‘The Terminal List’ Star Breaks Down the Brutal Episode 6 Face-Off Between Landry and Mo

Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for The Terminal List Season 2.

In Season 2 of the Prime Video series The Terminal List, based on former Navy SEAL-turned-author Jack Carr‘s second novel True Believer, Navy SEAL Commander James Reece (Chris Pratt) finds himself tangled in a conspiracy that forces him to turn to old friends, including sniper Freddy Strain (Gabriel Luna), former teammate Mo Farooq (Dar Salim). Meanwhile, wild card Jules Landry (Luke Hemsworth), who was first introduced in The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, fully embraced crossing lines of corruption that placed him directly into an adversarial role with Reece. Once Reece was able to capture Landry and extract information from him, Mo still had his own score to settle.

Collider recently got the opportunity to chat with Hemsworth about getting tortured for the majority of Episode 6 in the second season of the hugely popular book series. During the interview, he discussed how Dark Wolf helped inform who Landry is in The Terminal List Season 2, whether he thinks Landry believed that he’d be able to escape the torture, facing off with Mo Farooq, the challenges of shooting such a brutally intense episode, and the technical skill of getting it all exactly right when it came to bringing that much talked about scene from the book to life.

COLLIDER: This show is so realistic and authentic that it’s sometimes hard to watch.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: That’s why the show got created. Chris Pratt was sitting with his buddy, Jared Shaw, who’s an ex-Navy SEAL, that was like, “It doesn’t happen like that.” And Chris was like, “Well, let’s do something where it does look like it’s real.” Their guiding star to be authentic for those people.

‘The Terminal List: Dark Wolf’ Allowed Luke Hemsworth To Build a Backstory for Jules Landry To Carry Into ‘The Terminal List’ Season 2

“I think we show a descent into chaos that is exciting.”

Image via Prime Video

After the first season, we got to go back in time with Dark Wolf before then going to the present again for this. Normally, that’s the backstory work that you have to do yourself, but you got a whole season of a show to do it instead. How did spending time on the prequel series inform who Landry is for you now?

HEMSWORTH: Incredibly. Landry was a tiny part in the True Believer book. He’s in there for, I think, a chapter. Even when I was offered the role, I was like, “What is this character? He’s barely in it. He has this iconic end, which is fun. But what are we going to do?” So, Jared Shaw, Max Adams and Dave DiGilio were all very good and open about fleshing out this character and making sure that he was three-dimensional, interesting, formidable, and an adversary that’s worthy of James Reece. It’s a gift, as an actor, to have some input into that. We had many, many discussions along the way about why this guy was doing the things that he was doing, where he’s come from, and how that informs what’s going on in the future.

Something that doesn’t happen in TV is that you know where you’re going to end up. I always knew that we were coming to that finale right from the beginning, so I was off the leash in terms of being able to fill in a lot of those blanks. I always wanted to show, season to season, a very clear distinction and an evolution of this guy unraveling. The closer we got to Episode 6 of True Believer, the more unhinged and the more physically imposing he is, but the greater the damage is to his own psyche. I think we pulled it off. I think we show a descent into chaos that is exciting. It’s a bit like a bus crash that’s hard to look away from.

Jules Landry is interesting because he could just be the asshole that everybody hates, but there are so many other things going on. It actually made me wonder what this guy would be like in therapy.

HEMSWORTH: I feel like he would only go to therapy in order to mess with the therapist. That’s his thing. It’s so fun to play against what you expect a character to be, and we really leaned into that. It’s like a relief valve. The show is very heavy. It’s very dark. And we’re able to laugh at Landry and the absurdity of it. He’s very real. He’s very grounded in a sense of reality. But he’s always pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable, haircut wise, with the mustache, with his physicality, and with the way he is with people.

At the start of his torture, Landry is clearly playing games with Reece. Did he really believe that he was actually in control and was just going to get out of this situation?

HEMSWORTH: I think so. I think he felt safe in the fact that he was connected, in some way. Maybe he was expecting to be rescued. There’s a little bit of delusion there. He’s definitely a sociopath. But I also think there’s a part of him that just doesn’t care. He really does not care until the very last moment, when it crashes down on him. The pleasure that he gets in all of these interactions is being able to flip people’s expectations. When Reece thinks that he’s broken him, he gives him the metaphorical finger, over and over again. That’s so fun. It’s fascinating to watch. You think that he’s done and he’s broken and he’s gone and he’s given up, but it turns out he’s just being Landry again.

