‘Apex’ Interview: Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, & Director Baltasar Kormákur On Surviving A Brutal Shoot, Cliff Jumps, & More [The Discourse Podcast]

Survival films usually reveal what was already broken before the first fall, the first chase, the first bad decision in the wilderness. The mountain, river, or cliff may supply the danger, but the real pressure tends to come from whatever grief, fear, or guilt a character carries with them. In “Apex,” that burden is loss. The film throws a grieving woman into a brutal fight for survival and lets the physical ordeal drag everything else to the surface.

That same harshness carried over into the making of it. Speaking on this episode of The Discourse, Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, and director Baltasar Kormákur—the filmmaker behind “Everest” and “Adrift”—described a production built around punishing locations, long days, and a willingness to let the environment dictate the terms. The new Netflix thriller stars Theron and Egerton in a stripped-down two-hander about endurance, control, and the violence that can follow when someone already hanging by a thread is pushed even further.

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For Egerton, that meant the kind of shoot that could feel exhilarating and punishing in the same breath.

“It’s very hard work, but filmmaking is a joy,” Egerton said. “You do have days where you find yourself thinking, ‘God, I’d love to be in bed or drinking a cold beer somewhere.’ But actually, how lucky am I to be out here in Australia with a great actor, shooting in these incredible locations?”

Theron went even further, calling it one of the defining experiences of her career.

“This is my favorite movie I’ve ever made in over 30 years,” she said. “The logistics around it, where we ended up, the alchemy, the chemistry, it truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

That experience came with a cost. Theron said the film was shaped in part by exhaustion, constant refinement, and a team that kept pushing after the cameras stopped rolling.

“We set out to do something that was going to be hard, and we found the right people,” Theron said. “All those nights after shooting a 20-hour day, we were writing and developing and figuring out how we could better this movie. I watch the movie now, and I see that.”

Kormákur said that tension was central to the job. He was not interested in taming the environment into something neat and controllable. “The obstacle is your best friend,” Kormákur said. “When you’re shooting a mountain, you have to bow your head to the mountain and do what the mountain allows you to do.”

That philosophy was not theoretical. At one point, the production had to evacuate while shooting on a river. “We were shooting in a river where we actually had to evacuate,” he said. “You take it as far as you can. But then you have to realize that you are not in control of nature.”

That loss of control seems to be part of the film’s appeal. The rough edges and uneasy physicality appear tied to a production that did not try to polish away the strain or fake its way past the conditions.

Egerton’s character seems to have emerged from that same instinct. Kormákur recalled pushing the actor toward something less cleanly defined and more unnerving. “I don’t want you to play this guy. I want you to be this guy,” Kormákur told him. “Are you willing to reveal your inner creep?”

Kormákur said the threat in a character like that had less to do with brute size than instability. “I don’t think people are scary only if they’re big,” he said. “They’re scary if you can’t really put them. What is this guy about?”

The production stayed open to discovery in other ways, too. Kormákur said one standout sequence built around a Chemical Brothers track came from Egerton. “The song actually was Taron’s find,” Kormákur said. “After the performance, everyone was like, hands down, this was the right thing.”

The physical demands pushed both actors well outside their comfort zones. Egerton described one major fall as something he feared but still wanted to do himself. “I knew that I was terrified, but that I really wanted to do it,” he said. “And I did it, the feeling of achievement was beyond exhilarating.”

Theron, meanwhile, seemed to have a more direct relationship to the danger. “I really like jumping off that cliff,” she said.

For Egerton, the larger lesson had less to do with ego than submission to the material and the demands of the movie. “The film has to be the biggest thing,” he said. “If you let yourself become the biggest thing, it just doesn’t work.”

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That also helps explain why Kormákur still prefers dragging productions into the elements rather than rebuilding everything in a controlled digital environment. “I’m not a big believer in the other way around,” he said. “A lot of films are suffering from that. It doesn’t feel like they have done the utmost to experience the world.”

Whatever “Apex” ultimately lands as, the people behind it were clearly after something harsher, more physical, and less protected than the average survival thriller. The film premieres on Netflix on April 24. You can watch the conversation with Theron and Egerton below, and hear the full talk with Kormákur on The Playlist Podcast Network.

The Discourse is part of The Playlist Podcast Network, which includes Deep Focus, Bingeworthy, and more. We can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, and most places where podcasts are found. You can stream the podcast via the embed within the article. Be sure to subscribe and drop us a comment or a rating, as we greatly appreciate it. Thank you for listening.

Mike DeAngelo

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Entertainment journalist, podcaster, and host of The Discourse and Bingeworthy podcasts, with bylines at Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and IndieWire.

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