In “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf,” the prequel sequence to Prime Video’s “The Terminal List” premiering Wednesday, Taylor Kitsch reprises his position as Navy SEAL Ben Edwards — sure, the identical Ben Edwards beforehand revealed to have dedicated an unthinkable sin in opposition to “the teams.”
The brand new action-espionage sequence’ arcing story traces Ben’s seemingly unimaginable journey from true believer to somebody able to betraying the unique present’s James Reece (Chris Pratt) and firm.
However for these pondering, “Haven’t we seen Taylor Kitsch in uniform a few times before?” — you’re not loopy. Even he isn’t positive what number of occasions he has performed army or military-adjacent roles.
“Oh God, man. Well, we can count ’em, I guess,” he says, when requested what number of are in his CV. “Obviously, ‘Lone [Survivor],’ ‘Savages,’ ‘Terminal List’ … I played a pretty tweaked fictional guy in ‘American Assassin.’ Does a cop count as military? ‘True Detective,’ Season 2. So roughly five.”
He missed just a few: Lt. Alex Hopper in “Battleship”; the titular Accomplice soldier in “John Carter”; and the prison (ex-military) Ray Jackson in “21 Bridges.” Whew. The query is, how did Kitsch develop into a go-to man for such roles? Why can we immediately purchase him in that context?
Taylor Kitsch as Ben Edwards, left, and Chris Pratt as James Reece within the prequel sequence “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf,” which explores Edwards’ backstory.
(Justin Lubin / Prime)
“He absolutely embodies it, sells it — which is a huge part of why we have this prequel season,” says Jared Shaw, a former SEAL who performs Boozer in each sequence and serves as a technical advisor.
“Taylor comes to the table every single day wanting to get it right,” he provides. “It’s so apparent to us that he wants to honor the community that I come from, the Navy SEAL community. I have so much respect for that, that he’s willing to put in the time and effort and ask the questions and give his thoughts.”
Ray Mendoza, one other former SEAL who has beforehand labored with Kitsch, and whose experiences are the premise of the latest movie “Warfare,” says together with Kitsch’s performing skill and the high-level physicality he maintains, “There’s his passion. He wants to understand it instead of just mimicking me. There’s only a handful of actors [with] all those components. That’s what separates him from the average action star.”
That seriousness of craft isn’t misplaced on these in that neighborhood, who’re painfully conscious when it’s absent.
“I’m trying to invite them into my world, to share what I’ve learned,” Mendoza says. “Unfortunately, a lot of what I’ve learned is written in blood, in the blood of people before me. So it’s frustrating when someone’s not willing to put in the effort. When they gloss over that stuff, you can feel like you’re invisible or they don’t care. With Taylor, that’s not the case. I love [working] with him.”
Forming a brotherhood
Kitsch’s introduction to the rigorous coaching required to even play-act as a Navy SEAL got here on “Lone Survivor,” the 2013 movie that dramatized a mission in Afghanistan that resulted within the deaths of a number of SEALs, together with his character, Medal of Honor recipient Lt. Michael Murphy. He says writer-director Peter Berg “did a brilliant thing and brought all 19 families” of the fallen SEALs to set. “Man, I was so nervous, because it hits you and you’re not ready for that.”
He says Murphy’s father, Dan, is “a veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and you’re just looking for acceptance. You could say, ‘I promise to do him justice,’ but when you’re staring across at a father who’s lost his son, who left the mark that Mike did, you’re just trying to tell him you’re going to give it everything you’ve got.
“And to Dan’s credit, he’s been amazing. He’s like, ‘I’m so pumped you’re the guy playing my son.’ He lifted me up. He gave me Mike’s fire patch, gave me some beautiful stories of their relationship.”
Taylor Kitsch’s introduction to taking part in a Navy SEAL got here along with his position in 2013’s “Lone Survivor,” the place he performed Lt. Michael Murphy, a Medal of Honor recipient.
(Guerin Blask / For The Occasions)
That fireplace patch was from New York Fireplace Division Engine 53, Ladder 43, which Murphy wore as a remembrance of 9/11.
The actor gained a deeper understanding of the SEAL brotherhood by means of Mendoza and Marcus Luttrell, who wrote the guide on which the movie was based mostly. Kitsch refers to them as “brothers now,” having gained their belief and respect, and the heat is returned.
