Action, Romance & Rubber Room

SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about Season 2 of Netflix’s The Recruit.

It’s been more than two years since we last saw Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) getting himself in deep trouble in Prague. But no time has passed for the rookie CIA lawyer who was still captured, with Russian mafia enforcer Nichka’s gun to his head at the top of Season 2. She was one of several people who tried to kill Owen in Season 2 across three continents as part of the action took place in South Korea and Russia.

Owen also killed a man while trying to rescue Jang Kyun (Teo Yoo), a Korean intelligence officer who had been threatening to expose CIA secrets, and his kidnapped wife. Unlike the Vienna-Prague op, the improbable Russia rescue mission was a success, Owen’s first since he started at the agency a coupe of weeks ago.

In an interview with Deadline, Centineo speaks about how Owen has changed (or not) in Season 2, what motivated him to risk his life to save Jang Kyun and his wife, why he pushed Hannah away and can he be in a romantic relationship?

Centineo also explains how a lawyer like Owen could be so good in hand-to-hand combat, how was it filming a shorter, six-episode season and what went into those whimsical scenes of rubber-roomed Owen that involved arts and crafts.

Click here for Centineo’s account of how he reprised his role of Peter Kavinsky on XO, Kitty while filming The Recruit in Korea and check out Deadline’s interview with The Recruit creator/executive producer Alexi Hawley in which he breaks down Season 2 and teases a potential third season, which he is feeling “super positive” about.

DEADLINE: I want to start with the submarine scene at the end of the finale. In it, Owen is kind of smiling but that smile slowly disappears as if it’s dawning on him what is ahead of him. Can you talk about his mixed emotions there? Also, Alexi mentioned that you actually used a real submarine, you were not faking it.

CENTINEO: We did. Alex Sorosky helped us get in contact with Sub Force, which is the American Submarine Force. They gave us some subs, which was incredible. I didn’t get to go on a sub — the movie magic, they shot it later. (laughs) Sorry, maybe I’m ruining the magic of it!

But yeah, I think Owen has come out on top for the first time, and it seems in that moment that he may have no more obstacles in his way. I think that’s where the smile comes from. He’s just overwhelmed with the fact that he pulled off a mission. He’s a lawyer, he’s not a spy, and he goes in, infiltrated and rescued Jang Kyun and his wife. So I think that moment for him is quite euphoric and overwhelming.

And then he realizes, this can’t really be the end. If he has learned anything from the last two seasons, in the last three and a half weeks of working at the CIA, it’s that there’s always something around the corner. And I think whether it’s paperwork or whether there are still people in play and alive that are going to be trying to take him down, he’s not out of the fire yet.

DEADLINE: You mentioned that Owen came up on top for the first time. How do you think that will change him? In your mind, will he continue to be “a perfect storm of chaos” as one of his co-workers called him?

CENTINEO: I think so, I think that’s not going to change. No one can truly wield chaos, but I think he’ll probably start to learn his strengths and use them a lot more, which happens to procure chaos.

DEADLINE: The Recruit is a very condensed show. As you said, it’s been two seasons for us over two years but for Owen it’s only been a couple of weeks on the job. How is it telling a story almost in real time?

CENTINEO: I find it to be cool and interesting, and it moves quickly. I always wonder if Alexi’s going to jump forward many years if we get a third or fourth [season] but I think that’s engaging, I think it’s cool to watch a character grow day by day.

DEADLINE: The show was condensed another way too in Season 2 as you had to go from eight to six episodes. Was it more challenging to pack all the action and do a full season in six episodes?

CENTINEO: No, I liked it. I like it when shows are propulsive and they move, I felt it was fantastic for our show. I always think it’s better to take eight episodes and make them into six, or take 10 and make them into eight, I think that’s exciting and interesting for audiences. I like when things really go far in an episode.

DEADLINE: What was something that you think went really far in Season 2, the biggest surprise that you didn’t see coming?

CENTINEO: I didn’t think Dawn was going to die, I didn’t think Nichka was going to kill Dawn. That was cool, seeing them have a knife fight. I didn’t think we’d be on a nuclear sub, that’s for sure.

DEADLINE: Speaking of fighting, can you tell me how a lawyer like Owen can fight like that? Did he undergo some training? Because in the second season, he took on professional killers, and defeated them all. How do you explain that?

CENTINEO: I explain it how, after Owen’s father died, he went through a spell where he was really hurting, he was quite aggressive. He was in quite a lot of fights growing up, whether in middle school, high school into college. His father being in the military, I think that he probably had training as well from a young age.

But at a certain point, once he got to college, I think he calmed down and went, I’m not that person, I don’t want to be that person. He promised his mom that he wouldn’t put himself in dangerous circumstances. He felt this responsibility, almost, to honor that. And so that’s why, when all of this starts to happen, he is somewhat equipped for it. He also gets very lucky.

DEADLINE: Owen’s evolution as a person. It was a milestone in the first season when he killed someone for the first time. Now he’s killed multiple people. How has that changed him? Is he now more hardened, do those deaths not affect him anymore?

CENTINEO: It’s a really interesting thing when Nichka comes in and says, ‘You should kill him, if he leaves, he’s going to turn on you’. And when Lester and Dawn are trying to convince him to leave Jang Kyun he’s like, ‘You’re dead inside, I’m not’.

Yes, he is more hardened, it hurts though when he is responsible for a death. I think he’s constantly trying to maintain his humanity. And in a world that seems to have none, that ambivalence is his burden to bear.

DEADLINE: What about the scene with Hannah, in which Owen is cold and callous in letting her go? Yes, he was protecting her, but he also showed a dark side of him I hadn’t seen.

CENTINEO: I think that that was very hard for Owen but extremely necessary to hurt her and make her understand that he’s not a good person, or at the very least, there is no good that can come from him. And for her own safety and for his own conscience, he needs to stop being so flippant with her, being so haphazard, not extraordinarily cautious and careful when it comes to her and her heart and her life.

So he had to do that, and it was tough. He realized he had to do it. But sometimes you need to make those decisions, and you need to hurt other people so that they can stay safe I suppose.

DEADLINE: What about Owen’s romantic life? We talked about Hannah. He had a nice romance in Korea but I don’t know if that is something that can continue. Is a relationship even an option with his job?

CENTINEO: If he was working normal office hours and not flying around the world, maybe. Tons of people at government agencies, people that work at the CIA, at the State Department, they have wives and kids, and their kids don’t know what they do. So it’s possible. For Owen it doesn’t seem like a good idea, but I think Owen is human and he craves that connection and love and intimacy like anyone.

DEADLINE: Is that one of the reasons why Owen was so dead set to help Jang Kyun, because he is craving for love to win?

CENTINEO: Subconsciously, I think it has to do with craving love to win, for sure. There are a bunch of little things that come together to create an action. And I think that’s definitely one of them. I think another one is Jang Kyun fighting for his wife. And his father’s relationship with his mother, I think there’s something about wanting to fix a broken home that he also puts onto that situation.

I think that despite Owen’s world that he’s living in, and his inability to change that world, to have a stronger moral compass, I think Owen’s moral compass is actually quite fitted. I think it’s oriented in the right direction. I think he can’t really leave Jang Kyun behind, and it’s also his job.

If Jang Kyun gets captured — and Owen knows what the director knows, which is they will torture him, and they will pull information — this whole mission that he’s been on to avoid cataclysmic meltdown of secrets will be for nothing. So I think there’s a few things that pressure cook in there to orient him into the direction of going back for his friend, that he feels that he’s now friends with, but also his co-worker.

DEADLINE: Owen is still selfish; that scene with James Purefoy’s character was pretty telling, when he found him at the bar, putting other people’s lives at risk. Do you think that he will learn his lesson or will he still be making impulsive decisions?

CENTINEO: I think he’s full of impulsive decisions. He’s fresh out of law school, so he’s not a fully functioning adult yet. Not only does he not have any experience working for the Office of the General Counsel at the CIA, he also doesn’t have much experience with life.

I think that he’s going to continue to act in an impulsive way that will get him in over his head. Simultaneously, I think that he’s getting a lot smarter and more experienced, so it’ll make for only smarter and greater antagonists and higher stake situations for him, because he’s going to be learning and growing and able to take on harder and more difficult situations.

DEADLINE: The “rubber room” scenes. You had to do a lot with very little — literally, you had an empty room with a desk, chair, a pen paper clips. How was it for you as an actor to spend so much time in that empty space?

CENTINEO: It was fun, it’s cool. I certainly am not comparing myself to whom I’m about to talk about, by any means. But I remember there was Inside the Actors Studio with Robin Williams where he took someone’s scarf and he did so many different things with this scarf, so many different characters, so many different situations, and it was just him with a scarf. There was nothing, no other props, just the scarf.

I think as an actor, you get put into situations, and you just get to sit there and be open and be curious, and make a lot of mistakes and be like, that was dumb. I don’t know why I did that, that doesn’t work. And sometimes things work, you just got to be willing to play.

DEADLINE: For you, what have been some of the highlights from Season 2?

CENTINEO: I’m so excited that Janus Ferber, played by Kristian Bruun, gets such an arc this season. He’s such a good actor, working with him is phenomenal. And having Teo Yoo come in and just elevate everything. The guy is such a powerhouse, he’s completely unrecognizable from Past Lives in this, a wonderful scene partner and great human being.

DEADLINE: How was it filming in Korea? Was it your first time, and what was the most challenging and fun thing to do there?

CENTINEO: First time. Most challenging was adjusting to the time zone change. The fun was filming, working with the crews there; great crews, worked super hard. Teo took us out to his favorite restaurants, going to the night markets was exceptional, seeing the culture, seeing the people, it’s an exceptional place. I’m actually going to go back there later this year to film another one of our friends’ projects there. I had an amazing time and want to spend more time there.