If you’ve been browsing Netflix recently, you might have noticed an uncommon sight: a film featuring whitewater kayaking trending number one among English films, with 40 million views just two weeks after its release.
Apex is a thriller starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton, and involves the former being chased by the latter through the Australian wilderness as part of a deadly game Egerton contrives. Sasha, played by Theron, is an extreme sports enthusiast—as she says in the film, she “does a bit of everything,” including rock climbing and whitewater kayaking.
It’s not often whitewater kayaking is featured so heavily in the plot of a mainstream Hollywood film. To make it happen, the film employed two high-level whitewater kayakers to be Theron’s stunt doubles on the river: Luuka Jones-Yaxley and River Mutton.
Both hailing from New Zealand, neither Jones-Yaxley or Mutton had been part of a movie previously. In this capacity, at least—Mutton notes she was an extra in the film Yogi Bear when she was eight years old. Pete Townend—who is managing director of Canoe & Kayak, a New Zealand-based company specializing in paddling gear, tours and instructional courses—has been doing kayak and water safety on movie sets in recent years and was asked by the Apex crew whether he knew of any whitewater kayakers who could double for Theron. A friend of both Jones-Yaxley and Mutton, he reached out in late 2024 to see if they’d be interested.
“I thought it seemed so farfetched and unbelievable,” says Jones-Yaxley, who is a five-time Olympian in canoe slalom and K1 bronze medallist at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships. “The next thing I knew, I was being called by some of the stunt coordinators and River and I were having to send in our measurements for costuming. It started to become more real.”
Preparation for filming began in early 2025. The pair were flown to New Zealand’s South Island where they met up with a small film crew. They spent about a week being flown by helicopter into remote rivers, scouting locations where they planned to shoot most of the whitewater kayaking scenes. Then they spent a week flying back to those locations to film.
“We were working together [with the director and stunt coordinator] on what looks cool in a movie context,” continues Jones-Yaxley. “Because when you’re paddling really well on whitewater, you look smooth and you’re dry. But when you’re in a movie, you need to make it look exciting. So it was quite interesting, looking at a river differently and trying to figure out how to make it look as dramatic as possible.”
Mutton, who is an extreme kayak world champion, explains that she was told to hit rocks and miss lines to make the kayaking look more exciting. They were also told to paddle “a little more oddly,” with a less technical forward stroke, so the shots of she and Jones-Yaxley paddling would be easier to knit together with the shots of Theron paddling.
She says it was difficult at first to override her instinct to paddle well.
“It went against what you naturally have trained yourself to do,” says Mutton. “But by the end of filming, I was so practiced at it, that when I went back to my own kayaking I was a little worried I had practiced paddling like that too much. I didn’t have any problems, but it did get in my head a little bit.”
They divided up the stunt work according to costuming. Jones-Yaxley was in the costume with the red life jacket and blue helmet, which meant she did the scenes before Theron was being chased. Mutton was in the costume with the hoodie and jeans, which meant she did the chase scenes.
“It did mean River had to do more swimming in the cold river than I did,” laughs Jones-Yaxley. “I got the Gucci role.”
Mutton says she isn’t sure why she ended up doing the chase scenes, which involved more swimming.
“Maybe I just seemed a little too enthusiastic,” Mutton says jokingly. “Maybe I looked like I was having too much fun swimming.”
Part of Mutton’s costuming was to not wear a PFD or helmet, because in the film Egerton steals Theron’s equipment and provides her only with her kayak, paddle and backpack of supplies to carry through the chase.
“A lot of the kayaking was reasonably chill,” says Mutton of the rivers and sets they were paddling. “But as soon as you’re taking your helmet and life jacket off, you’re a little sketched out because you’re not really supposed to do that.”
But she says they had a good safety crew and since filming took place late in the summer, they weren’t dealing with “heaps of water”—with one notable exception. They were filming on the Turnbull River when a flash flood occurred and the whole film crew had to be evacuated. Then Jones-Yaxley and Mutton were asked to go out and paddle and be filmed on the drone.
“We kind of looked at each other like, oh that’s quite high now,” says Mutton. “It was actually really fun paddling. It was very good kayaking, solid grade five. But it was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, just kayaking without a PFD.”
Unfortunately, none of the shots from them kayaking on the flooded Turnbull made it into the film.
Despite being cold and potentially hypothermic at times, Mutton and Jones-Yaxley say they were well looked after. Where possible, there was a hot tent set up riverside where they could warm up between takes. They were given handwarmers by the costuming department and were wrapped in warm blankets as soon as they got off the river.
“It was quite nice actually,” continues Mutton. “Every day you wake up, you meet your private chauffeur downstairs and they drive you to the movie set. You can just roll out in your pajamas. And you go there and someone tells you what to wear, they brush your hair, style it. And then you go kayaking.”
Filming with the actors took place in Australia. Jones-Yaxley flew back and forth four times and Mutton once to shoot paddling scenes there themselves and advise on Theron’s paddling scenes.
They both comment how down to earth and approachable Theron was to work with, and how eager she was to make sure the paddling scenes looked authentic.
“I was super impressed by how quickly she picked up that natural-looking style and she was really good at watching myself or River,” says Jones-Yaxley.
Mutton echoes this, saying she noticed Theron would watch her relaxing in her kayak between shots. “I wouldn’t even be doing anything, I’d just be chatting and hanging out. And then she’d film her next shot and she’d instantly look like she’d been in a kayak her whole life. It was kind of scary. But it was so impressive.”
Jones-Yaxley and Mutton gave some pointers to help Theron learn how to paddle in a straight line, which she initially struggled with.
“She was like, Luuka, what do you love about kayaking?” says Jones-Yaxley, laughing. “I was like, the feeling when you get it right. I think she kind of put that into a dancing context because she has a dancing background. It’s like when you’re in the flow and in the moment, it all feels really good.”
When Apex was released, Jones-Yaxley and Mutton watched the film on a laptop at Mutton’s house.
“Watching the film, it’s actually quite amazing how they put everything together,” comments Mutton. “All these different sets from the South Island and Australia were meshed to look like the same scene. I think paddler-wise the person looked pretty convincingly the same the whole time between me, Luuka and Charlize.”
Jones-Yaxley says the movie was a lot more intense than she was expecting.
In terms of the kayaking, she says, “It was a really authentic film. It was just so cool that they had whitewater kayaking in there that was authentic in terms of going to real rivers and paddling good whitewater.”
Both agree the film is good exposure for the sport.
“I just think it’s awesome,” says Jones-Yaxley, “and I really hope it’s the start of lots of whitewater kayaking in feature films.”
