🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐 

In Extraction 2, Tyler Rake is put through the ringer — physically and emotionally, all while hanging onto a moving train. “[We had] a lot of conversations about how we were going to elevate the film on the action side,” Chris Hemsworth, the Australian superstar who reprises his role as the taciturn mercenary, tells Tudum. “And that was almost the easier part in one sense.” Turns out, a tense extraction of a woman and two children from a Georgian prison was the film’s least difficult task. The truly tricky part of making Extraction 2? Learning just what makes Tyler Rake tick. 

The new sequel to 2020’s hit action flick dives further into the classified backstory of the hired muscle. “We really only had in one or two scenes [in the original] any really insight or understanding to who the character was and what the emotional trauma and pain he was carrying stemmed from,” Hemsworth says. “So, this film was an origin story for the second time in a way, a much deeper delving into what made him tick and why he is the type of individual he is.”

Jasin Boland/Netflix

So, why does Tyler Rake speak Georgian?

A surprisingly large part of that involved Hemsworth learning to speak Georgian. The small country on the coast of the Black Sea plays a significant role in Extraction 2; it’s the destination Rake heads to in order to rescue the family of a prominent gangster. The process of learning enough of the language to negotiate the film’s plot was sometimes just as on-the-fly as the film’s action. “We were rewriting a lot of it throughout the process of the film,” Hemsworth tells Tudum. “And so the little bits of Georgian that I was learning were then being changed, and I said, ‘Look, I definitely can’t improv in Georgian.’ ” 

So the production turned to a time-honored Hollywood tradition, one even acting legend Marlon Brando occasionally leaned on. “We had cue cards in some of the scenes, which would be phonetically spelled out and I’d be able to read,” Hemsworth says. Hemsworth also had a dialogue coach on set, as well as a few less professional consultants. “The other Georgian actors were giving me advice,” he laughs. “I stumbled through it, in a way. I think it just added another layer to who this individual was, and a bit of mystique around how he knew the language.” 

Stanislav Honzík/Netflix

Who plays Tyler Rake’s wife?

And how does Tyler Rake know the language? As we learn in the film, the family Rake is hired to rescue is more than just a group of imperiled strangers; they’re his family. Specifically, his ex-wife’s sister (played by Georgian actor Tinatin Dalakishvili). And once the extraction is successful, we also meet the former Mrs. Rake herself: Mia, played by Quantum of Solace star Olga Kurylenko. “We had a lot of discussions about that first interaction, and what the emotional stakes were,” Hemsworth says. 

“Mia Rake is a pivotal character and when it came time to cast the role, we needed somebody who has a presence on-screen and the acting chops to really push Hemsworth in these emotional scenes,” director Sam Hargrave told Netflix. “Our first choice was Olga Kurylenko and we were so glad she said yes! She can hold the screen with anyone, and we were so excited to add her to this already brilliant cast.”

Jasin Boland/Netflix

What happened to Tyler Rake’s son?

The great tragedy of Rake and his wife’s love story centers around their deceased son, who passed away from cancer while his father was deployed in Afghanistan. Mia correctly points out that he didn’t need to be in Afghanistan — that in fact what he was doing was running away from his pain. And Tyler admits it; he left because even Tyler Rake couldn’t fix his son’s pain. 

“We actually shot a few different versions of how that interaction played out,” Hemsworth tells us. “And it was a balancing act between what emotion was going to be more dominant. Because there was so much pain, there was so much trauma, there was potential for anger and frustration.”

But there’s also potential for forgiveness. At the end of the film, when the bad guys have been defeated and all is right with the world, Mia and Tyler share another visit, this time on opposite sides of a pane of jailhouse glass. Here, Mia gives Tyler a chance to close the door on his guilt, telling him that their son died not thinking his father had abandoned him, but that he was a brave hero, fighting to save lives. “That’s how he saw you,” she says. Now Tyler will have to live up to that image.

“I think we all felt very satisfied with where it landed,” Hemsworth says. “If we had a fallen short with that emotion, then the rest of the film wouldn’t have had the same resonance.” All in a day’s work for the man behind the Rake.

Extraction 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

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