SPOILER ALERT: This text comprises particulars of Outdated Guard 2, which debuted on Netflix on July 2.
“At some point, you’ll perceive, each minute is a step towards loss of life,” Uma Thurman‘s vengeful Discord says in Netflix’s long-awaited and much-delayed The Outdated Guard 2.
Now, immortals and ex-immortals have their very own method of wanting on the march of time, however there isn’t any denying the action-packed Charlize Theron-led franchise is alive and kicking. Directed by Victoria Mahoney, the Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker-penned sequel brings Theron’s no-longer immortal Andy up towards a foe in Discord that will really be greater than her match. The layered movie additionally brings a real blast from the previous within the raised-from-the-sea Quynh (Veronica Van) – who has some very private scores to settle with Theron’s notorious warrior.
Having weathered a worldwide pandemic, regime modifications at Netflix, fires, Hollywood strikes and extra within the 5 years because the first OG got here out, the movie based mostly on the characters from Rucka’s 2017 graphic novel collection has rocketed to the highest of the streamer’s charts this Independence Day week. A vet of the Star Wars universe and the indie world, Mahoney took over from The Outdated Guard’s first director Gina Prince-Bythewood after the latter moved on to 2022’s acclaimed The Girl King.
Sitting down with me and a cascading view of Hollywood behind us, simply off the wild junket experience for OG2, Mahoney detailed becoming a member of the franchise, working with Theron and Thurman, and the place it’s all going subsequent. Beneath, the filmmaker, who’s within the driver’s seat for Amazon MGM’s Clear-Air, revealed the jazz legend and Oscar winner on the coronary heart of her inspiration and the way she finds the beats to make the motion actually hit.
DEADLINE: Very first thing, congratulations are so as, OG2 hit #1 as the highest Netflix film within the nation inside hours of debuting…
VICTORIA MAHONEY: It means an excellent deal to me to have Outdated Guard 2 hit #1 within the States, 24 hours after it was launched – and that’s not wasted on me. I worth each single person who paused to hit play and, at this second in time on this business, these statistics are arsenal. They’re arsenal for anyone who’s attempting to proceed making motion pictures, do what we love and join with audiences and join audiences to motion pictures. I’m pleased with everyone who labored on it, and I’m simply delighted by the quantity of people that, , confirmed up and powerful lengthy followers for this franchise.
Charlize Theron attends Netflix’s premiere of The Outdated Guard 2 on June 25, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Pictures for Netflix)
DEADLINE: Talking of people that labored on the movie, how was it stepping in and dealing with Charlize?
MAHONEY: The factor about Charlize is, she comes arduous, and she or he dedicates 1,000% of herself to each sequence, whether or not it’s trauma or motion, and it’s seen. Individuals know that, for a few years we’ve all seen it, and we’ve witnessed it. However there’s something actually electrifying to see it up shut in particular person, and she or he doesn’t go away something on the sector, as we are saying.
DEADLINE: How so?
MAHONEY: Okay, so I labored in pre-production for months with our battle choreographer, Georgi Manchev to make sure that the motion all through the film had some sense of emotion. Clearly, and particularly the alley battle between Charlize’s Andromache character and Veronica Van’s Quynh character. It was important that it had ranges and layers and grounding within the coronary heart, and that is why I point out this, I used to be excited when Georgi instructed me that Charlize was actually moved the primary time they auditioned the alley battle for her. As a result of, , it isn’t simple to make audiences really feel when two persons are preventing. My perception is, if audiences don’t really feel something in a battle scene, then what are we doing?
So, what occurs when somebody like Charlize comes arduous like that to any position is that everybody on the bottom, , crew rises as much as meet her and assist make her goals come true. And I’m actually pleased with what all of us completed, and, let me inform you, Charlize is the engine on the Outdated Guard franchise – undoubtedly.
DEADLINE: Talking of which, Outdated Guard is a beloved comedian, a fairly hardcore first film again in 2020 with Gina Prince-Bythewood within the director’s chair, Charlize looms giant in all the pieces she’s in, so what was it like getting on board, for, if I’m appropriate, your first characteristic in over a decade?
MAHONEY: It was thrilling.
DEADLINE: Understatement?
MAHONEY: (LAUGHS) You understand, there are benefits to strolling into one thing with a basis. A few of the lifting you do on a primary installment, I really like world constructing. You will have the thrill of that, however you’re additionally looking for your method with the crew and the solid, and that’s occurring in actual time throughout principal pictures. So, once I are available in on this explicit undertaking, within the second installment, I’ve are available in, and the character work is completed, and was carried out in nice measure.