“When I first met Taylor, he was new to this community,” says Mendoza, who consulted on “Lone Survivor” with Luttrell. “What I see in him now is, he’s taken on the ethos, the brotherhood, the loyalty. He’s taken on this sense of responsibility, when you’re a leader on this [‘Dark Wolf’] set — making sure, just as we would look out for a brother or sister, ‘Hey, are you OK? How’s the crew doing?’ It’s your team, your teammate and then yourself.”
Mendoza says that, for a lot of actors he has educated, “It was just for the movie. They don’t really follow up with the family [of real-life veterans they played]. They don’t do the events on Memorial Day.”
However it’s totally different with Kitsch, who took an lively curiosity within the veteran neighborhood. “He cares,” Mendoza says. “It’s not a thing he just did for [‘Lone Survivor’]. It’s a lifelong commitment for him and we embraced him as a brother because he does it on his own.”
The wolf in his eyes
“Terminal List” and “Dark Wolf” showrunner David DiGilio says when the creators are casting characters like Kitsch’s Ben, they begin with the actor’s eyes. “Do you feel a certain level of danger, a willingness to sacrifice, unpredictability and intelligence?” he says. “All of these things add up to the complex emotional and physical strength that is embodied in real-life special operators.”
Recalling his first assembly with Kitsch, held over Zoom, DiGilio knew they’d their Ben virtually instantly: “I think within two minutes, [executive producer] Antoine Fuqua texted me on the side: ‘That’s Ben.’ I said, ‘Yep.’ And it all began in those eyes.”
“But even more than that, we try to capture the mindset of a modern-day warrior,” says Jack Carr, the previous Navy SEAL who wrote the “Terminal List” books. “We’re not writing anything that’s rah-rah, pro-military at all.” He says he didn’t develop Ben Edwards deeply within the first novel, believing it might be the character’s solely look. Nonetheless, he says Kitsch was capable of deliver humanity and depth to the character.
“He accepted the role if he could do that,” Carr says. “Taylor really wanted to make this character his own … some of the physical manifestations are his tattoos or the sunglasses he wears. Without him, we certainly wouldn’t be having a spinoff like we are.”
“Dark Wolf” showrunner David DiGilio says he knew Taylor Kitsch was their Ben: “I think within two minutes, [executive producer] Antoine Fuqua texted me on the side: ‘That’s Ben.’ I said, ‘Yep.’ And it all began in those eyes.”
(Guerin Blask / For The Occasions)
Kitsch says one among his situations for taking the half was being allowed a “long leash.” “It’s so f— tough to root for a SEAL who does what he does [in ‘The Terminal List’],” he says. “So that’s a huge reason I signed on, just the challenge to [anchor] that emotionally.”
He says he had stunning conversations with Luttrell and different SEALs exploring Ben’s rationale for fatally betraying Reece’s unit; that, within the eyes of some, Ben may need been not fully unsuitable for “letting them die with their boots on” somewhat than them struggling by means of incurable mind tumors.
“It’s right there in the title, ‘Dark Wolf,’” DiGilio says. “We realized that Ben really embodies the parable” about every individual having two wolves inside them — a light-weight wolf and a darkish wolf.
“And the wolf who wins is the one you feed. So in order for that parable to resonate, you need to see him when he was a light wolf,” he says, which is why the brand new sequence opens with Ben nonetheless a real believer, a core member of his SEAL staff in Afghanistan. “You don’t want to progress him too fast because then it’s too easy. If you get someone to a place where they believe they can use their dark wolf for good, you can justify a lot, right? That’s a slippery slope.”
Whereas “Terminal List” had the just about Rambo-like resonance of a extremely educated killer unleashed on home soil, “Dark Wolf” is extra like a tougher James Bond sequence, with former SEALs immersed in messy espionage in unique locales.
“Obviously, Reece is the all-American; he could have potentially been the next president before the s— hit the fan,” says Kitsch of the variations between Pratt’s “Terminal List” lead and his in “Dark Wolf.” “He’s very celebrated, does the right thing, has the family.”
Taylor Kitsch describes Ben Edwards as a wild card.
(Attila Szvacsek / Prime)
Kitsch says his character is the alternative — he’s a wild card and extra lawless. He describes a scene in “Dark Wolf” on a subway the place Ben encounters an operative who has simply killed one among Ben’s teammates.
“It was written [that] they were going to have a knife fight on the subway. But there’s no leash on Ben; he really doesn’t give a f—. ‘Why am I going to get in a knife fight with this guy when I’ve got a pistol on me?’” he says.
