Luke Hemsworth had “so much fun” trying to make The Terminal List viewers like his “fundamentally terrible” character.
The Australian actor plays self-obsessed CIA agent turned mercenary Jules Landry in the second series of the Prime Video series, which also stars Chris Pratt, Riley Keough and Tom Hopper, and relished the opportunity to take on the role.
He told The Au Review: “It was so much fun. It’s such a joy to explore that dichotomy, to have this guy who’s charismatic and enigmatic but has such a terrible moral compass, right? And yet you can’t help but like him as well.
“That’s something I really wanted to play with. Can you make an audience like someone who’s fundamentally a terrible person? I mean, we’re obsessed with serial killers.
“People want to marry Ted Bundy! Psychologically, we’re weird, and I wanted to tap into that and explore it a little further. And again, I’ve never seen someone in the CIA who looks or sounds like Jules Landry, right?
“So it’s fun to walk that path and not know whether it’s going to work or not.”
Luke went on to reflect on how his character also “becomes something of a relief valve”, using “gallows humour” to lighten the mood at certain points.
He continued: “It’s a real gift because he becomes something of a relief valve, right? The show is very serious, very dark, and there’s not a lot of room for humour because of the subject matter. But something we developed with (Executive Producers) Max (Adams) and Jared (Shaw) very early on was this idea of gallows humour, which is very apparent in certain branches of the military.
“The things people say and do when they’re in these incredibly dire situations, the jokes that get told and the things they actually find funny.
“I found that fascinating because I’d never really thought about it or seen it represented in that way.
So I thought, let’s lean into making Landry the guy who always says the awkward thing, but it’s also the truthful thing, right?”