DEADLINE: Out of your POV, how does that work?
MAHONEY: The characters?
DEADLINE: Sure.
MAHONEY: They’re not who they was once, however they’re not but who they’re changing into. My want is to search out the corners of unanswered questions. It’s a part of what I take pleasure in for this explicit movie, based mostly on what was arrange within the first movie.
DEADLINE: And a variety of relationships and characters to work with and a few critical firepower with Uma Thurman and Henry Golding becoming a member of, Charlize clearly, Veronica’s pivotal position, KiKi Layne, Luca Marinelli, Marwan Kenzari, Matthias Schoenaerts, and the nice Chiwetel Ejiofor.
MAHONEY: Precisely!
You’ll get this, one of many issues that was thrilling in regards to the movie total, and why I used to be obsessed, and identical to a bloodhound, was this steadiness that the script and the actors supply between this very, very, very, very finite, granular degree of emotion inside every motion sequence, compounded by drama on the entrance or again of every motion sequence. All of that performs into a part of why I used to be very conscientious and deliberate about defending, preserving, reflecting and elevating Charlize’s Andy and Uma’s Discord’s skilled fighter methods. How does that work? How does that juxtapose coalesce with Kiki’s Niles’ newfound fighter methods and Matthias’ Booker’s scrapper fighter methods and Veronica’s Quynh’s aquatic fighter methods, and Marwan’s Joe and Luca’s Nicky’s symbiotic fighter methods, and Chiwetel’s Coplay’s institutionalized fighter methods, and Henry’s character’s sensei fighter methods. It’s all a steadiness, as a result of there was a really particular language every battle scene needed to have based mostly on that actor’s subjective life expertise.
DEADLINE: So, how do you thread that?
MAHONEY: I’m an individual who works by way of routine, all of them know that. Nobody’s nervous that I’m not going to get an opportunity to play.
Nevertheless, I can inform you that I’m in a position to compartmentalize in a method that I discover advantageous. I am going house to house, step to step, and do all the pieces that’s entrance of me and do the following indicated factor. And that’s how sort out an issue or play the board. I’m actually fast when an issue happens, and now we have to form shift all the pieces that we thought we have been going to do. For no matter motive, I take pleasure in and am in a position to simply very swiftly adapt and provide you with one other resolution, after which that factor might be an issue, we provide you with one other resolution. So, while you ask about threading the scenario, I do assume that that has one thing to do with my capability to maintain motion and, , a part of this factor the place I’ve by no means been a day late or $1 quick ever, and that’s not an accident. That’s conscientious.
DEADLINE: As you’re a beginner on the Outdated Guard experience, so is Uma as villainous supreme Discord, the primary immortal. One can’t assist however choose up some Kill Invoice vibes when she leaps into motion, however possibly that’s my baggage, what was it prefer to be along with her on the workforce?
MAHONEY: When somebody like Uma Thurman steps into the realm, I’m wildly curious by what her mind, her coronary heart, her thoughts and her soul desires to discover, and I’m concerned with making her protected to really feel, that’s my job. I imagine, with all of them, that’s solid, crew and viewers, in the end, and so they’re completely different levels, from pre-production to principal to submit to launch, that’s my job.
So, after we dropped on Wednesday, July 2, we did the best way we did in order that when the viewers receives it, they’re protected to really feel as a substitute of, , feeling betrayed, or like, what the hell? I imagine that carries by way of with Uma. She has an enormous mind, she is sharp from the uptake. And he or she may speak about any century you wish to speak about. She may go into any theology, she may go into archeology. She goes deep, and it’s thrilling.
DEADLINE: For you as a director …
She is an individual who works in a really meticulous, granular method about backstory and no matter occurs we see on display screen. You don’t essentially hear or see the form of the work. You simply see this particular person transferring on display screen with a phenomenal sense of A, B, C, D, E, F and G. With regard particular to your query, the factor about Uma is her respect for the method is so nice. It’s her pleasure and pleasure, and, with that, we form of play a what if sport. However it works as a result of I do my homework, she does her homework, and we meet within the center.
DEADLINE: It’s been 14 years since your final characteristic Yelling to the Sky got here out, within the interim you broke a glass ceiling in a Galaxy far distant with second unit work on The Rise of Skywalker, and piled on a profession and a half on the small display screen with directing on Queen Sugar, the Fits LA pilot, The Morning Present, Energy and Gray’s Anatomy and extra. So, what did Star Wars and TV educate you going again to a characteristic – as a result of they’re two very completely different animals.
