Is Apple TV+ the new home of the oner? The prestige streamer scored a massive Emmy night victory courtesy of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg‘s Hollywood satiric The Studio, which featured an entire episode devoted to that one-shot stunt beloved by film artisans and fan. Now here comes The Last Frontier, the 10-episode Apple thriller that takes time out of its season premiere — which dropped on Oct. 10 — for an action-packed oner overseen by stunt expert-turned-director Sam Hargrave.
Hargrave is no stranger to the art of the oner, having previously choreographed and directed a 21-minute one-shot action sequence for Chris Hemsworth‘s Netflix hit Extraction 2. And The Last Frontier‘s star and executive producer Jason Clarke tells Gold Derby that the chance to outdo the mighty Thor was a major reason behind his eagerness to drop a kick-ass six-minute oner into the show’s first episode.
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“It was one of those challenges that I wanted to get out there and see if I could handle,” says the actor, who hails from the land down under like the Marvel Studios star. “I wasn’t going to let Hemsworth have one over me, you know what I mean? I wanted to send him a message!”
The Last Frontier casts Clarke as U.S. Marshal Frank Remnick, who attends to keeping the peace in his tiny slice of the Alaskan tundra. That peace is interrupted when a prison transport plane carrying multiple hardened felons crash lands in his jurisdiction. Arriving at the crash site to investigate, Frank and his deputies walk headlong into an ambush as the surviving prisoners — including Hargrave in an extended cameo — stage a sustained attack that the camera captures in one simulated take.
“In the script, I had written something simple like, ‘It’s a zombie apocalypse,'” recalls Last Frontier cocreator Jon Bokenkamp. “But Sam said to me, ‘This might be a fun oner.’ He’s got this insane stunt team and they designed the whole sequence. My job was just to stand by the monitor and stay out of the way.”
As staged by Hargrave, the attack comes in waves, with Frank overcoming numerous assailants at a time, and just barely having time to take a breath before the next swarm strikes. The camera dances around the action, with occasional whip pans signaling hidden cuts. Meanwhile, the blades of Frank’s helicopter are whirring around in the background of the shot, adding an extra layer of tension — and danger — to the brawl.
Clarke says that he’s been part of extended one-shot sequences before, but those were for dramas, rather than action-heavy productions. “There’s no room for awkwardness,” he says of what he learned on the Frontier set. “You’ve got to lead with confidence so that everyone else feels confident, but you can’t get stupid because you can punch a dude in the head or get slammed on the ground… as I did! It hurt, but that was the point.
“Also, it establishes the character,” Clarke continues. “Frank fights his way out of the mess, and brings the hammer down a couple of times, but he take a lot of shots, too. At one point, he’s about to get finished off by Lee Villeneuve — the heavyweight jiu-jitsu champion of the world — and Frank gets lucky! [Villeneuve plays one of the prisoners in the premiere.] It sets the tone for the show; by the end of the sequence, it feels like anything can happen, all hell can break loose, and you’re as exhausted watching it as I was doing it.”
Clarke would have been more exhausted had Bokenkamp honored Hargrave’s initial request to go a full seven minutes. “They worked on it for weeks and had several different versions,” he recalls. “Sam explained to me that it was like a menu — you could take out two pieces of it or add another piece to shape it. And he wanted everything to be real and tactile, which became a North Star for us with the show.”
The Last Frontier director Sam Hargrave makes an extended cameo in the season premiere’s onerApple TV+
Even The Last Frontier cast members that weren’t a part of the oner certainly felt its influence on the action sequences they were part of in later episodes. “I love doing stunts and fight sequences,” says Dominic Cooper, who plays a prisoner with his own agenda. “The only problem is, the stunt guys on this show are so good, you’re just like ‘You’re better than me — you do it.'”
“They didn’t ask me if I was physically fit to do the action, they just kind of assumed that I was,” adds Alfre Woodard, who plays the CIA director that clashes with Frank over the course of the series. “I told them, ‘I’ll do it, and if I hurt myself, you can take me to the hospital where at least I’ll be warm.”
Filming the oner took an entire day in the wilds of Canada — which stood in for Alaska — and Clarke recalls several “cool” moments, like the moment when Villeneuve charges Frank as he struggles to reload his firearm and jumping into the helicopter just as it takes off. “You had to be clipped in right away, because the copter door is open,” he recalls. “I got clipped in, but one of the stunt guys also had to hand me a safety knife in case there’s a problem and you have to cut yourself loose to get out. You realize, ‘Sh-t, this is serious!'”
“But it sharpens the mind and it sharpens the tools,” Clarke adds, making it clear he’s ready for a second crack at an action oner. “By the end, I felt like I could have done it with no breaks at all. I love that sense of dance with the camera where you’re setting the tone and people feed off your performance.”
Ball’s in your court for Extraction 3, Hemsworth.
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