Actor Noah Centineo is shrugging off Netflix’s decision to axe The Recruit after two seasons.
It was announced earlier this month that the popular spy drama had officially been canceled. The news came weeks after the show’s season two release on January 30.
Centineo, 28, who led the series as fledgling CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks, addressed the situation on Thursday at the Los Angeles premiere of his new movie Warfare.
“You know, it is what it is,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, letting out a sigh. Netflix has a certain mandate that they need to fill.”
He added: “I’m very proud of the show; very grateful to our audience. You know, we have a pretty strong cult following. And with Netflix, it just didn’t fit with what it needed, I suppose. [So] onto the next I guess.”
The Recruit, which debuted in 2022, follows Centineo’s character as he becomes embroiled in an international conflict.
Its first season, comprised of eight episodes, became a significant hit for Netflix, and is among the streamer’s most-watched series ever. The six-episode season two, however, drew a mixed reaction from fans, many of whom were frustrated by the improbably dangerous behavior of a particular character.
Still, creator Alexi Hawley had high hopes for a season three renewal, telling Deadline in January: “We’re waiting for Netflix to officially do their thing with it.”
There’s a “lot of goodwill inside Netflix towards the show and towards Noah. I think they very much feel like Noah is a homegrown star, which he is. So I’m feeling super positive about it, as positive as you can feel in this town at this time,” he added.
Centineo currently stars in A24’s newest war movie, Warfare, directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland.
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Besides Centineo, the movie additionally features an extensive ensemble cast comprised of Will Poulter, Charles Melton, Kit Connor, Taylor John Smith, Adain Bradley, Evan Holtzman, Michael Gandolfini, Joseph Quinn, Cosmo Jarvis, Finn Bennett, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Henry Zaga.
Out in theaters April 11, Warfare follows a platoon of American Navy SEALs on tour in Iraq as they get caught up in a failed surveillance mission.
The film is based on Mendoza’s experiences as a Navy SEAL during the Iraq war. So far, it has received middling reviews, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey finding that the movie “offers only violence — to its detriment.”
“All Warfare has to offer, inevitably, is the violence itself, stripped from its source, like Men and Civil War before it,” she writes. “If the point is to warn us of its monstrousness, what can a film of this ilk offer if it bears no clues as to the origins of its birth?”
