Tom Clancy's Without Remorse is the explosive origin story of action hero John Clark, one of the most popular characters in the author's Jack Ryan universe. In this movie, when a squad of Russian soldiers kills his family in retaliation for his role in a top-secret op, Sr. Chief John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) pursues the assassins at all costs.
Joining forces with a fellow SEAL (Jodie Turner-Smith) and a shadowy CIA agent (Jamie Bell), Kelly’s mission unwittingly exposes a covert plot that threatens to engulf the U.S. and Russia in an all-out war. Torn between personal honor and loyalty to his country, Kelly must fight his enemies without remorse if he hopes to avert disaster and reveal the powerful figures behind the conspiracy.
Directed by Stefano Sollima, the action-packed movie hits Amazon Prime Video on April 30, and we were recently present for the global press conference. As you might expect, Without Remorse features a lot of intense action, and much of that takes place underwater. That required a lot of intense training on Jordan's part, and the Black Panther star opened up on the work that went into pulling it off.
"Right now? At least a song," the actor replied when asked how many minutes he can hold his breath for. "It's one of those things where, you know, your breath and breathing is a trained thing, so if you stop exercising and training that muscle, you can definitely lose it."
"Underwater training was definitely something we spent a lot of time on. We knew we had these sequences, and early in the script development phase, Stefano looked at me and said, 'Mike, you know you've got to do all these, right?' I said, 'Yeah, of course. Easy. No problem' [Laughs]. So, we hooked up with some military divers and spent time in the tanks being put under stressful situations where we would have to problem solve, work through malfunctions, gear failure, and use military rebreathers which are basically machines soldiers would wear to breathe underwater and not leave any physical traces."
"Anyway, it was a lot of very detailed training we went through for the water exercises," Jordan concluded. "You know, I could hold my breath during filming maybe three minutes or so. I love being in the water. If you're calm and sitting still, you can hold your breath for a lot longer. They created an environment for us to really relax and be at peace."
So, it all sounds pretty intense, and you can trust us when we say that all this work definitely paid off in the movie itself. We also learned that there was a specific song Jordan used to remain calm under pressure (and water), but unfortunately, he didn't reveal what that was.
Keep checking back here for more on Without Remorse, including our review tomorrow!