SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of Old Guard 2, which debuted on Netflix on July 2.
“One day, you’ll understand, every minute is a step toward death,” Uma Thurman‘s vengeful Discord says in Netflix’s long-awaited and much-delayed The Old Guard 2.
Now, immortals and ex-immortals have their own way of looking at the march of time, but there is no 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 against a foe in Discord that may truly be more than her match. The layered film also brings a true blast from the past in the raised-from-the-sea Quynh (Veronica Van) – who has some very personal scores to settle with Theron’s infamous warrior.
Having weathered a global pandemic, regime changes at Netflix, fires, Hollywood strikes and more in the five years since the first OG came out, the film based on the characters from Rucka’s 2017 graphic novel series has rocketed to the top 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 Old Guard’s first director Gina Prince-Bythewood after the latter moved on to 2022’s acclaimed The Woman King.
Sitting down with me and a cascading view of Hollywood behind us, just off the wild junket ride for OG2, Mahoney detailed joining the franchise, working with Theron and Thurman, and where it is all going next. Below, the filmmaker, who is in the driver’s seat for Amazon MGM’s Clean-Air, revealed the jazz legend and Oscar winner at the heart of her inspiration and how she finds the beats to make the action really hit.
DEADLINE: First thing, congratulations are in order, OG2 hit #1 as the top Netflix movie in the country within hours of debuting…
VICTORIA MAHONEY: It means a great deal to me to have Old Guard 2 hit #1 in the States, 24 hours after it was released – and that’s not wasted on me. I value every single person that paused to hit play and, at this moment in time in this industry, those statistics are arsenal. They’re arsenal for anybody who is trying to continue making movies, do what we love and connect with audiences and connect audiences to movies. I’m proud of everybody who worked on it, and I’m just delighted by the amount of people who, you know, showed up and strong long fans for this franchise.
DEADLINE: Speaking of people who worked on the film, how was it stepping in and working with Charlize?
MAHONEY: The thing about Charlize is, she comes hard, and she dedicates 1,000% of herself to every sequence, whether it’s trauma or action, and it’s visible. People know that, for many years we’ve all seen it, and we’ve witnessed it. But there is something really electrifying to see it up close in person, and she doesn’t leave anything on the field, as we say.
DEADLINE: How so?
MAHONEY: Okay, so I worked in pre-production for months with our fight choreographer, Georgi Manchev to make certain that the action throughout the movie had some sense of emotion. Obviously, and specifically the alley fight between Charlize’s Andromache character and Veronica Van’s Quynh character. It was vital that it had levels and layers and grounding in the heart, and this is why I mention this, I was excited when Georgi told me that Charlize was really moved the first time they auditioned the alley fight for her. Because, you know, it isn’t easy to make audiences feel when two people are fighting. My belief is, if audiences don’t feel anything in a fight scene, then what are we doing?
So, what happens when someone like Charlize comes hard like that to any role is that everyone on the ground, you know, crew rises up to meet her and help make her dreams come true. And I’m really proud of what we all accomplished, and, let me tell you, Charlize is the engine on the Old Guard franchise – without a doubt.
DEADLINE: Speaking of which, Old Guard is a beloved comic, a pretty hardcore first movie back in 2020 with Gina Prince-Bythewood in the director’s chair, Charlize looms large in everything she’s in, so what was it like getting on board, for, if I’m correct, your first feature in over a decade?
MAHONEY: It was exciting.
DEADLINE: Understatement?
MAHONEY: (LAUGHS) You know, there are advantages to walking into something with a foundation. Some of the lifting you do on a first installment, I love world building. You have the excitement of that, but you’re also trying to find your way with the crew and the cast, and that is happening in real time during principal photography. So, when I come in on this particular project, in the second installment, I’ve come in, and the character work is done, and was done in great measure.
DEADLINE: From your POV, how does that work?
MAHONEY: The characters?
DEADLINE: Yes.
