GoC sat down with Karl Urban and Josh Lawson at the Mortal Kombat II press junket and came away with the actual story behind the prep.
Urban steps into Johnny Cage, and Lawson is back as Kano after a death scene most fans read as a hard period. Both of them brought something to the room that the trailer cannot tell you yet.
The new film, from Warner Bros. Pictures, hits theatres on May 8, directed by Simon McQuoid and written by Jeremy Slater.
McQuoid is back with the full tournament, a deeper bench (Joe Taslim, Jessica McNamee, Lewis Tan, Mehcad Brooks, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ludi Lin, Tadanobu Asano, Chin Han), plus Adeline Rudolph and Tati Gabrielle stepping in.
We talked about the airport-to-stunt-rehearsal pivot Urban walked into in the Gold Coast, the Joe Taslim-level he had to chase, the exact moment Lawson found out Kano was getting another quarter in the machine, and why Urban thinks this sequel is the same swing George Miller took from Mad Max to Fury Road.
Karl Urban Did Not Get to See the Hotel
Urban said the prep for Mortal Kombat II started before he could even unpack.
“When I arrived in the Gold Coast with my bags, they took me straight to a stunt rehearsal,” he said. “I didn’t even get to go to the hotel.”
The reason was Joe Taslim. Urban said the bar in the room was so high that the cameras on the first film had to ask Taslim to slow down because they could not catch his hands in real time.
“Joe is a gun. An absolute weapon,” Urban said. “I remember them having to tell him to slow down because the camera just couldn’t see it. He was so quick.”
For Urban, levelling up was not optional. It was the only way to share a frame with people already operating in that gear.
Karl Urban on Grounding Johnny Cage in Reality
Before any choreography, Urban went looking for what makes Cage actually work as a person.
“The first thing I did was really kind of try and ground the character in a reality,” he said. “For me, that meant going to martial arts tournaments, watching young kids, seeing how they would cope with wins and losses.”
That is the part most actors skip. Cage as a video-game cutout is easy. Cage, as a kid who learned to take L’s first, is harder to handle. Urban went and found the second one. As a fan of the games, I thought his portrayal was incredible.
Josh Lawson Thought the Eye Was the End
Kano took a fatal gnome to the eye in 2021. Lawson read it the same way fans did.
“It was a surprise to hear that I was coming back,” Lawson said. “I foolishly thought that getting gnomed in the eye was the end. But that’s not the end. They put another quarter in the machine.”
Prep, in his telling, did not go to fight training first. It went to the voice.
“It was just about for me learning to say as many F-bombs in as many sentences as possible,” he said.
The Kano energy that ran through the first film is still intact and better than ever.
From The Boys Straight to Mortal Kombat
Urban came from The Boys‘ fourth season, with gas in the tank. Butcher had been given cancer that season, and Urban wanted to swing the other way fast.
“I had energy. I called up my reps, and I’m good to go,” he said. “Find me something with action, something. And for my sins, this is what landed on my desk. And I went, I will do it.”
Then it hit him.
“I instantly was, like, terrified. Oh my god, how am I going to do this? But that’s where you get the most interesting results, is when you really kind of push yourself.”
That is the move. Take the gig that scares you and let the fear do the work.
Urban: This Is Director Simon McQuoid’s Fury Road
Urban put the sequel in real company on purpose.
“This movie pushed all of us, and even like the director Simon,” he said. “From Mortal Kombat to Mortal Kombat II, his journey was akin to George Miller from Mad Max to Fury Road. You can see there’s a level up.”
That is a high bar, and the gamer in me believes the hype is warranted.