You might not think that six months would seem like much to a group of Immortals who have been alive for hundreds if not thousands of years, but a lot has changed for Andy and the rest of the characters of The Old Guard 2. The sequel to the 2020 action hit, based on the Image Comics series by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, has Andromache “Andy” of Scythia (Charlize Theron) and her long-lived friends facing a new threat: one of their own.
The first Immortal, Discord (Uma Thurman), has her sights on them — and she’s dredging up something ugly from their past.
The Old Guard 2 reunites beloved characters & introduces new Immortal faces
When the movie starts, though, the team — which consists of Andy, Nicky (Luca Marinelli), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), and the newest Immortal, Nile (Kiki Layne) — are still going on missions. This time around, though, they’re joined by a new face: Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Copley, a mortal who served as something of an antagonist in the first movie before realizing the error of his ways and helping the Immortals. This time, he’s fighting by their side.
“I have to admit, I was pretty jealous, in the first one, of all the action stuff that everybody else got to do,” Ejiofor told SYFY WIRE, saying he was excited to see that Copley was in the thick of things for the sequel. “He needs a tap on the shoulder sometimes to tell him that he’s not one of the Immortals. Because he seems to think sometimes that he is. I guess they would rub off on him.”
Another change this time around is that the team is down a member, as Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) was exiled for a century as punishment for selling out his fellow Immortals in the last movie. That doesn’t sit well with Nicky, Marinelli said.
“I think he is the type of wolf who wants to keep all wolves eating and all wolves together. Maybe it reminds him of the vulnerability — what if he were to lose Nicky? That would be unbearable,” Marinelli said.
Nile, the youngest of the group, is changing too, and is quickly learning what it takes to be an Immortal, which Layne said might get her into trouble now that Discord’s out there.
“She’s starting to have a bit more understanding of that place and feeling more confident as a member of the team,” Layne said. “Still, there’s things that she simply does not know, so the second film certainly highlights just how new she is and just how much more she has to learn about this place — and how certain people might take advantage of that.”
Discord isn’t the only newly revealed Immortal in the sequel, but luckily for Andy and the gang, the other new addition is an ally.
Henry Golding plays Tuah, an Immortal who is even older than Andy but who has stayed out of the limelight for untold centuries, instead opting to be the historian secretly documenting all the Immortals exploits throughout the ages.
“The idea was to play a character that has been following these people. He knows every single one of them intimately but he can’t express that he’s been their companion from a distance,” Golding said. “It wasn’t an abrasive character, he’s kind of a confidant and somebody to help along. Maybe a therapist of sorts.”
There’s emotion in The Old Guard 2‘s “every punch and kick”
Tuah doesn’t have any of the other Immortals literally lie down on a couch and open up to him in The Old Guard 2, but if there were ever an action movie franchise where therapy would be applicable, this is it. Both the sequel and the original are big action blockbusters, but they’re also deeply focused on the implications of being immortal. What’s it like to live for centuries, carrying all that history and losing those around you?
Victoria Mahoney, who directed The Old Guard 2, said these movies are unique in how they approach this idea.
“I’m a disciple of Highlander. It’s amazing. I firmly believe there can be only one,” Mahoney said. “If you watch it again, it’s so cheesy. I don’t believe anybody has tackled immortality the way The Old Guard tackled immortality, with that level of depth and honesty.”
Though he’s personally playing a mortal, Ejiofor said these themes come through in the action sequences themselves.
“The action should be a continuation of that conversation,” he explained. “The weapons that people choose, the way that they fight, the history that is part of that dynamic is also part of the way they’re discussing their long histories and the dynamics of their experiences.”
Mahoney’s filmography might not seem action-packed at first glance, though she’s certainly had experience with it, directing big episodes of HBO’s Lovecraft Country and doing second unit work on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. (The scale of that project, she said, made even something as big as The Old Guard 2 feel manageable.) As she explained, though, she’s just been waiting for a chance to helm a big action blockbuster. She’s now the second woman to direct a movie in this franchise, following Gina Prince-Bythewood’s work on the 2020 movie.
“Maybe the woman director had something to do with the emotionality in every fight scene?” Mahoney suggested. “That’s a very effortless thing that I have when I go to work. There will be emotion in every punch and kick.”
Mahoney said she appreciates that The Old Guard does not portray its heroes like “a superhero movie where they are tonally distant from us,” and the actors seemed to agree, a key to the films’ success is how they approach their characters in a relatable way.
“We’re not focused on playing Immortals, we’re focused on playing human beings who just so happen to be immortal,” Layne said. “All of us really understood our backgrounds and histories and leaned more into that. I think that’s why people love the films so much. We really focused on the human aspect of this.”
Marinelli, joking but earnestly, came up with a good example of the humanity of these superhuman characters.
“They need toilet paper, too,” he said, laughing. “When they have to wake up early, they need an alarm clock. So, it’s not very different from what we’re all doing.”
The Old Guard 2 is now available to stream.