MAHONEY: They’re not who they used to be, but they’re not yet who they’re becoming. My wish is to find the corners of unanswered questions. It’s part of what I enjoy for this particular film, based on what was set up in the first film.
DEADLINE: And a lot of relationships and characters to work with and some serious firepower with Uma Thurman and Henry Golding joining, Charlize obviously, Veronica’s pivotal role, KiKi Layne, Luca Marinelli, Marwan Kenzari, Matthias Schoenaerts, and the great Chiwetel Ejiofor.
MAHONEY: Exactly!
You’ll get this, one of the things that was exciting about the film overall, and why I was obsessed, and just like a bloodhound, was this balance that the script and the actors offer between this very, very, very, very finite, granular level of emotion within each action sequence, compounded by drama at the front or back of each action sequence. All of that plays into part of why I was very conscientious and deliberate about protecting, preserving, reflecting and elevating Charlize’s Andy and Uma’s Discord’s experienced fighter ways. How does that work? How does that juxtapose coalesce with Kiki’s Niles’ newfound fighter ways and Matthias’ Booker’s scrapper fighter ways and Veronica’s Quynh’s aquatic fighter ways, and Marwan’s Joe and Luca’s Nicky’s symbiotic fighter ways, and Chiwetel’s Coplay’s institutionalized fighter ways, and Henry’s character’s sensei fighter ways. It’s all a balance, because there was a very specific language each fight scene had to have based on that actor’s subjective life experience.
DEADLINE: So, how do you thread that?
MAHONEY: I am a person who works through routine, they all know that. No one’s nervous that I’m not going to get a chance to play.
However, I can tell you that I’m able to compartmentalize in a way that I find advantageous. I go home to home, step to step, and do everything that’s front of me and do the next indicated thing. And that’s how tackle a problem or play the board. I’m really quick when a problem occurs, and we have to shape shift everything that we thought we were going to do. For whatever reason, I enjoy and am able to just very swiftly adapt and come up with another solution, and then that thing could be a problem, we come up with another solution. So, when you ask about threading the situation, I do think that that has something to do with my ability to keep movement and, you know, part of this thing where I’ve never been a day late or $1 short ever, and that’s not an accident. That’s conscientious.
DEADLINE: As you are a newbie on the Old Guard ride, so is Uma as villainous supreme Discord, the first immortal. One can’t help but pick up some Kill Bill vibes when she leaps into action, but maybe that’s my baggage, what was it like to be with her on the team?
MAHONEY: When someone like Uma Thurman steps into the realm, I am wildly curious by what her brain, her heart, her mind and her soul wants to explore, and I’m interested in making her safe to feel, that’s my job. I believe, with all of them, that’s cast, crew and audience, ultimately, and they’re different stages, from pre-production to principal to post to release, that’s my job.
So, when we dropped on Wednesday, July 2, we did the way we did so that when the audience receives it, they’re safe to feel instead of, you know, feeling betrayed, or like, what the hell? I believe that carries through with Uma. She has a big brain, she is sharp from the uptake. And she could talk about any century you want to talk about. She could go into any theology, she could go into archeology. She goes deep, and it is exciting.
DEADLINE: For you as a director …
She is a person who works in a very meticulous, granular manner about backstory and whatever happens we see on screen. You don’t necessarily hear or see the shape of the work. You just see this person moving on screen with a beautiful sense of A, B, C, D, E, F and G. With regard specific to your question, the thing about Uma is her respect for the process is so great. It’s her joy and excitement, and, with that, we kind of play a what if game. But it works because I do my homework, she does her homework, and we meet in the middle.
DEADLINE: It’s been 14 years since your last feature Yelling to the Sky came out, in the interim you broke a glass ceiling in a Galaxy far far away with second unit work on The Rise of Skywalker, and piled on a career and a half on the small screen with directing on Queen Sugar, the Suits LA pilot, The Morning Show, Power and Grey’s Anatomy and more. So, what did Star Wars and TV teach you going back to a feature – because they are two very different animals.
MAHONEY: You know, it’s a multi-fold question, and it’s a vital question for anyone who’s wondering how do I get from there to here and then whatever allowed me to step into the zone comfortably? What’s tricky about all of it is my whole ride is unconventional. Some of it’s by choice, some of it’s by design, some of it’s not by choice, and I had no say in it. So, the first and foremost thing is, flat out, straight up, is the big gap in features wasn’t lack for lack of trying — and that precedes Yelling to the Sky. So there’s, you know, many years that I’ve been banging down the door to try to get a studio job. I mean, I still have Filofaxes with the people I tried to meet all over town that had never had any intention of hiring. But, when I was hired for by JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy and went into Star Wars, the gift that they gave me was, unless or until I do another Star Wars, nothing is that big.
When I step into the Old Guard franchise, it looks big and it is big, but it’s not as big as Star Wars. Star Wars is now in my bones. That’s why I say they gave me this gift of wherever I would go next, I could to walk in with clarity and awareness of my strengths and weaknesses and the art of functionality. I’m invested in every single aspect of everything that’s on screen, everything so from the actors, to the props to wardrobe to architecture to structure to set builds to hammers and nails.
DEADLINE: Some would say that’s too big a bull to ride, or at least, too hard a way to ride it …
MAHONEY: I can’t speak for others, but one of the things that helps me in the backstop is coming from theater. You know, doing theater where it was, you know, black box hardcore training, where it’s six hours a day, five days a week for many, many, many years.
DEADLINE: How so?
MAHONEY: What they do is hey break the part of you that has a sense of a future or past. They really do, because that those are the things that stop you from being free, from flow. Here in Old Guard, that that’s what we’re in, in the sequence. What’s the thing Dominic that we’re here to obtain, to express or reflect, and that’s all that matters, and nothing else counts. And just, how do we get that?
DEADLINE: Sounds like Jazz, the art of the weave so to say…
MAHONEY: (LAUGHS) I’m a disciple of Miles Davis and Catherine Bigelow.
Okay, not a bad mix. Then we go into Korean action films. So Korean action, to me, is and everything is below it, underneath it, and not even in the same realm, I’m sorry to say. And you and I can go, and we could go, I could go to my entertainment room, and I could pull pieces, and you already know them, but they are scenes that unbelievably talented Korean filmmakers did with all their blood and guts – that what I draw from.
DEADLINE: How does Miles fit into all that?
MAHONEY: Oh, at a very young impressionable age, I heard Miles talk about breaking things to bring them back together He talked about the importance of hiring up. He believed he should hire people that were better than him, versus hiring people that weren’t gonna be better. You know, it was a long road from the first film to this one. We had obstacles, and we had Skydance bring this ship into shore in post, but we made it.
DEADLINE: That’s a good design for life, especially the creative life. In that, with the cliffhanger literally of Old Guard 2, what’s next?
MAHONEY: Well, it’s out there that I’m on Amazon MGM’s NASCAR project Clean-Air …
DEADLINE: Yes…
MAHONEY: There’s also some secret stuff, some people I’m talking to, that I enjoy seeing what they have going.
DEADLINE: Is an Old Guard 3 part of those secrets you’re holding?
MAHONEY: You know, what’s funny is, I don’t know if they are going to do another one.
DEADLINE: Oh c’mon!
MAHONEY: In truth, not hiding. I would tell you anything. But if they do another one, I will be gone. I have other projects that I’m legally bound to. I’m so excited about, and I punted, and I, you know, arranged my life to finish this film, and I’m really proud and excited to have seen it through. But I did punt a few things that I have to get to now Old Guard is done for me.
When you asked me earlier about Gina’s film, and what Gina did in the first film, and how she brought forward these grounded, plausible characters in this, you know, earnest investigation into immortality and living past our loved ones in time. I feel like time is a big thing. I was a fan of that movie, so I was a fan of Old Guard. Then I got the call for Old Guard 2. It wasn’t, I got a call, and then became a fan. So, I will say this, I will be a fan for the next one.
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