Eric Bana talks Netflix ‘Untamed’ and whether he’d return to Marvel
Eric Bana, star and executive producer of the Netflix limited series “Untamed,” chats with USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa about his character in the show.
NEW YORK – Eric Bana thought about taking something from the set of Netflix’s “Untamed” back home to Australia: the horse he rides in the new limited series about an agent investigating a death at Yosemite National Park.
“It was expensive,” Bana, 56, says of the cost to transport a horse from British Columbia, where the show was filmed. “I’m not even sure if he was for sale, but I looked into it. I was going to smuggle him.”
Bana jokes that his wife Rebecca would have had no issue with the addition to the household, “so long as it was (my) responsibility.” The actor has two pets, a poodle and a Burmese cat, and confirms that both “live in harmony” together.
Bana tackles demons and a murder case in ‘Untamed’
“Untamed” is set in Yosemite National Park. Bana stars as Kyle Turner, the special agent investigating the death of a woman in the park. As the case unfolds, so does Turner’s past, which includes the death of his son, a struggle with alcohol abuse and a divorce.
“There’s a shared trauma between the two of them,” Bana says of the relationship between Turner and his ex-wife Jill (Rosemary DeWitt).” Their son’s death “affects him, as it would any human. It’s a very spiritual connection that he has with the park as a result and with nature. And we really try and tap into that.”
Bana says he received the script of the pilot episode as early as 2018, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the Hollywood strikes delayed production. He also signed on as an executive producer, something he does, “when I really feel like I want to be extremely supportive of the original vision and not have it diluted at all. There’s a version of this show that you could sell to someone and (the studio says), ‘Yeah, we’ll make this show. Do you really need to go to that location? Do you really need that much time in the forest?'” he says. “Luckily, in this case, we were all moving in the same direction.”
Bana’s succinct response to a Marvel return
Bana played the title character in the 2003 film “Hulk,” but he wasn’t asked to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Edward Norton also made a single appearance as the superhero, in 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk.”) Would he ever consider it, as fans speculate he might for “Avengers: Secret Wars,” due in 2027?
The actor offers a firm “no.”
“It was a one’er for me,” he adds of the MCU experience. “I love doing what I’m doing (now).”
