When Eric Bana is just not filming, he’s greater than probably using a bike in a distant a part of Australia. He’s been doing it since he was a child, having grown up in a semi-industrial a part of the suburbs of Melbourne on the verge of farmland. Now, it’s his solace on days off.

“It’s a vulnerable feeling, it’s an exciting feeling,” he says on a video name. “You have to be self-sufficient. You have to think worst-case scenario. What happens if I get a flat tire when it’s 120 degrees and there’s no water around? It keeps you awake.”

So when, again in 2019, Bana was given the pilot script for the Netflix restricted collection “Untamed,” he was instantly attracted. He would play the function of Kyle Turner, an agent within the Investigative Providers Department of the Nationwide Park Service in Yosemite — basically a park detective. It’s a homicide thriller but set in opposition to the sort of wilderness that Bana loves.

“I just felt a kinship for Kyle immediately,” he remembers. “I don’t know if it was just like the shared love for the outdoors and how that affects our psyche and our well-being, our sense of self, our emotional journey in life — I just immediately felt very strongly for Kyle.”

In “Untamed,” Eric Bana performs Kyle Turner, an agent within the Investigative Providers Department of the Nationwide Park Service. The present is ready in Yosemite Nationwide Park, although it was filmed British Columbia.

(Ricardo Hubbs / Netflix)

Bana caught with the undertaking via the COVID pandemic and the Hollywood strikes, permitting the collection created by Mark L. Smith of “American Primeval” and daughter Elle Smith to lastly hit the streaming service on Thursday. The present finds Bana’s character investigating the loss of life of a younger lady who plummets off El Capitan and into two rock climbers. The case unexpectedly connects two different traumatic incidents which have occurred within the mountainous wilds — at the least considered one of which straight includes the taciturn Kyle, grieving the loss of life of his younger son.

“He exudes that kind of sensitivity and strength at the same time,” Elle Smith says. “It allowed him to just really embody Turner. Because he’s been living in this show for so long, so many years and kept it alive and has remained passionate about it, once we got into production, he was Turner.”

“Untamed” additionally marks the newest in Bana’s unconventional profession that has seen him contact practically each nook of the Hollywood machine, regardless that he has at all times chosen to reside in Australia when he’s not working. It by no means made sense for him to maneuver to Los Angeles when a lot of his shoots have been abroad anyway. Once we chat, he’s briefly on the town for “Untamed” press.

Although he began his profession as a comic in his house nation, he was a part of the superhero craze earlier than it was a craze, taking part in the title function in Ang Lee’s “Hulk,” a film that’s now undergone a important reassessment. He’s been a “Star Trek” villain and a Steven Spielberg protagonist within the historic drama “Munich.” (Over the previous 12 months, increasingly folks have been mentioning the function of the Mossad agent tasked to answer the homicide of Israeli athletes on the 1972 Summer time Olympics: “With the passing of time, you realize how incredible some of the observations were,” he says.)

Although his profession has touched practically each nook of the Hollywood machine, Eric Bana has continued to reside in Australia.

(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)

Extra not too long ago, he ventured into the world of tv, taking part in the sociopathic John Meehan within the first season of the anthology collection “Dirty John.” Bana says he tends not to consider particularly taking part in characters that contradict his earlier work, however he understands that coming off that function in all probability was one of many causes he gravitated towards Kyle in “Untamed.”

“There was no doubt that the character of John had a level of toxicity to him that was just so high,” he says, including, “I realized that Kyle was a warmer character for the audience to follow than John.”

Earlier than he really bought to play Kyle, he began a mini-franchise in Australia with producing companion and director Rob Connolly due to “The Dry” and its sequel, wherein he performs one other investigator reeling from a traumatic previous.

For creator Mark Smith, Bana was the perfect individual to embody Kyle due to his skill to convey quite a bit with little or no dialogue.

“We felt like he was just so expressive in his eyes and his face,” Mark says. “He can do so much without saying anything, and that was crucial to this guy who really doesn’t want to speak — he doesn’t want to talk to people. He just wants to be kind of off on his own, doing his thing in the wilderness.”

As a result of Bana bought on board early, the Smiths might begin writing the remainder of the scripts with him in thoughts. Considered one of Bana’s requests: The extra he may very well be on a horse, the higher. Within the present, Kyle eschews motor automobiles for a trusty steed, which provides him extra entry to the much less traversed areas of the park. Bana ended up loving his horse.

“I desperately wanted to smuggle him on the plane and take him home,” he says.

Eric Bana and Lily Santiago are sometimes seen on horseback in “Untamed.”

(Netflix)

Mark and Elle Smith conceived of the collection after being despatched articles in regards to the Nationwide Park Service’s Investigative Providers Department. They weren’t accustomed to that world however have been nonetheless fascinated by this unusual occupation that’s half FBI agent and half park ranger. Bana had visited Yosemite years in the past as a solo vacationer however didn’t have the possibility to go once more earlier than the shoot, which passed off in British Columbia.

Nonetheless, he spoke to rangers and ISB workers to get a way of “just how crazy” a few of their work could be.

“When you mix drugs, when you mix people coming from all kinds of different backgrounds and having different entitlements to the places that they’re in, it’s really interesting,” he says.

Bana understands from private expertise that the attraction to the outside is partially primarily based on the truth that hazard is sort of at all times lurking across the nook. In Australia, he provides, “there’s always something trying to get you, whether it be two-legged, four-legged, eight-legged or whatever.”

On the set of “Untamed,” he was extremely wanting to see a bear — and was dissatisfied when it by no means occurred.

“We had a bear guy on set who was responsible for our and the bears’ safety,” he says. “We had very strict rules around food and all that sort of stuff. I was desperate, desperate to have an encounter with a bear of the positive kind, and I never saw one.”

Elle Smith confirms that almost all everybody else bought to see a bear. “He had really bad bear luck,” she provides.

“We felt like he was just so expressive in his eyes and his face,” says “Untamed” creator Mark L. Smith.

(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)

However even together with his lack of bear sightings, Bana’s love of being exterior was essential for your complete manufacturing. Mark explains he’s not the sort of star who returns to his trailer, as an alternative pulling up a chair to hang around.

“This was a tough landscape that we were shooting in,” Elle Smith provides. “I think it really helps in terms of tone setting if your movie star is willing to get out on the rock and do the climb. It really helps the crew also feel like they’re able to do the climb.”

Bana was intoxicated by his setting — a lot in order that he wouldn’t need to return to the sterility of a soundstage.

“Going to work in a studio after doing something like this — the thought of it is just debilitating creatively,” he says. “There’s something about a camera coming out of a box when the sun rises and going back when the sun goes down. There’s an energy, there’s a cadence to that.”

For his follow-up, he went again into the weather for “Apex,” an upcoming movie reverse Charlize Theron, the place they play a pair of rock climbers. He says he did intense coaching within the talent or else he would have regarded like a “fool.”

And similar to how Bana is prepared to let the climate dictate his taking pictures days, he’s additionally affected person together with his profession. It’s one of many causes he was prepared to attend for “Untamed.”

“I’ve been in this business for a period of time now where I realize you really do have to go with the ebbs and flows and you really do have to pace yourself, but at the same time when you find something that you love you just have to try and protect it,” he says.

It’s one thing you would additionally say in regards to the pure world, and Bana hopes that “Untamed,” even with all its darkish deeds and buried secrets and techniques, encourages audiences to go see for themselves.

“I hope people enjoy the feeling of being in that space, and in a perfect world, feel motivated to go and seek them out,” he says.

He definitely will probably be.