intensity of "Extraction 2." The movie, set to hit the streamer in June, not only looks to have doubled down on its action sensibilities, it's also taken the first film's best moment — a 12 minute one-take shot (that's actually several shots stitched together with hidden cuts) — and tried to blow it out of the water. Hemsworth himself took to Twitter in May 2023 to promise fans a 21-minute oner that, according to new Total Film interviews with the cast and crew, was quite the wild ride to shoot. And considering Hemsworth's already talked about on being set on fire for that very sequence, it really is looking like the star will head into his acting break having outdone himself.
The prison fight
In "Extraction 2," Tyler Rake once again sets out to do some hardcore extracting, this time attempting to free the family of a Georgian gangster. The "Extraction 2" trailer suggests that won't be an easy task, either, with Chris Hemsworth taking on relentless waves of aggressors to complete his perilous mission. But it's the teaser trailer, which showcases a prison brawl in which Hemsworth uses literal flaming fists to beat down his attackers, that really has me excited.
This prison fight is the aforementioned 21-minute oner we've been promised, and looks as though it'll be a ridiculously over-the-top moment that just happens to also look cool as hell. As you might expect, however, actually shooting this scene proved to be not only difficult, but according to Hemsworth, the "hardest thing [he's] ever done."
As Sam Hargrave told Total Film, the scene involves multiple attackers and was inspired by "a nature documentary of a group of hyenas attacking a lion," in which the hyenas attacked mainly from behind and used "numbers to their advantage." For Hemsworth, who's surely as close as you can get to the human embodiment of a lion, recreating this circle of life moment for "Extraction 2" tested his endurance like no other scene — which is saying something, considering we're talking about Thor here.
'When are they going to call cut?'
In his Total Film interview, Chris Hemsworth recalled in detail what it was like to film the one-take prison brawl, and it honestly sounds like nothing less than an ordeal. The actor explained:
"It was like, 'I don't know if I can get to the end of this round.' [...] It's like a boxing match: 'When is the bell going to ring? When are they going to call cut?'"
Making matters worse was the fact that Hemsworth couldn't use a stunt double, due to the whole one-take approach making it much easier to spot his stand-in. In other words, it's really the man himself out there, fists aflame. In order to deal with such an intense situation, Hemsworth recalled how he had a physio, named "The Wizard," on-set:
"He would see me just sit there and start leaning in a different way. He'd grab me, pull me aside and quickly dig his hands into my back and my shoulder or whatever, and send me back out there. I'd get home and it would be straight into the ice bath, right into the sauna, and physio. A few anti-inflammatory tablets. And then back out there."
By the end of the shooting this particular scene, the actor found himself completely drained, adding, "At the end of a take, you're sucking air like you never have before, and everyone drops to their knees." But it seems the experience hasn't soured him on doing one-take scenes, as the "Thor" star suggested he might integrate something similar into a future Marvel film.
This oner sounds legit
Ever since Cary Fukunaga shot what remains the best example of a one-take sequence in "True Detective" season 1, action directors have seemingly been keen to mimic his success. Not that Fukunaga was the first to shoot a scene in one take — Alfred Hitchcock might just be able to lay claim to that honor — but his high-intensity pursuit of Matthew McConaughey's Rustin Cohle as he fights his way through a housing project seemed to catapult the concept of one long action scene into the public consciousness in a way that no other film or TV show ever had (no doubt aided by Twitter and its ability amplify any memeable artifact of popular culture almost instantly).
Soon, the "oner" was showing up in everything from Netflix's "Daredevil" to "Extraction" itself. But by the time Fukunaga returned to the style for a scene in the climax of "No Time To Die," it had lost much of its impact. Directors had cheated on their own oners by hiding cuts at strategic moments, often making for obvious fabrications of the genuine article.
The reason "Extraction 2" looks like it could overcome these issues is simply the sheer boldness of this scene as a whole. Sam Hargrave truly looks to have taken things to a new level with the prison fight scene, and if Chris Hemsworth's comments are anything to go by, we really will get to see a man pushing himself to his limits rather than a bunch of takes clumsily held together with hidden cuts. Even if there are cuts in this new sequence, it's obvious that Hemsworth was about as exhausted as he would be if he really were in the middle of a prison brawl fighting for his life.
"Extraction 2" hits Netflix on June 16, 2023.