Across much of his career, Taron Egerton has played the good guy. Think young hero Eggsy from Kingsman. Eddie ‘The Eagle’, in Eddie The Eagle. A tortured but deeply talented Elton John in Rocketman. But for his next film, he’s going dark. Weird. Scary. In Apex, Baltasar Kormákur’s visceral survival thriller, he plays Ben – a hunter with a penchant for tracking the most dangerous game: man. And in his sights, he has Charlize Theron’s climber Sasha – across the brutal wilderness of an Australian national park, the two will clash in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.
As Kormákur tells Empire, the role was reshaped around Egerton – and needed the actor to delve deep. “What I really wanted him to do is find the creep inside himself,” says the director. For the actor, that meant understanding some fundamental things about what might create a monster like Ben, while keeping just the right amount under wraps. “The scariest things in life are always the corners that aren’t well lit, and I feel that way about Ben,” Egerton explains. “I like the allusions. I like the hints at what’s happened, the sense that a relationship with his mother ended very, very badly. But I think the moment you start to spell all of that out and be prescriptive about the character’s pathology, you lose something of the enigma.”
Get ready for a serial killer movie like no other, one set amid a rugged, vertiginous playground – and that hopefully nods to the greats of the genre. “There’s a lot you learn in The Silence Of The Lambs about Hannibal Lecter, but there’s also a great deal [you don’t know],” says Egerton. Maybe check Ben’s bag in case he’s packed a tin of fava beans.
Read Empire’s full Apex feature – speaking to Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton and Baltasar Kormákur about their no-holds-barred thriller – in The Mandalorian And Grogu issue, on sale Thursday March 12. Pre-order a copy online here. Apex is on Netflix from April 24.
