Australian actor Jason Clarke has ventured into the Canadian wilderness for the AppleTV+ action thriller, The Last Frontier. Alongside Haley Bennett and Dominic Cooper, Clarke portrays a lone U.S. Marshal whose jurisdiction is turned upside down when a prison transport plane crashes in the remote wilderness. This catastrophic event releases dozens of violent inmates, with a particular mastermind orchestrating the chaos. In an exclusive interview, Clarke delves into the series' intricacies and the journey he undertook to bring it to life.
LISTEN NOW: Jason Clarke on 'The Last Frontier
Romeo International How did you prepare for the cold, the action, the intense acting that you had to do interacting with different characters?
Jason Clarke You know, I said, "this is gonna be a marathon." The big action sequences, working with Sam Hargraves, the ambition of the sequences and the show as a whole, were the reasons I wanted to do it. You know, to challenge myself at this point in my career, and do as you said. It’s time to start throwing it down, you know, and not leave it to the Chris Hemsworths, and the, you know, spin all these young kids to do it, you know what I mean? So, that was one of the great loves of it, one of the excitements of doing it. And then you just got to, you know, you got to prepare, you got to focus. And I was able to spend the time to get it and practice it and do it, you know, and deliver it. So that’s why I love it when guys like you just say, "man, I felt it. I loved it."
Romeo International When you first got the script, did you bite into the suspense, because it’s very well written outside of the action scenes?
Jason Clarke I mean, I read the books, I get another one, I read it, and I go, "wow, he’s holding this. This is still working. This is suspense." I still don’t know what’s going on. I can’t feel safe and I know what this is. I know where this is going, because I didn’t, and I kept praying to God that it wouldn’t just get stupid all of a sudden, or it’d fall apart in one episode, or one sequence. John, through 10 years of 'The Blacklist,' is nobody’s fool. He knows how to deliver twists and turns. And he also has the strength and tenacity to take care of that and ensure that every director and every actor adheres to the storyline. Because he brings you out the other end of this storm, of this insane roller coaster, and you land. He sticks the landing. You know, that was the stuff, as you said, that I "bit into" because it makes it easier for me. The story’s doing a lot of the work for me. I just have to stay on the river, though. You know what I mean? I’m going to get my theragon out, my mineral salts, and just stay on this river. Because sometimes, it was hard to hang on.
The Last Frontier is now streaming on AppleTV+.