Mortal Kombat 2 Director Reveals The Character That ‘Worried’ Him The Most: ‘What Was I Thinking?’

Simon McQuoid explains why bringing Baraka to live action tested the sequel’s cast, prosthetics team, and visual-effects artists.

Mortal Kombat II gave fans a lot to talk about, especially since the film introduced Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Kitana (Adeline Rudolph). But the sequel also gave director Simon McQuoid a challenge when it came to designing a video game character who isn't exactly easy to bring to life in live action: Baraka.

McQuoid has been part of this new live-action adaptation of Mortal Kombat since the first film arrived in 2021 and introduced audiences to Lewis Tan's Cole Young. Cole served as an audience surrogate because he was created specifically for the film franchise. Fans were just as new to him as they were to this version of the world. But Mortal Kombat II did a lot more world-building with characters audiences already knew from the games , meaning McQuoid and company had their work cut out for them.

CBR's Rachel Leishman spoke with McQuoid about the sequel ahead of the Mortal Kombat II home release . The two discussed how the film changed from the first Mortal Kombat movie and more. While characters like Rudolph's Kitana and Urban's Johnny Cage were fan favorites audiences had long been waiting to see, another character proved considerably more difficult for the creative team to design: Baraka, played by CJ Bloomfield.

"Obviously, Johnny's going to be part of it, right? And then, during our process, Baraka really came to life beautifully," McQuoid said. "I was probably more worried about him than any other character we had, because I was like, 'No, we've got to have Baraka in the second film.' Then, once he was in there, I was like, 'Oh, what was I thinking? He's going to be so hard to make real and plausible.' I wanted the audience to truly believe this character.

"CJ did a beautiful job. Karl did a great job as Johnny, playing opposite Baraka and CJ, and Jeremy [Slater] wrote a great character. Larry [Van Duynhoven] and our prosthetics team did an amazing job with him. It all just sort of built from there. Then it was like, 'I kind of love him.' Everyone seemed to love him, so I was like, 'Yeah, I think we need to have him.'

"We love Kitana and Jade (Tati Gabrielle) too. It's not that we don't love the others; they just have different roles and different needs in the story. That's how we get to Kano, who says, 'We're going to need that guy. He might look like Voldemort tonight, but we're going to need him.' So there are needs like that."

What makes Mortal Kombat II fun is the film's ability to let its characters be unique. Johnny Cage and Kitana are iconic because of their unique designs. They're very different from each other, just as Jade differs from Kitana, even though the two are visually similar. Every character in this film, as well as in the games, has a unique style.

While those three are among the franchise's more human-looking fighters, the sequel also gets to have fun with Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) and Baraka. They're not exactly pleasant to look at, but their power is made very clear through their designs.

While McQuoid may have had his work cut out for him by including Baraka in the film, it ultimately worked in his favor. A Mortal Kombat movie where all the characters looked like regular people off the street wouldn't fully bring this world to life. Fans love the franchise's human characters, but it is also exciting to see the work that goes into bringing its more visibly nonhuman fighters to the screen.

Luckily, Baraka, Shao Kahn and the many other distinctive elements of Mortal Kombat II give fans plenty to talk about.

Mortal Kombat II is now streaming on HBO Max and arrives on Digital and 4K Ultra HD on July 28.