There’s another Hollywood movie out putting whitewater in the limelight. Fifty-four years after the release of the Burt Reynolds movie “Deliverance,” and 32 years after Meryl Streep’s “The River Wild,” another action flick from Hollywood follows the same theme, where some psycho redneck hunts down an unsuspecting river runner in the wilderness.
While the plot of Netflix movie “Apex” is rather B-roll — it features Sasha (played by a buff and badass Charlize Theron), recovering from a climbing accident in Norway that killed her boyfriend and climbing partner, kayaking a river in the Australian wilderness only to be hunted as “prey” by a ruthless and lethal predator (Taron Egerton) — it once again brings whitewater to the forefront of a mainstream Hollywood film, this time kayaking instead of Reynolds’ canoes or Streep’s rafts.
Apex was filmed in wilderness and studio locations across New South Wales, Australia (including the Blue Mountains), and New Zealand’s South Island, spanning rivers on the West Coast and Southern Lakes district.
For paddlers, the kayaking scenes are pretty full-on. While Theron is known for performing many of her own stunts a la Tom Cruise, for this one she needed the help of stunt doubles, in this case elite New Zealand whitewater kayakers River Mutton and five-time Olympian Luuka Jones-Yaxley.
According to Canoe Slalom New Zealand, Olympian Luuka Jones and elite extreme kayaker Mutton stepped into the role after being recommended by fellow Kiwi Pete Townend, who manages New Zealand paddlesport retailer Canoe & Kayak and had previously worked on a couple of movie sets. They were right for the roles: Mutton is one of the world’s top female extreme kayakers, and Jones is a five-time kayaking Olympian.
Both were paddling Pyranha ReactRs in the film, navigating hair-raising Class V — where they likely felt more comfortable than they did on the set.
The ReactR has been a game-changing design for us,” says Pyranha’s Mat Wilkinson. “It’s been great to see several world-class paddlers hop in it, which obviously caught the attention of the Apex team. We were hearing rumors of it being in the film, and catching glimpses of the one and only Charlize Theron paddling the ReactR in some behind-the-scenes shots during production — and also her and Taron Egerton in our Venture Afon canoe.”
“The exposure has been great. Seeing the stars of Kingsman and Æon Flux in our canoes and kayaks is a dream. And the attention on the sport it’s brought has been incredible too – to have paddlesports featured so strongly in such a prominent release has undoubtedly opened more eyes to it.”
They met their film crew on New Zealand’s South Island, where they spent a week heli-scouting rivers for the kayaking scenes. Then they spent another week filming. It all came out relatively realistic, save for the part when Sasha had to paddle some Class V rapids without a helmet or PFD because the antagonist, Ben, had taken it away. All the various shots from New Zealand and Australia were meshed together to look like the same scene.
In an interview with Paddling magazine, Jones-Yaxley said they worked with the producers to be as realistic as possible, but also exciting. “When you’re paddling really well on whitewater, you look smooth and you’re dry,” she said. “But when you’re in a movie, you need to make it look exciting. So, it was quite interesting, looking at a river differently and trying to figure out how to make it look dramatic.”
Mutton added they were told to hit rocks and miss lines to make the kayaking look more exciting, and to “paddle a little more oddly,” with a less technical forward stroke, so the shots would blend in better with Theron’s less-polished strokes. “It went against what you naturally have trained yourself to do,” Mutton told Paddling magazine. “But by the end of filming, I was so practiced at it, that when I went back to my own kayaking I was a little worried I had practiced paddling like that too much.”
Jones-Yaxley did more of the kayaking scenes and Mutton more of the swimming scenes while Sasha was being chased by big, bad (and bald) Ben.
They (and the actors and producers) also had to contend with everything else that can happen on remote river trips. While filming on the Turnbull River, a flash flood came, forcing the crew to be evacuated.
Added Jones-Yaxley: “It was just so cool that they had whitewater kayaking in there…I hope it’s the start of lots of whitewater kayaking in feature films.”
The most unrealistic part, of course, was Jones-Yaxley having to paddle away to escape Ben through stout whitewater wihtout a helmet or PFD, which Ben had stolen from her.
“The boat is designed for that kind of whitewater, but we recommend doing that with a helmet and PFD, and without a serial killer in pursuit,” added Wilkinson.
As for Theron, after seeing the rapids Mutton and Jones-Yaxley paddled and swam, and her own time in the kayak, she might not fasten a spray skirt anytime again soon: “I don’t want to see a kayak ever again in my life,” she told Entertainment Tonight.
Read more here: Paddling Magazine