The untaming of ERIC BANA

DESPITE CONSTANT BECKONING, HOLLYWOOD HAS NEVER BEEN ABLE TO KEEP A FIRM HOLD ON THIS AUSTRALIAN ACTOR FOR LONG

- Kylie Walters

Riding around on a horse in California's Yosemite National Park might feel a bit more Kevin Costner than Eric Bana, but the Aussie star admits that, when it comes to selecting job opportunities, one of the easiest ways to lure him back into the saddle is to entice him with one.

In his new Netflix series, Untamed, Bana portrays Kyle Turner, an agent in the Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service in Yosemite who is akin to a detective overseeing that vast stretch of wilderness. While battling personal demons, Kyle is pulled into a murder mystery when a young woman drops to her death from a cliff and he realises it is linked to a case he investigated years ago. Much of the drama takes place on horseback, as Kyle ventures into terrain that is too difficult to access by car.

“I desperately wanted to smuggle [my horse] on the plane and take him home,” Bana admitted to the Los Angeles Times. “Going to work in a studio after doing something like this – the thought of it is just debilitating creatively. There’s something about a camera coming out of a box when the sun rises and going back when the sun goes down. There’s an energy, there’s a cadence to that.”

It was a gig that Bana, who turns 57 on August 9, signed on for after first seeing a script in 2018. The pandemic and Hollywood strikes meant it would take several more years until he was on a plane overseas to shoot. So what made the highly in-demand star happily wait in the wings for such a lengthy period?