For the vast majority of action movies, actors are required to endure some physically and/or mentally taxing days on set. There may be dangerous stunts that need to be performed (even with the aid of a stunt double), chase sequences that must be shot over and over again so that the filmmaking team has enough material to work with during the edit, or scenes that involve lots of physical activity and are set to be filmed in excessively hot or cold climates. And then there are sequences like the 12-minute one in Extraction, which essentially asks of its actors all three of the above-mentioned things.
Hemsworth opened up during the Extraction livestream about what it was like filming the "one-er," admitting that it was challenging but noting that it was all worth it in the end because the scene felt super-charged with the same energy he was feeling while performing.
"It was intense to shoot, and it's intense to watch. [...] I was introduced to it probably a couple of months before shooting. Sam said he wanted to attempt this 12-minute 'one-er,' and I thought, 'Oh yeah, cool. Sounds fun!' And then [I] didn't realize it was going to be as intense and physically challenging as it was," said Hemsworth. "And we just did weeks and weeks of rehearsals, and as we were shooting each day, we'd be shooting the next sequence, and the next day, what was coming up. Everything was sort of overlapping and intense, but it adds to the energy of what you see."
Later, Hargrave noted that there wasn't a green screen involved during the scene — no CGI or digital effects were added in later during post-production. It was all raw, real, and unfolding right before the actors' eyes. "It's all them in the car," he said. "The realism I wanted was another part of this."
Hemsworth piggybacked off that comment, sharing, "You're completely immersed in the moment — not only as the character, but [also] as the performer. You're not having to act afraid, nervous, elevated heart rate, out of breath, because you truly are. It was intense." He continued, detailing that getting the timing exactly right was quite stressful, but when all is said and done, he actually finds green screen work to be much harder than what was done in Extraction.
"It's certainly way more enjoyable. The hardest stuff, I find, is green screen, soundstage, just numbing lights, no energy, no environment to react off and interact with," Hemsworth said, adding with a laugh that he wasn't just talking about his time playing Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but about his entire career outside of Extraction.
