[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Season 2 of The Recruit.]

Summary

In Season 2 of the Netflix series ‘The Recruit,’ Owen Hendricks partners with NIS Agent Jang Kyun, who aims to rescue his kidnapped wife at any cost.

Co-stars Noah Centineo and Teo Yoo talk about memorable moments, including a fight scene they got to team-up in and Owen’s impulsivity.

The possibility of a Season 3 partnership is something the actors would be interested in, and they’d like to take things to new locations, like the Maldives or Brazil.

From creator Alexi Hawley (The Rookie), Season 2 of the Netflix series The Recruit follows CIA Lawyer Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) to South Korea, where a new mission has him working alongside National Intelligence Service (NIS) Agent Jang Kyun (Teo Yoo). But Jang Kyun’s true goal is to get back his kidnapped wife, and he will do anything it takes to make that happen. With Owen never able to stay out of trouble for very long, the two share an uneasy partnership, leaving Jang Kyun thankful for Owen’s help and Owen wanting to recruit Jang Kyun into the CIA.
During this interview with Collider, co-stars Centineo (who’s also an executive producer on the series) and Yoo talked about most memorable moments in Season 2, their fight scene team-up, Owen’s impulsivity, Jang Kyun’s repressed emotions, shooting the fight scene between Owen and the guy with a crutch, and what location they might want to go to in a possible Season 3.
‘The Recruit’ Season 2 Had Noah Centineo and Teo Yoo Swimming in a Freezing River in Winter

“It was a rush. It was really fun.”

Image via Netflix

Collider: You guys get to do a wide range of stuff in this series that you would never get to do in real life. What is the most fun or most memorable thing you got to do this season, that you wouldn’t have gotten to do if it weren’t for this TV show?
TEO YOO: Oh, wow. Swimming in the river in Vancouver in the middle of the winter. It was freezing and it was tough at the time, but thinking back on it now, it was pretty fun. It’s like doing a cold plunge for an extended period of time.
NOAH CENTINEO: It was a rush. It was really fun. And then, there’s the club fight scene where we get to fight people together.
YOO: Right, that was also very, very cool.
That scene is so fun because it’s so early on in your relationship over the season. What was that fight scene like to figure out for yourselves, but also with each other?
CENTINEO: We shot that at the end of the season. It’s such a bro thing to bond over fighting. What I love most about that is that we team up. We don’t know where the other person stands, but we get out of this very dangerous situation, and exactly how Alexi Hawley does, he flips what your expectations are with what happens next, almost immediately, and there’s no reprieve. That’s at the very end of the first episode and it’s a fractal image of what the entire second season of The Recruit is. The first season had some air to breathe. You’re building out an entire world, so you’ve gotta establish the players, and you’ve gotta establish the operating procedure and the rules of engagement. And then, in the second season, there’s almost no air. It’s propulsive and it just moves from the very first moment to the end.
Noah, your character seems to always find himself challenged by a woman with an accent. What did you enjoy about the dynamic this season with Nichka compared to last season with Max Meladze? He gets challenged by some women in the show.
CENTINEO: Hell yeah, as he should be. You’ll have to talk to Alexi about that. Alexi constantly gets Owen berated by [women].
YOO: Accents are sexy.
CENTINEO: Accents are sexy. I think your accent is sexy.
YOO: Thank you. I think your accent is sexy.
CENTINEO: I appreciate that, deeply. I don’t know. I can’t speak to that. I love it, though. I think it’s awesome.

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Do you feel like, before Owen just blindly jumps into the deep end of things, he should think about what might happen, or would that take away part of his charm?
YOO: I think he should be as impulsive as he is. Do you know Captain Jack Sparrow? He’s the spy lawyer version of that. You’re like, “Did he plan that, or did he just get lucky?”
CENTINEO: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is the way you’re looking at the problem.” That’s my favorite line. What do we have, if Owen responds instead of reacts? That’s a big part of the show. Maybe there’s a metamorphosis that takes place, where he starts to be more calculated, but until that day comes, that’s such a nexus for the plot.
YOO: It also makes him so relatable to audiences. You can imagine yourself being in that type of situation, learning by trial and error.
CENTINEO: Although, it would be better, I’m sure, for his well-being, and for other people.
Maybe fewer people would try to kill him, if he thought about things more.
CENTINEO: This is most likely very true.
‘The Recruit’s Teo Yoo Has Become the Poster Boy for Characters Who Bottle Up Their Emotions

“When I look at myself, I’m like, ‘Dude, that guy has issues.'”