Luke Hemsworth and Dar Salim Knew Where Things Were Headed for Their ‘The Terminal List’ Characters From the Beginning

“I was like, ‘It’s not real, guys. I’m actually not naked,’ but everyone was very quiet and very respectful.”

Image via Prime Video

When I spoke to Dar Salim about your scene together, he referred to it as “a date between Landry and Mo Farooq that you’ll never forget,” which is pretty accurate. What was it like to shoot all of that with him?

HEMSWORTH: I love Dar so much. We’ve been such good friends, right from the beginning. We always knew that we would end up in this space together in the end. There are a few things that are going on during that whole escapade in the cell, and I really wanted to lean into being uncomfortable. At the beginning, they would handcuff me with handcuffs that were magnets. But because my shoulders don’t move very well, the magnets would just pop off. I was like, “This is distracting and it doesn’t feel like I’m actually under any threat at all. I really want to feel some semblance of what it’s like to be tortured and chained to the floor.”

And so, we got real handcuffs and chained me to the floor. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t get into any comfortable positions. People would come in and ask, “Can I get you something? Can I help you?” I had to say, very specifically, “Please, no more people coming up and asking me if I’m okay. I’m not okay. I don’t want to be okay. I have to have some sort of experience of the threat of everything that’s going on and try to make it as real as possible.” And real is a very loose term because there’s obviously no danger. I’m still going back to my trailer to eat my chicken. But just for that time – and we were there for almost a week – I wanted to be uncomfortable.

It was fascinating watching the other people because I had a piece on that was glued to me that was obviously not me, but people got very embarrassed about it. I was like, “It’s not real, guys. I’m actually not naked,” but everyone was very quiet and very respectful. Even though it’s not real, people are still very uncomfortable being around that. It’s not great to look at. I had been tortured for a week and there was fake blood everywhere. So, it felt real to everyone else, but even me, when I was standing on that chair and there was piano wire and a noose, it still felt like it was me. It was like a fake limb, where I could still feel it. It was terrifying. I had the handcuffs and I knew that if I fell, I’d probably bust a shoulder or something. All those things are designed to trick your brain into thinking that this is actually happening.

Was there ever a moment when you got so caught up in it all that you forgot you were supposed to deliver lines, or were you able to always stay aware of where you were at with the scene?

HEMSWORTH: Both. There were a lot of moments where I was not saying anything and it was just minutes of writhing in agony or being cold. It was the same thing with the water. I was like, “Don’t make the water warm. Make it cold. I want to be cold.” There are always things that come out in those moments, and being in that environment and giving over to it informs the way the scenes are delivered. You have an idea in your mind of what it is. And then, when you add all of those elements and try to make it as real as possible, that informs the scene in a way that is dynamic and interesting and makes it uncomfortable to watch.

Luke Hemsworth Gave Himself Over to Episode 6 of ‘The Terminal List’ Season 2

“That is the skill, being able to forget all of that stuff, but also not forget it.”

Image via Prime Video

Were there also technical aspects you had to be aware of because of the logistics of it all? Dar Salim had to push the stool a certain way, so that you could fall and have the blood spurting everywhere. Was it challenging to get all of that done exactly correct?

HEMSWORTH: Yeah, of course. I was not actually attached, in any way, to the wire. The big danger was falling and not being able to break your fall without anything other than your face. But I had a wonderful stunt guy actually do the fall, Lee Villeneuve, who is a martial artist and just incredible. He looked exactly like me. It was amazing. You give yourself over to the scene and you try to make everything as real as possible, but you still absolutely have to hit every technical aspect, for the cinematographer and lighting and with all the lines. There was a lot going on. That is the skill, being able to forget all of that stuff, but also not forget it.

The Terminal List is available to stream on Prime Video.

Release Date

June 30, 2022

Network

Prime Video

Showrunner

David DiGilio

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  Jeanne Tripplehorn

  Secretary Hartley

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