As an alternative, he merely shoots the person useless in entrance of a prepare automotive filled with witnesses, images him along with his cellphone and calmly leaves.
Kitsch additionally mentions the astronomically excessive divorce fee amongst SEALs. “Ben’s been on the family side of it where he’s just, ‘I gotta keep doing this,’ and she’s not willing to stay around, understandably, so he keeps pushing forward,” he says.
He provides, “If I’m uncuffed and you let me go do what you’ve trained me to do. … Let’s see what I’m capable of. I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost my wife, my family, my brothers [in the Navy], so I may as well just keep pushing.”
Classes realized in coaching
Kitsch says one of the crucial vital issues the SEALs taught him got here within the early days of coaching for “Lone Survivor.” As a result of he was portraying the unit’s chief, Murphy, he was tasked with main the actors in a drill during which they’d be ambushed within the woods by the SEALs coaching them. If that weren’t scary sufficient, all had been utilizing “simunitions” — nonlethal coaching ammunition. However nonlethal doesn’t imply nonpainful.
Anticipating maybe a 12-minute gunfight, it as an alternative lasted solely two because the actors’ self-discipline fell aside, and the SEALs minimize them to shreds. Kitsch says he laughed, pleased accountable one among his co-stars for not following his orders, and Luttrell — whom he didn’t but know nicely and who was thought to be Murphy’s greatest buddy — wasn’t having it.
“He ripped me so hard, man,” says Kitsch, including an expletive as he recounts what Luttrell instructed him. “‘Is it funny that everyone’s dead? You’re the leader here, you wanted him to push right, and he slowed down. This ain’t no joke.’
Taylor Kitsch, left, as Michael Murphy and Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell in 2013’s “Lone Survivor.” Luttrell, whose guide is the premise of the movie, was on set with Kitsch, who suggested him to take a simulated gunfight severely: “He ripped me so hard, man.”
(Gregory R. Peters / Common Studios)
“And when you have the lone survivor giving it to you like that, you’re like, ‘OK, the stakes. Don’t forget the stakes.’ It was a really good moment that I’ve taken with me.”
In “Dark Wolf,” there’s an sudden shootout during which Ben’s staff should retreat from an ambush beneath heavy fireplace. Kitsch remembered Luttrell’s lesson.
“I took [the actors] aside and was like, ‘Understand the stakes here. You cannot overact in this. Don’t forget. Don’t hold back. If you don’t tell me there’s someone on my left that’s about to put one in me, I’m going to die, so act accordingly,’” he recounts.
“I think that helped everyone. Just a reminder that I got in a harsh manner that I’ll give these guys because I’ve been through it so many times. We’re all so conscious of not overacting and being rooted, which is a great thing, but when the stakes are at an 11, be at an 11.”
Giving again, on and offscreen
The actor’s philanthropic efforts on behalf of veterans aren’t misplaced on the SEALs who work with him. “He’s not just doing it on the screen; he’s living it in his personal life and he truly puts his money where his mouth is,” Shaw says. “He’s building a whole charitable foundation.”
Kitsch’s dream mission is Howler’s Ridge, a nature retreat centered on trauma therapeutic, not only for veterans but additionally for victims of home violence — and for the sober neighborhood. He has been open about taking break day from performing to assist his sister Shelby Kitsch-Finest by means of drug dependancy. “She relapsed over seven times, died twice, Narcan twice, and she’s nine-plus years sober now,” Kitsch says.
One of many individuals who helped them most was Luttrell, who has a ranch in Georgia, and instantly supplied her a spot to remain: “He’s like, ‘Bring her to the ranch. There’s no heroin, no fentanyl here.’”
That constructive expertise influenced Kitsch to transform 22 acres of land he owns in Bozeman, Mont., for Howler’s Ridge. Acutely aware of the hazards sure settings can pose for traumatized individuals, he hopes to “create an environment that’s very safe for them and very predictable. It’s at least the start of what I think can help reset their brain.”
The retreat isn’t formally open but, however Kitsch says his sister plans to host a weeklong yoga seminar and different actions for sober girls. “Obviously, just because you’re sober doesn’t mean you’re not in the fight anymore,” he says. “She’s a certified drug counselor now. It’s insane.
“I’m probably prouder of this than anything I’ve ever been a part of.”
