The ultimate action meet-up: Chris Pratt says he met Season 2 ‘Terminal List’ star Gabriel Luna at father-in-law Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Christmas party
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Chris Pratt was going to have to transform to return as former Navy SEAL Lt. Cmdr. James Reece for Season 2 of Prime Video’s action series “The Terminal List” (premiering Oct. 21).
After all, the July 2022 universe-spawning series showed Reece systematically hunting down those on his list responsible for the deaths of his SEAL team along with his wife and daughter – and becoming an identity-shifting global fugitive in the process.
As USA TODAY’s exclusive first look of “Terminal List” Season 2 shows, Pratt was up to the task, even accidentally aiding his preparation to play a gaunt Reece lost at sea due to illness from the globe-spanning shoot.
“Through all the boat scenes I was battling E. Coli and something called tick bite fever that I had gotten in Africa,” Pratt tells USA TODAY during a joint interview with “Terminal List” author Jack Carr and show creator David DiGilio. “Much of that look is from a stomach bug. There were nights I was sweating through my mattress with fever and sickness. But our schedule was so tight I didn’t take time off. It was just a matter of ‘grip it and rip it.’ “
“It was our authenticity mandate taken to the extreme,” jokes DiGilio.
With former SEAL bestie Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch) killed in the final stunning moments of Season 1 (but returning in 2025’s spinoff prequel series “Terminal List: Dark Wolf”), Reece sails toward Mozambique in Edwards’ beloved sailboat. Reece, suffering from a brain tumor like his KIA SEAL teammates, faces trouble at sea.
“He’s not necessarily equipped to sail around the world for hundreds of days,” Pratt says. “He’s more a guy on the run who happened to find himself on a boat. And he’s dealing with a brain tumor and a lot of regret.”
The daunting task of setting up the world’s most-wanted fugitive for new TV adventures – working with the very U.S. government hunting him down – fell to former Navy SEAL sniper and best-selling “Terminal List” author Carr. Carr, a series executive producer, had already charted Reece’s course in his 2019 second novel, “True Believer.”
“We needed a reason for Reece to get drawn back into government service and not thrown right into prison,” Carr says. “It would be disingenuous to just throw Reece into another adventure.”
A big part of the return is the government’s belief that the Reece-trained former CIA Scorpions standout Mohammed “Mo” Farooq (Dar Salim) has apparently switched sides and is working with a major terrorist. Reece is given the chance to hunt Mo down or go to prison. The new season of what Pratt calls a “military muscular thriller” gives the action star a chance to show off precise skills in hyper-realistic battle scenes.
The series features military executive producers Jared Shaw, a former Navy SEAL who starred as Boozer in Season 1, and Max Adams, a former Army Ranger, who ensure the action, tactics and military culture remain grounded in real-world experience.
Pratt found Gabriel Luna at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Christmas party
Salim, along with Tom Hopper (former SEAL Raife Hastings) and Luke Hemsworth (hilariously sleazy CIA operative Jules Landry), return for Season 2, along with Constance Wu as crusading journalist Katie Buranek. The new season will even feature a posthumous appearance from Kitsch’s Edwards.
Executive producer Pratt pulled off a casting coup on his own, nabbing “Terminator: Dark Fate” star Gabriel Luna for the season’s biggest new role as former SEAL Freddy Strain.
Pratt says he hit it off with Luna at a 2021 Christmas party, hosted by father-in-law and original Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger during Season 1 “Terminal List” production.
“So I’m at Arnold’s house, talking to Gabe, who I’d never met personally before,” says Pratt, who instantly clicked with the like-minded actor. “And he’s talking to me about so many things, including loving guitars and guns. And I was like, ‘My God, he’d be so good as Freddy if we ever get a Season 2.’ There’s a sweet lightness to him. So when we were casting, I knew exactly who that should be.”