Image via Netflix

Teo, your character is interesting because he seems so good at keeping his emotions in check, which makes it hard to get a read on him, at least initially, but he’s also very driven by wanting his wife back. How did you approach bringing that to life? Was there anything you wanted to do with him, especially in the beginning, because he is someone whose motives are a bit questionable, at least until we know more?
YOO: It’s interesting to hear you say that. I actually set out intending to show everything, emotionally, that I can in my characters, but I just happen to be the type where what I show looks repressed. I don’t know why, but I’ve become the trademark poster boy for someone who has things bottled up inside, even though, from my perspective, I’m showing everything I can. But later, when I look at myself, I’m like, “Dude, that guy has issues.” I don’t know why that is, but it’s that gap between what I feel internally and how it comes off externally. I cannot control that, but people just happen to like it, so I’m lucky like that.
CENTINEO: It plays really well.
We get to see flashbacks with your character and his wife, so that we can understand how important that relationship is to him. We don’t just hear about it through him. What does she mean to him? How did that inform things for you, in figuring out what their bond is?
YOO: My understanding, even though I didn’t act off of a direct scene partner, was in building that prior life and knowing how it feels to love someone and sacrifice everything for that love. Everybody knows how that feels, so that wasn’t really hard for me to play.
Noah, what was it like to shoot the fight scene with the guy using his crutch inside the airport vehicle? What was it like to pull off something that physical?
CENTINEO: That’s Leslie [Kwan]. He’s actually Teo’s stunt double. That was our first time ever fighting. That was really cool. They had the choreography figured out and they taught it to me, leading up to that day. The choreography was far more on Leslie than it was on me because Owen’s not a fighter. It was a lot of dodging, ducking, blocking, and reacting to getting hit. It was fun. This season, I really got to do a lot more fighting and action than I ever have, and I definitely enjoyed it. But thank God for my stunt double because he actually makes it look cool.

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Is that kind of stuff the most fun, or is it more fun to do something like the giant shoot-out that you’re in with the Taliban? What was the bigger challenge? Is it just easier to duck things flying at you?
CENTINEO: There’s a bit of lightheartedness, overall, with a lot of the action. We’re never looking to get so dramatic. That’s not the tone of the show. So, I get to really be expressive and scared and panic, in a high-octane place. I enjoy that. That’s something that’s special about The Recruit. You’re getting these crazy set piece action sequences, and there’s a lightheartedness to it, but the stakes are clearly very present. I don’t know what’s easier. I would say that when you’re doing a dance with a partner and fighting with them and taking punches and dishing that out, that takes more skill, without a doubt, than dodging and diving and hiding. There’s definitely more to it when you’re with a partner while you’re fighting.
There’s a quote this season that says, “Just because you don’t wanna do the killing doesn’t mean it isn’t gonna get done.” How do you think these guys feel about the type of work that they do, and that they sometimes have to do things that go bad or go wrong and someone could end up dead?
YOO: Personally, I’m glad that I don’t have to be a spy like that, because you have to put yourself in situations where you might have to kill someone and that’s not my cup of tea. It’s all make-believe and it’s for entertainment and it’s fun. I’m just happy that I get to look cool doing cool stuff.
CENTINEO: I think Jang Kyun would kill someone to get the love of his life back. Owen comes from a place where he doesn’t want to. That’s so different. That’s so outside of his life. But increasingly over the course of the season, it’s interesting that Owen goes, “I don’t wanna kill anyone,” but then continues to do things that gets people killed. He’s in a really hard place. Ambivalence is important.
‘The Recruit’s Noah Centineo and Teo Yoo Want To Continue Their Spy Partnership

The duo hope Season 2 brings in enough viewers that success will help them score a Season 3.

It feels like the end of the season leaves things in a place where these guys could be teamed up in some way in a possible Season 3. Have there been conversations about what a Season 3 could look like and whether there would be more of your partnership? I certainly would want to see more.
CENTINEO: We certainly do, too.
YOO: We’ve been daydreaming about what could happen to us. I don’t know. That’s up to the mastermind, Alexi. But if he calls us, I’m there for him.
CENTINEO: I think we just hope that fans of the first season can watch this season and love it and fall in love with it again, even more so. Hopefully, it also drives new people to the show that haven’t seen the show before. Ideally, in success like that, we’d be able to come back and do a third season and continue to work. We certainly had a hell of a time making it.

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Where will Owen go after Season 2?

Since it is a series with a global setting, is there anywhere that you would like to go if you got to do another season?
CENTINEO: Maldives.
YOO: I like the desert, so maybe Saudi Arabia or South America somewhere.
CENTINEO: Brazil would be cool. We should go somewhere tropical, like the Caribbean. Maybe Key West and Cuba, back and forth.
YOO: Have you ever been to Indonesia?
CENTINEO: I’ve never been.
YOO: Java or Bali. It’s amazing. It’s warm all day long, all year long.

The Recruit

Release Date

December 16, 2022

Network

Netflix

Directors

Doug Liman

Writers

Alexi Hawley, George Ghanem, Amelia Roper, Hadi Deeb, Niceole R. Levy, Maya Goldsmith

The Recruit is available to stream on Netflix. Check out the trailer: