[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Untamed.]

Summary

Shooting the Netflix series ‘Untamted’ in a stunning wilderness setting posed challenges, but ultimately was a joy for the cast.

Taking on a physically demanding role was rewarding for series lead Eric Bana, leading to a deep connection with his character.

Relationships play a crucial role in the series, with complex dynamics explored between characters.

In the Netflix mystery thriller Untamed, Kyle Turner (Eric Bana), a special agent for the National Park Service whose job is to enforce human law in the vast wilderness of Yosemite, finds himself haunted by the brutal death of a young woman. Due to his rather prickly nature, no one wants to put up with Kyle long enough to work with him, so that duty falls on Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), the newest addition to the ranger squad who ultimately proves herself and her investigative skills to be useful. As the park’s dark secrets collide with Kyle’s own demons, his bonds with his ex-wife Jill (Rosemary DeWitt) and the chief park ranger Paul Souter (Sam Neill) will be tested. During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Bana, who’s also an executive producer on the series, discussed the special experience of shooting in such a beautiful setting, diving into the deep end of challenges that had to be tackled to pull this off, keeping the focused character-based, how they approached the father-son relationship, the fun of playing someone who isn’t really concerned with not offending people, injecting humor into a dark story, bonding with his horse, the complicated dynamic between Kyle and Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel), and how he feels about the finale twist.

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A murder mystery set in Yosemite should be way more gripping than this.

Collider: I love a good mystery, and I also love a mystery that really utilizes its surroundings. I feel like we haven’t really seen a story like this set in a location like this. What was it like to really incorporate the environment into this? Are there plus sides of getting to do that, and are there challenges in doing that? ERIC BANA: Yeah. There are obviously massive challenges, most of them being during early pre-production, in terms of scouting locations and making sure that we could find places that were as epic as the ones (creator) Mark [L. Smith] had written and that we’d envisaged with the scale. It was pretty tough on the crew in terms of moving around, but once you’re in there, it was just nothing but a joy. It was just really, really spectacular and beautiful and really special. This feels like a project that would have really pushed you physically. Was that the case? Were you fully prepared for that going into it? Is that something you enjoy? BANA: Yeah. It’s such a different beast when you take on a role of this size over that period of time. It really is a dive into the deep end. I really enjoy that challenge. It’s a complete disconnect from reality and normal life, so it is a commitment and it is a quite a monastic mindset that you take when you’re leading a show like this. But it’s hugely rewarding at the same time. We had an amazing crew, and an amazing production team and producers and showrunner. It was a lot of fun too.
‘Untamed’ Is a Mystery Series With a Character-Based Drama at Its Center

“Depending on who he’s with, Kyle is a different person.”

I was surprised by how much of a relationship series this is. There is this tangled mystery of these murders, but there’s so much going on with your character continuing to unravel everything. We learn so much about him by how he interacts with Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt), Paul (Sam Neill), Naya (Lily Santiago), Shane (Wilson Bethel), and even his dead son Caleb. Do you feel like those relationships were really important with a character like this, who probably would have just curled up around a bottle of alcohol and never dealt with human beings again? BANA: Yeah, absolutely. What I loved about the writing was that, depending on who he’s with, Kyle is a different person. Some people, he’s very dismissive of. Some people trigger him. Some people, he has no time for. There are very few that he respects, like Sam Neill’s character Paul and Raoul [Max Trujillo]’s character Jay. I love the writing between Kyle and Jay, and all their interactions. That’s part of what drew me to the project. It’s a real character-based drama at the center of it all. Even with the grief that he’s going through, it feels much more impactful because we get to see him with his son. It’s not just someone that we hear about but never see. What was it like to figure that relationship out with that little boy, both as the character and as the actor? BANA: It was really interesting. It was decided that we wouldn’t tell him that he was playing a deceased character, which I think was actually a really smart decision by his parents. We were just very careful with how we calibrated those scenes and how many of them there were. We wanted him to have this presence, but not like a ghost. We wanted him to feel like he was just something that helped Kyle get through the day. We were quite careful with all that stuff. And I think it helps us emotionally connect to the sense of loss to see them together, not just a photograph. There are two women that are really important in Kyle’s life in this series, his ex-wife, who is Caleb’s mother, and also the partner that he’s been forced to work with. What did you find most interesting about the dynamics with Jill and with Naya? What did you enjoy about exploring those relationships? BANA: I really loved it. I thought the relationship between Kyle and his ex-wife is one that I hadn’t seen before. The dynamic between the two, the way he still emotionally depends on her but she doesn’t at all depend on him, but then maybe in some ways she does. It was quite mysterious as well. There’s a bit of room there for the audience to work out what exactly that is. And same with Naya, with Lily [Santiago]’s character. In one sense, it’s paternal between Kyle and Naya, but towards the end, it almost feels like it goes the other way as well. It was really important that we cast someone who was able to do that.

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The series stars Eric Bana.

Naya feels like someone he would have been okay with, at any point, just going away and not coming back, but because she keeps coming back, he seems to develop almost a respect for her. BANA: Yeah, absolutely. That was really important, in terms of calibrating that, and having the confidence to be quite rude to her at the beginning, knowing that this relationship was going to progress professionally to one where there was mutual respect. Your character is referred to as “rough around the edges,” which feels like a polite way of saying that he can just be a rude asshole. Is there fun in getting to play someone who doesn’t have the capacity for niceties at this point in his life? Were there ever times that you wondered if he was being a bit too harsh with anyone? BANA: Unfortunately, it’s remarkably easy. I don’t know why. It’s literally just giving yourself the license to play it that way. You realize the central character starts out this way, and he’s going to treat people like this, and that’s okay. It’s fun. I think there’s enough of a balance between the way he interacts with other characters that we see other sides to him, and he’ll eventually soften. I love the unexpected bits of humor in this. The exchange between your character and the park superintendent at the beginning of the season, when you say, “Tell him you can’t spell wilderness without wild,” and he says you should put it on a bumper sticker when it is on a bumper sticker on the wall made me laugh out loud. Was it important to have some of those moments? BANA: Yeah. I even loved the way that Mark had the confidence to inject that humor between Kyle and Jay. He talks about catching fish with his bare hands and how, if you’ve still got a fishing license, it’s probably expired. Just the way they would riff with each other, that’s how it would be in real life. They wouldn’t be so serious. But you’re right, we didn’t shy away from those lighter moments if it was at all possible.
Eric Bana’s Favorite Co-Star in ‘Untamed’ Just Might Be Kyle Turner’s Horse

“I dreaded my last day with him.”

Image via Netflix

When you’re on a horse as much as you are in this series, does it feel like the horse is a co-star that you have to get to know and fill out the personality of, just like any other co-star you had in this? BANA: Yeah, most definitely. We gelled right away. He was a total sweetheart. He looked after me and I tried to look after him. Unfortunately, I’m led to believe he’ll be having other actors ride him in the future, which breaks my heart. You definitely form a relationship with him. I dreaded my last day with him, absolutely. I don’t get to email him. I can email any one of the other cast, but I can’t email [the horse]. We know from the beginning of learning about Shane that he has this history with Kyle, but it takes some time for the audience to understand exactly what that history is. Things between them keep building to the moment that culminates with Shane getting punched by Kyle in episode five. What’s it like to shoot that scene? Do you find those kinds of confrontations fun to do? BANA: I enjoyed that because we’re playing with two different ideas there, so it was a case of calibrating it. I love the fact that he’s the only character that made Kyle a little bit unhinged, but at the same time, the audience thinks he’s unhinged for this reason, but he’s actually unhinged because of this reason. The audience doesn’t know what that is yet. That’s a lot of fun and very complex to play because you want it to make sense afterwards, why he responded the way he did, and you want to feel almost a little bit out of character at the time, but not too much out of character. Mark and I would have conversations about that, and with the director of that particular episode, about how we saw that and how far we wanted to take it. Calibration was a big factor over the six episodes. Kyle punching Shane is not the end of that moment. Shane pushes him even further and makes the dig about Kyle’s wife and his drinking, which gets him to draw his gun on Shane. Were there also conversations or just thoughts that you had yourself, with that scene? BANA: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes we would have it written one way, and then on the day, we’d get there and need to do it slightly different. Sometimes it would feel like the way it was written was too unhinged, so we’d try another idea. Mark and I always felt like we were making exactly the same show. We always had a direct dialogue and were always playing with little nuances on the day, to make sure that we kept it grounded and we didn’t go too far, that it didn’t feel like something other than our show. We wanted it to feel true to what we were doing with our characters.

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Eric Bana and Sam Neill lead the murder mystery tale.

Does a moment like that always feel a bit surreal to shoot? Obviously, you’re acting in a scene and you know what’s going to happen, but is it still surreal when you’re in a moment like that and you pull a gun on somebody? BANA: Yeah, in some ways. I’m always paranoid about what the environment is, that everyone knows exactly what’s going on, and that the extras realize exactly what’s about to happen. I can’t turn that part of my brain off, especially when you’re the one who has the weapon. There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that stuff, obviously, so that’s always first and foremost in your mind. And then you have to let go of that and go with the scene. In the finale episode, your character is essentially hunted by Shane. He gets shot, he loses his horse, and he only survives because Naya shows up. What was all of that like to shoot? Was there a particularly challenging aspect of getting chased and hunted and almost killed? BANA: I had an incredible stunt double who did a couple of crazy things in that sequence. It was scary to watch. There’s a lot of stuff that I was able to do, but then there were a couple things where my guy stepped in and just ate it. There’s no other word for it. It was a very intense sequence to film.
The Twists of Netflix’s ‘Untamed’ Keep Unraveling Until the Very End

“Life just never got easier for Kyle, with every episode.”

Image via Netflix

In a final twist, we learn that Paul was actually Lucy Cook’s father, and he turned his back on her. How did you feel when you learned about Paul’s involvement with what happened and that he ultimately took his own life? BANA: Life just never got easier for Kyle, with every episode. When I read it, I was like, “This is so Mark Smith to do this.” You know something traumatic is going to happen and you’re not quite sure exactly how it’s going to reveal itself, but it was an incredible twist. Sam [Neill] did such a great job. It was such a massive scene that we had together. I just couldn’t believe the level of trauma that would be there for Kyle, as a result of that reveal, and then what Paul does after that. We just leaned into it to see what would happen on the day and react accordingly. What’s it like, as an actor, to get to share moments like that with someone like Sam Neill? BANA: When he agreed to come on board, we were so thrilled. I felt like I was going to be in really great hands. I knew I had a lot of really important scenes with the Paul Souter character, and he was just a dream. He was just absolutely incredible, with great energy. He was super professional. It just felt effortless.

Untamed

Release Date

July 17, 2025

Network

Netflix

Untamed is available to stream on Netflix. Check out the trailer: