Amber Midthunder stars in the new Predator film, Prey, and plays a Comanche warrior named Naru. She finds herself facing off with the alien hunter, and as you might imagine, things get horrifically intense! Midthunder was awesome in the movie! She gave a great performance, and I loved the character that she played. What great casting!
She recently talked to Bloody-Disgusting about her involvement with the movie and one of the things she shares is that she didn’t even know she was auditioning for a Predator movie when she came in to read for the role. She said:
“When this project first came into my world, I had no idea it was a Predator movie. I read with Dan [ Trachtenberg] for the first time in February of 2020. So, it was well over two years ago. I just knew that it was a movie about a young Comanche woman who wanted to be a hunter and that Dan was directing it. That’s all that I knew. Then, it disappeared because COVID happened and then came back. And even still, when it came back, I had no idea. So no, it was just the character and the story elements and obviously that Dan was involved.”
There’s a lot of very physical performance in this movie, and there was a lot of preparation that went into that. They had to be in top physical shape to be able to face the nightmarish alien hunter! Midthunder explained:
“We had a four-week boot camp that we all went through, me in Dakota [Beavers] and all the other boys. We did weapons, and we worked with the stunt team, a personal trainer, and all kinds of stuff. But also, there are so many parts of this movie that you can’t train for. You know?”
She went on to talk about one of those challenges, and it involved very unpleasant experiences with stinky mud. She shared the following experience:
“Okay. Something that I just found out that Dan said was that it didn’t smell like that until it touched human flesh. These are his words. Which, first of all, is such a disgusting way to say that. Second of all, it’s such a gross idea. I didn’t know that. I didn’t get in it until we started shooting, which other people had been in it to test. I had heard, ‘Oh, it’s not a big deal. It’s just water with leaves on top.’ I think they probably added more and made it worse or something.
“Then, by the time I got out there, it smelled like fertilizer. But then it was thick and gooey, and there were just twigs in it that were cutting. To get clean, I would get out of that and walk over to a dark tent with a horse trough. I would stand there, and four women would hose me down. They were so sweet and lovely. They gave me hot water because it was also cold. That was a wild experience when I think of the details.”
The movie follows a young woman named Naru, “a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people. The prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries.”
The film’s cast also includes Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp (Sooyii), Michelle Thrush (The Journey Home), and Julian Black Antelope (Tribal).
Prey will be released exclusively on Hulu on August 5, 2022. This is such a great film, and I think fans are going to be really happy with it.