MAHONEY: You understand, it’s a multi-fold query, and it’s a significant query for anybody who’s questioning how do I get from there to right here after which no matter allowed me to step into the zone comfortably? What’s tough about all of it’s my entire experience is unconventional. A few of it’s by alternative, a few of it’s by design, a few of it’s not by alternative, and I had no say in it. So, the at the beginning factor is, flat out, straight up, is the massive hole in options wasn’t lack for lack of attempting — and that precedes Yelling to the Sky. So there’s, , a few years that I’ve been banging down the door to attempt to get a studio job. I imply, I nonetheless have Filofaxes with the folks I attempted to fulfill throughout city that had by no means had any intention of hiring. However, once I was employed for by JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy and went into Star Wars, the present that they gave me was, except or till I do one other Star Wars, nothing is that huge.
After I step into the Outdated Guard franchise, it appears to be like huge and it’s huge, however it’s not as huge as Star Wars. Star Wars is now in my bones. That’s why I say they gave me this present of wherever I might go subsequent, I may to stroll in with readability and consciousness of my strengths and weaknesses and the artwork of performance. I’m invested in each single facet of all the pieces that’s on display screen, all the pieces so from the actors, to the props to wardrobe to structure to construction to set builds to hammers and nails.
DEADLINE: Some would say that’s too huge a bull to experience, or no less than, too arduous a option to experience it …
MAHONEY: I can’t converse for others, however one of many issues that helps me within the backstop is coming from theater. You understand, doing theater the place it was, , black field hardcore coaching, the place it’s six hours a day, 5 days per week for a lot of, many, a few years.
DEADLINE: How so?
MAHONEY: What they do is hey break the a part of you that has a way of a future or previous. They actually do, as a result of that these are the issues that cease you from being free, from stream. Right here in Outdated Guard, that that’s what we’re in, within the sequence. What’s the factor Dominic that we’re right here to acquire, to specific or replicate, and that’s all that issues, and nothing else counts. And simply, how will we get that?
DEADLINE: Feels like Jazz, the artwork of the weave so to say…
MAHONEY: (LAUGHS) I’m a disciple of Miles Davis and Catherine Bigelow.
Okay, not a nasty combine. Then we go into Korean motion movies. So Korean motion, to me, is and all the pieces is under it, beneath it, and never even in the identical realm, I’m sorry to say. And also you and I can go, and we may go, I may go to my leisure room, and I may pull items, and also you already know them, however they’re scenes that unbelievably gifted Korean filmmakers did with all their blood and guts – that what I draw from.
DEADLINE: How does Miles match into all that?
MAHONEY: Oh, at a really younger impressionable age, I heard Miles speak about breaking issues to convey them again collectively He talked in regards to the significance of hiring up. He believed he ought to rent those that have been higher than him, versus hiring those that weren’t gonna be higher. You understand, it was a protracted highway from the primary movie to this one. We had obstacles, and we had Skydance convey this ship into shore in submit, however we made it.
DEADLINE: That’s an excellent design for all times, particularly the inventive life. In that, with the cliffhanger actually of Outdated Guard 2, what’s subsequent?
MAHONEY: Effectively, it’s on the market that I’m on Amazon MGM’s NASCAR undertaking Clear-Air …
DEADLINE: Sure…
MAHONEY: There’s additionally some secret stuff, some folks I’m speaking to, that I take pleasure in seeing what they’ve going.
DEADLINE: Is an Outdated Guard 3 a part of these secrets and techniques you’re holding?
MAHONEY: You understand, what’s humorous is, I don’t know if they’ll do one other one.
DEADLINE: Oh c’mon!
MAHONEY: In fact, not hiding. I might inform you something. But when they do one other one, I will probably be gone. I’ve different tasks that I’m legally sure to. I’m so enthusiastic about, and I punted, and I, , organized my life to complete this movie, and I’m actually proud and excited to have seen it by way of. However I did punt a couple of issues that I’ve to get to now Outdated Guard is completed for me.
If you requested me earlier about Gina’s movie, and what Gina did within the first movie, and the way she introduced ahead these grounded, believable characters on this, , earnest investigation into immortality and residing previous our family members in time. I really feel like time is an enormous factor. I used to be a fan of that film, so I used to be a fan of Outdated Guard. Then I received the decision for Outdated Guard 2. It wasn’t, I received a name, after which turned a fan. So, I’ll say this, I will probably be a fan for the following one.
