{"id":426005,"date":"2026-04-30T23:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426005\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T23:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:34:11","slug":"how-netflixs-man-on-fire-creates-its-own-john-creasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426005\/","title":{"rendered":"How Netflix’s ‘Man on Fire’ Creates Its Own John Creasy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Man on Fire<\/a> season one.]<\/p>\n

\n\tThe past few years have seen the rise of a new generation of high-quality shows about heroes in the mold of Jack Ryan or Jack Reacher<\/a>: military veterans who use their battle-tested skills to protect the innocent and make sure the bad guys pay. At first blush, the new Netflix<\/a> series Man on Fire seems like one of these shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tExecutive producer Steven Caple Jr.<\/a>, who directed the first two episodes of the series starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II<\/a> (which dropped all eight episodes on Thursday), explains what\u2019s so appealing about the genre. \u201cIt\u2019s wish fulfillment,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople love to see themselves in the shoes of a Jack Reacher or a Jack Ryan in terms of an espionage thriller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there\u2019s a difference between Man on Fire\u2019s John Creasy and his peers like Reacher or Ryan, and that difference goes to the heart of what Caple and Abdul-Mateen wanted to accomplish with the show in the first place. Creasy, as adapted from A.J. Quinnell\u2019s book series and previously played by Denzel Washington<\/a> in a 2004 movie of the same name, is working through a messy reality that\u2019s far from the traditional hero\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were purposefully trying to create our own lane with the John Creasy character, who is very much layered, very nuanced in the way he\u2019s dealing with some trauma,\u201d Caple says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trauma he\u2019s referring to is severe PTSD, whose origins are explored in the pilot: A Special Forces mission Creasy is running in Mexico City unexpectedly goes south, resulting in the violent deaths of several of his friends and colleagues. Creasy is the only one to make it out alive, and the disaster \u2014 and the psychological scars it leaves on him \u2014 derail his military career.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnly four years later, in the wake of a desperate suicide attempt, does he have an opportunity to try and get his life back on track, when an old friend (Paul Rayburn, played by Bobby Cannavale) offers him a private security job in Rio de Janeiro. Then, when terrorists blow up the entire high rise where the Rayburn family lives, Creasy is the only one left to protect his friend\u2019s surviving daughter (Billie Boullet) \u2014 that is, if he can overcome the PTSD that is so closely tied to violent tragedy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBobby Canavale as Paul Rayburn with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as John Creasy at the start of Man on Fire.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJuan Rosas\/Netflix \u00a9 2024<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are a lot of things to explore with the character, and trying to connect that to the journey itself \u2014 which makes the overall IP interesting to me, which is the reason I\u2019m even here \u2014 because of the layer of depth added to the character,\u201d Caple says. \u201cIt\u2019s wish fulfillment, finding yourself in an exotic place, by yourself, with no one else to help. What would you do? How would you step up to the plate, especially when you have to save someone you care about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbdul-Mateen says that his character\u2019s emotional and psychological struggles were a big part of what interested him in the role. \u201cActors love that stuff. You know what I mean? I want to feel, I want to feel,\u201d he says. \u201cHonestly, I really love the complexity of Creasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe adds, \u201cSteven and I had a conversation very early on in the process where we said, \u2018If we\u2019re going to do this, then we want to do it a certain way.\u2019 One of the things was to try to stay as close to the truth as possible. I had a ball trying to figure out, \u2018What would be true in this scenario?\u2019 It\u2019s very tempting when you have a character as potentially cool as Creasy, to do what is \u2018cool.\u2019 It took a lot of faith on the director\u2019s part to allow me to not think about what\u2019s cool but try to investigate what is true, and then from there we can say, \u2018Now what if we did it with this type of attitude?\u2019 But we were always working from a place of truth, which was a very exciting opportunity because it also felt a little bit dangerous. As an actor, I\u2019m attracted to the dangerous opportunities, because they make my brain tick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe goal was to find out what would happen when Creasy, who used to excel in harrowing situations, is confronted with the exact conditions that are likely to trigger his most haunting memories. They worried it might not work, but decided to double down on the danger, Abdul-Mateen adds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s why the first couple episodes specifically feel cinematic,\u201d he says. \u201cWe went into it head-first and said, \u2018We\u2019re going to make it honest and cinematic. We\u2019re going to lean into the scale because we believe in what this is.\u2019 When we do it that way, it\u2019s no longer dangerous. Now we know there is so much more possibility in terms of the type of story we can tell and type of art we can create with these seven episodes of this epic story of this character called John Creasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe inciting explosion at the end of the pilot was certainly cinematic, as was Creasy\u2019s attempt to pilot an airplane while under fire in the second episode, of which Caple says, \u201cDelroy Lindo definitely did his part in making sure he was able to pull off some of his stunts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tYahya Abdul-Mateen II as John Creasy in Man on Fire.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJuan Rosas\/Netflix \u00a9 2024<\/p>\n

\n\tHe notes, \u201cAs we go along this journey with Creasy, he\u2019s going to have to make decisions that either go into the lane of him redeeming himself or go down a darker path. So it was like: how big should we go with this thing? How should it feel? And then to layer behind, who\u2019s behind this? What conspiracy is behind this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTHR won\u2019t spoil the ending here, but we had one more question for Abdul-Mateen: Was it daunting to take on a role last played by Denzel Washington?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo, no, was that daunting? I never looked at it that way,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a big fan \u2014 I\u2019m a huge fan of Man on Fire, what am I saying? I don\u2019t want to underplay how much of a fan I am of that work. So it was an opportunity for me to really slow down and ask myself, \u2018Why do this?\u2019 and to be honest about that and find a reason, or don\u2019t [do it]. If I did not find a reason to do it, then so be it, but I found a reason, and it had a lot to do with getting a chance to work with Steven. It had a lot to do with getting a chance with creating a piece of work that was separate from the last thing I had done with Wonder Man<\/a>. This one, I felt that there was international scale to it, I got to speak some Spanish, there were so many great opportunities. That\u2019s what I saw. Those were the green lights that inspired to me to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of Man on Fire season one is now available to stream on Netflix<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Man on Fire season one.] The past few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[3722,93,61,60,185821,1868,186218,282,141084],"class_list":["post-426005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-denzel-washington","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-man-on-fire","tag-netflix","tag-steven-caple-jr","tag-tv","tag-yahya-abdul-mateen-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}