Sometimes the most dangerous place for a dad is a family vacation.
Emmy winner Bob Odenkirk returns as suburban husband, father and workaholic assassin Hutch Mansell in Nobody 2, the sequel to 2021’s bare-knuckle action-thriller that opened at number one at the U.S. box office.
Four years after he inadvertently took on the Russian mob, Hutch remains $30 million in debt to the criminal organization and is working off that debt with an unending string of hits on international thugs. Nothing like such a time then to take off with the family in a bid to reconnect with his children and long-suffering wife (Connie Nielsen) by revisiting the one place from his childhood that holds any peaceful memories.
All is not as it should be though for Hutch and his family, and it doesn’t take long for their holiday to become a horror as they are targeted by a corrupt cop, a shady sheriff, and the blood-thirsty crime boss that may just be Hutch’s most dangerous adversary yet.
Ahead of the film’s release this week, Peter Gray spoke with both Odenkirk and Nielsen about returning to the violent fray of the franchise, digging deeper into their characters’ history, and what it was specifically that made their director, Timo Tjahjanto, the perfect man for the job.
With the first Nobody, Becca was largely in the dark about Hutch’s past. Without spoiling too much, there’s more agency in Nobody 2. How did that shift impact the approach of your character this time around?
Connie Nielsen: In the first one, they have a sort of cover story. They’re living a story, and they just bound by these rules that they have made in their relationship to create a safe home for their family. Becca doesn’t have a problem living inside of those rules, but it’s becoming clear in the first one that Hutch is going through a terrible midlife crisis, and it’s because he’s denying the truth of who he really is. He cannot let go of his past, and it’s almost like a violence that he’s perpetrating on himself.
It’s not until he gets to bring this violence out and away from himself and against the aggressor that keeps showing up around him. When we start Nobody 2, even when we were shooting Nobody, the intention was to start unveiling more about how this relationship started, who they really were before they had kids and decided to go underground. We start Nobody 2 with Hutch being able to freely live as the person he was before they had the pact, so to speak. And that is problematic for the family, once again, because you don’t do anything out in the world without brining it home, to some degree. It’s starting to affect our son, and we don’t really see him very much. He’s very happy doing what he’s doing, but (Hutch) is also realising that the whole family is starting to build a life without him. He’s not part of that anymore. So when Becca says to him, “Hey, I think we need to do something,” he does this beautiful thing, which is to go back to when things were simple. And things have not been simple in Hutch’s life for a long time.
There’s this moment in his past, which is this childhood trip that he took with his dad and his brother, and he shows us the old video, and we don’t think (this place) is around anymore. It’s true, as they say, you can never go back to the same river twice, because that river has changed, right? And it’s not the same here as well. We go to this beautiful vacation, this kind of Americana that doesn’t exist anymore. And, in fact, it turns out to be this beautiful illusion, because underneath it all, there is more trouble hiding, and I think the way that they wanted to make this film happen (and) what is really wonderful about the Nobody universe is the “real” world. This post-industrial America, and a real couple that disagrees, but loves each other. And at the same time you have this other element, this action element, and in that department we wanted to open up more about, well, what did Becca do before she became a mom?
That’s it! There were certain shots in the film, like when she’s at the fair shooting and the son tells her how good her aim is, and I was thinking, “Oh, there’s so much more to Becca.” If we get a Nobody 3, if we get a Becca spin-off, I’m all for it, because you are definitely one of those actresses that can encapsulate drama and action and comedy in the most effortless way. I’m very excited for people to see Nobody 2 to see Becca thrive a little bit more. It’s awesome to see action films like this that have a real strong femininity to them as well.
Connie Nielsen: That’s so appreciated. Thank you so much.
Bob, you’ve said that a lot of directors shy away from sequels because they inherit someone else’s tone, but Timo made Nobody 2 very much a Timo Tjahjanto film…
Bob Odenkirk: Didn’t he just?
Was there a moment on set where you thought, “This is going to be a completely different beast than what we did before?”
Bob Odenkirk: I would say that there’s two moments, and it starts with what we call the camera test. Do you know what a camera test is? Before you shoot the film, they take the camera, the lenses, the light, the lighting designer, the costumes, the makeup, and they usually just shoot you standing in front of a screen and turning three quarters. Time shot a scene on the camera test day. It was the scene where I beat up five guys and I end up putting a hatchet in the guy’s head and taking out my phone and answering. He did that on camera test day, and it had so much power. It was so cool and dark, and it was done with one angle, and I thought, “Man, this guy is going to be great. This is going to be Nobody (the first one), plus extra added value and coolness.
On that added value, Hutch is leaning into bloodier instincts that compliment the foundations that are laid here. Were there any moments where you thought, “This is wilder than what Hutch has done before?”
Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, the guy who attacks me and then I whack him and drag him down and put his head into the saw…Timo kept saying, “More blood, more blood, more blood.” I think the elevator fight was pretty intense (too), although that’s like the bus fight, really. The other thing that’s new is there’s more comedy in (the film). There’s more comedy within the fighting. So, the fight in the duck boat is a great example of there’s jokes within what I’m doing in the fight.
With the action, what does it mean to you personally? Not just in terms of stunt choreography or body count, but how it reflects Hutch’s state of mind for you?
Bob Odenkirk: You know, Hutch has a 10th gear of rage. I think when we go there, it matches the bloodiness of a Timo Tjahjanto film. Timo lit a fire under this movie, and I was really thrilled to have him there. I love the guy. Man, he’s talented.
I spoke to him when the trailer dropped, and I knew after watching that trailer that he was taking what we knew of Nobody and amping it to 11, which is what sequels should do. And in your approach to Hutch, there’s a certain interiority to him. He’s a quiet man, but he’s got a big punch. With this sequel being darker and more stylised, do you find yourself leaning more into character or choreography, or are those things completely intertwined for you?
Bob Odenkirk: It always starts with character. Choreography, for me, is almost never a thing unto itself. It’s meaningless to me, unless I’m telling you about the character through the movements. I’m telling you how awkward he is, how weak he is, how much he’s been hurt. I’m telling you how rageful he is. I’m telling you how desperate he is. That has to start each of the fight (sequences). In the duck boat fight, we have a character who doesn’t want to fight. He’s just looking to avoid being a part of the fight until, well, I don’t want to wreck it, (but) something bad happens to his hand. Now he’s like, “Okay, that’s it. I’m in.”
And something that happens in the Nobody movies that don’t happen in any other film, except Jackie Chan films, the people who are fighting hit their heads on things and get hurt. So, in the duck boat fight, it happens twice. Hutch slams into a bar and then later grabs a guy and jacks him up, “boop” into the ceiling, and whacks his head on something. It’s a very human, very stupid, clumsy, and very painful thing that every man and woman can relate to, because we’ve all hit our heads on things.
I think to be that stupid, you have to be incredibly smart about it too, so it all worked. And I’m just going to say I’m very excited for Normal at TIFF. I’m going to be there next month.
Bob Odenkirk: Thank you, I’ll see you there.
Nobody 2 is screening in Australian theatres from August 14th, 2025, before opening in the United States on August 15th.
