Actor Ryan Reynolds, renowned filmmaker Michael Bay and other cast members shared their experiences filming 6 Underground. It is not bad for six individuals to be able to fake their deaths to obtain the freedom to fight injustice and evil without anyone or anything to slow them down or tell them not to do it.
6 Underground is an American vigilante action-thriller that introduces a new kind of action hero. It is being streamed on Netflix to 158 million subscribers worldwide.
It is about six individuals from all over the world who are not only chosen for their skill sets but also their unique desire to delete their past to change the future.
Ryan Reynolds plays a leader whose sole mission in life is to ensure that, while he and his fellow operatives will never be remembered, their actions surely will.
He plays One, a former tech billionaire who, with his team, takes down a brutal dictator in a bold and bloody mission.
Directed by Michael Bay, who is known for directing big-budget blockbusters, the 128-minute film is co-written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.
6 Underground also stars Melanie Laurent, Adria Arjona, Ben Hardy, Corey Hawkins, Dave Franco and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo.
This is Bay’s first Netflix project and is different from his previous works for the silver screen. He noted that the film business has changed in the past few years and that people consume and experience content in different ways. So moviemakers have to adapt to the changes.
He added that Netflix was brave enough to invest in the film and that it was interested in producing new content, for which Bay was thankful.
Bay, who was responsible for Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and the Transformers franchise, said that the biggest challenge when directing 6 Underground was convincing the city of Florence to allow filming there.
For the past 1,200 years, the historical city of Italy has never allowed filming. The crew made a lot of effort to ensure they could film the scenes on its streets, according to Bay. He revealed that the opening of the film sees a car chase scene by Reynolds and his team throughout the streets of Florence.
Bay shared these details at a press conference in conjunction with the 6 Underground film premiere at the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno-gu, Seoul, recently.
Together with him were Reynolds, Laurent, Arjona and producer Ian Bryce.
The character One is played by Reynolds and he takes matters into his own hands, using all his money to make the world a better place.
Reynolds shared that One does something all of us wish we could do. The character targets a specific dictator and decides to bring down that regime with his team.
Reynold was asked if he was also the leader off-camera. He shook his head and said the team leader was always the director, that is Bay. Bay gave directions from the artistic, emotional and spiritual standpoints.
6 Underground also portrays strong female characters such as Four, who is played by Arjona. She was a medical doctor before joining the vigilantes.
Arjona said her character was one who was very eager and desperate to help and save lives.
She added that many people are just like Four. They feel frustrated at not being able to do something more about what is happening in the world.
Two, played by Laurent, is another strong female character.
She is a former CIA agent who is cold and not always lovable but she is the less broken one of the lot. Laurent said Two is disappointed with herself and tries hard to fix it.
Laurent said Two has super presence since she is the one who does a lot of shooting and fighting.
She added that the film is about a group of people and everyone brings something to the film.
Laurent said they were physically tired after five months of filming. They started with the car chase scene which was “the funniest way to meet the rest of the cast. We were stuck in the car and everything was just crazy around you”.
The French actress said the opening scene is amazing and something that no one has ever seen in other action movies.
The car chase scene was the most challenging for Arjona. The driving lasted for hours, with Franco doing a lot of driving.
She said they had Bay in front of them operating the cameras and giving directions. It was chaotic but a cool and fun experience to have the director operating and directing at the same time. It was impressive, she added.
For 40-year-old father of three, Reynold may love acting but falling on a hard surface is no more a walk in the park.
He shared that he loved the car chase sequence, the scenes on a giant boat and the action scenes in Hong Kong but the most difficult were fighting scenes because of physical combat.
Reynolds said he loved what he saw in the film, especially the stunts, but the fact that this film was brought to Netflix was the sign of changing times.
He added that this one film is so huge and muscular till the end.
Bay, Bryce and the cast spent some time with a few Korean fans after the press conference who had waited patiently in line despite the cold weather at the green carpet event in Dongdaemun Design Plaza.
K-Pop group EXO, comprising of Suho, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, Kai and Sehun, was also present. The group performed their new song Obsession, a track from their sixth album of the same title, for the first time.