In part 1 of this article, we talked with Larry Zanoff one of the most prominent armorers in Hollywood who works for ISS, the company that provided weapons for “Extraction 2“.

Сorrect props and guns are the essential part of creating realistic and memorable gunfights in a movie. But there is another necessary part – training. If actors don’t have the right training, it is hard for them to demonstrate on screen something they have no idea about. Many great directors understood that: James Cameron trained actors for “Terminator 2” on the range with live ammo, Michael Mann hired an ex-SAS instructor to train Tom Cruz in “Collateral” and Al Pacino and Robert De Niro as well as other actors in the movie “Heat”.

For “Extraction 2”, Sam Hargrave employed the same military adviser who worked on the first movie – Craig “Chili” Palmer. He served in the U.S. Army for 25 years with the majority of his career in Special Operations with 13 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Craig “Chili” Palmer at the shooting range, training actors with live ammo for Extraction 2.

After the release of “Extraction 2,” I interviewed Mr. Palmer. If you want to know more about the projects he works on, subscribe to his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chilipalmershooting/

I remember that when you worked on the first movie, the amount of time you had to train the actors was very limited. How did you train/prepare actors for the second movie? Was it on-set training or some sort of “boot camp” organized before filming started?

I actually started the training with all the actors in pre-production so I had a few weeks with each of the actors to train, and then got to take most of them do live fire on the Range before we started filming. This was all in Prague, CZ.

One of the most impressive and unusual parts of the movie was the number of Georgian actors playing some of the leading and many support roles. Did you train them as well? Did you experience any challenges in the process (language barrier, etc.)?

I did get to train all of them and there was a little bit of a language barrier with a couple of them but for the majority, they spoke English well. A couple times I had an interpreter with me during the training to assist. And I did get to take a few of them to the live fire range in Prague as well.

Golshifteh Farahani, who played Nik Khan in the first (right) and second (left) Extraction

In “Extraction 2”, the character of Golshifteh Farahani plays an extremely important role. After this role, she can probably be called one of the best female gunslingers in Hollywood. Did you also train her? Any interesting stories?

It was great getting the chance to train Gol as I got to train her a little bit in the first movie during the bridge sequence this time I got to train her for a few weeks and take her to the live fire range as well.

She is an incredible actress and just such a nice person, and even though she grew up in Iran, she really likes guns. So we had a great time doing a lot of dry fire drills, and then getting to go on the range to shoot.

The moment when Nik reaches for a backup gun in an ankle holster

She puts a lot of hard work and everything she does, and it shows how during the train sequence when they had the fight in the control room of the train she did that whole fight herself. There was no stunt double used.

Her commitment and dedication to her role was awesome and getting to work with her throughout the movie on every scene where she was handling a weapon was so much fun for me because of how she and all the actors really wanted to look professional handling firearms.

When we were on the range doing the live fire, I was able to have a rifle that she could shoot full auto and she just loved it, to see her reaction and how happy she was was, just awesome.

Golshifteh Farahani shooting full auto Bren 2 during training. Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtwNAJYNmWu/

“Extraction 2” fight scenes constantly show the transition from shooting to hand-to-hand combat. On many movie sets, it creates some friction between tactical coordinators and martial arts coordinators, cause they often have different visions. Did you have that problem?

There weren’t any conflicts between us as the stunt, coordinators were amazing, and all stunt team members were great to work with. I think we had mutual respect on both sides, so it was easy for us to work together.

We would talk about it and I would give them the pros and cons of what they were doing and then sometimes they changed it. Sometimes I saw that this could be pretty neat, especially after watching how they filmed it for the previous take and then put it together and edited it. It made it look incredible.

Working for Shane Habberstad and Noon Orsatti was so much fun for me that I hope to work with them again on any project they do. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them as they allowed me to do my job and supported me and I supported them with whatever questions or needs they had.

Tyler Rake shooting down the helicopter at the beginning of the movie

In the train scene, the main character is shooting from a hip with the M240B. Was it a deliberate choice of shooting technique or the actor’s personal preference?

It was a deliberate act as we just figured it. Made it easier for him to shoot from the hip at a helicopter like that being so close because in reality we’d have tracers and it would be easy to walk that into a helicopter. And, of course, Chris is a big guy so he can handle that gun with ease.

As a tactical coordinator – does the majority of your work happen on set, or before the filming even started, when you train the actors and advise other crew members?

A lot of my work was done during pre-production for the training and helping the stunt team with the preview of each action sequence. During filming, I was still on set every time there was gunplay, and I worked with each actor in the scene we were filming at the time.

Craig “Chili” Palmer working with Chris Hemsworth on the range during live fire training. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0PVSLVJ3UE

I was also there right next to Sam Hargrave during filming to let him know if something that the actors did was wrong. What I loved about it was he was just OK to fix it and I was able to make things as real as possible.

And I think we grew into a great relationship, a couple times Sam had me come up with the gunplay in an action sequence and then we show it to him and he was good with it right off the bat, so I think the biggest thing is having a great relationship with all the actors, the stunt team, and the Director is extremely important. And as the tactical coordinator, I’m not there to make it hard for the actors or the stunt team to do their job. I’m there to work with them, not against them.

Do you have a favorite scene in this movie?

I don’t have one particular scene that I love the most as all the actors did some tremendous stuff with the gun handling, reloads, and just general muzzle awareness the route to me made the whole movie an incredible thing to watch.