Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton Dragged "Through Hell" in Brutal Survival Thriller APEX
Survival thrillers are always more intense when the environment feels like a real threat, and that’s exactly what audiences can expect from Apex.
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, the filmmaker behind Everest, Adrift, and Beast, the film throws Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton into a punishing wilderness where nature and human cruelty collide.
At the center of the story is Theron’s Sasha, a hardened climber forced to fight for her life in the dangerous terrain of an Australian national park. The twist is that the brutal landscape isn’t the only thing trying to kill her.
Egerton’s character, Ben, is a ruthless hunter stalking her across cliffs, rivers, and unforgiving wilderness. The result sounds like a relentless chase where every step could mean survival or death.
Kormákur has built a reputation for putting characters in extreme conditions, and Apex continues that tradition. The director believes the environment should play an active role in shaping the story and the performances.
“The environment, the geography where you make the film, it starts to inform the story and vice versa. Space and weather and landscape are a character in films. It’s very important to me to use it.”
His method is simple. Make the actors experience the hardship their characters face. “I try to drag the cast through hell — because they have to experience it!”
Theron was fully on board with the challenge and appreciated that Kormákur wasn’t asking his actors to do anything he wouldn’t attempt himself.
“[Kormákur] was always the first one to fucking do the craziest thing that he was asking us to do. He knew what I was capable of. You want someone that can push you to a level that you can’t take yourself.”
For Egerton, one particular stunt turned into a nerve-racking moment. The actor had to perform a free fall while suspended by wires high above the ground. While he doesn’t usually struggle with heights, the experience was another story.
“I don’t usually struggle with heights, but I found hanging from a wire to be quite challenging. There’s a free fall, and Balt asked if I would be open to doing it. I decided to give it a shot, and I don’t mind saying — I was petrified.”
When the cameras rolled, Egerton committed fully to the stunt.
“I called, ‘Action,’ and we rolled. And I fell. And I screeeamed. The moment we called, ‘Cut,’ I got a lovely round of applause from the crew. I suppose that felt like a kind of real moment of achievement.”
With Kormákur pushing his cast into raw environments and Theron and Egerton clearly going all in, Apex sounds like it’s aiming for a gritty, physical survival story, and audiences could be in for a intense ride through the wild.
Source: Empire