‘The Old Guard 2’ director talks Black Mamba vs. Atomic Blonde showdown

This article contains spoilers for The Old Guard 2.

The Old Guard 2 director Victoria Mahoney will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

In the case of the Netflix action sequel, that meant getting Uma Thurman on board to play the film’s villain (and the first-ever immortal), Discord. And to do it, she conducted her own secret mission that would surely impress even the film’s characters.

“She was my first and only choice,” Mahoney tells Entertainment Weekly of the Kill Bill star. “It’s not a secret. Her manager, Jason Weinberg, knows, and I was doing secret texts in the night with him, so there’s digital proof somewhere in the universe.”

Mahoney admits she was not exactly subtle in her attempts. “I mean really, I’m like, ‘No matter what happens, don’t let her go.’ I was trying to be like, ‘Don’t let her take another job and just stick it out.'” But, she says, she had good reason: “I don’t think I’m original, unique in the wish to have the Black Mamba fight Atomic Blonde,” she explains, referring to Thurman’s Kill Bill character and Charlize Theron’s titular role. “This isn’t unique to me. Everyone who worked on the movie understood why that was exciting and special.”

This was especially true for Theron, who also led her own campaign to get Thurman on board. “But, I’m just speaking for myself in that I found I happen to really admire the way Uma has lived her life and her choices she’s made and the way she interacts with other human beings on a day-to-day basis,” Mahoney adds. “I just find her a unique person who has exceptional regard for the craft and all those she interacts with from morning to night.”

A follow-up to the hit 2020 film based on the world created by Greg Rucka and illustrator Leandro Fernandez, The Old Guard 2 follows Andy (Theron) and her team — immortals Nile (KiKi Layne), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), and Nicky (Luca Marinelli) and mortal James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) — who are back in action with a renewed sense of purpose to help humanity. With Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) still in exile after his betrayal, and Quynh (Veronica Ngô) out for revenge after escaping her underwater grave, things get extra complicated when the mysterious and seemingly unbeatable Discord shows up to throw a deadly wrench into everyone’s plans.

Seeing Discord and Andy finally fight (with Thurman wielding a sword like her character in Kill Bill) was like a dream come true for Mahoney. “You have all this hope and you’re like, I hope, I hope, I hope, and then you see it — and, oh my God,” she says. “And those two, it’s like credit to them — who they are, their discipline as actors and as action stars — their discipline brought them in high form. So every bit of energy and time and care that was put into that scene, I believe, shows, and I hope it shows, and I hope audiences feel it.”

But that epic rooftop fight scene almost looked very different. “That fight, initially, it was just an amuse-bouche, it was far more reduced,” the director says. “And then of course all of us were like, this is crazy, and [if we do this] we are really never going to work again. We’d have to hide our heads in public. Just all of us were like, we want more, and everyone had the wisdom of why we should utilize those two actors in optimal form in the moment.”

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The Old Guard 2, which also features the addition of Henry Golding as Tuah — an old friend who may provide the key to unlocking the mystery behind immortal existence — is now streaming on Netflix.