After the devastation of their village, they are brought on a perilous journey to a Mayan city for human sacrifice at a time when the Mayan civilization is in decline. Set in Yucatán, Mexico, around the year 1502, Apocalypto portrays the hero's journey of a young man named Jaguar Paw, a late Mesoamerican hunter and his fellow tribesmen who are captured by an invading force. This was the last film Gibson directed until 2016's Hacksaw Ridge ten years later. Here, the Indigenous Yucatec Mayan language is spoken with subtitles, which sometimes refer to the language as Mayan. Similar to Gibson's earlier film The Passion of the Christ, all dialogue is in a modern approximation of the ancient language of the setting. All of the ethnic tribes and peoples depicted in the film were Maya, as Gibson wanted to depict the Mayan city built for the story as an "unknown world" to the character (Jaguar Paw). The film features a cast of Native American and Indigenous Mexican actors consisting of Rudy Youngblood, Raoul Trujillo, Mayra Sérbulo, Dalia Hernández, Ian Uriel, Gerardo Taracena, Rodolfo Palacios, Bernardo Ruiz Juarez, Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, and Israel Contreras. It put me at a certain level, but it's up to me to rise to each challenge.Apocalypto ( / ə ˌ p ɒ k ə ˈ l ɪ p t oʊ/) is a 2006 American epic historical adventure film produced, co-written, and directed by Mel Gibson. There are so many things for me to learn. He started in a starring role, but Youngblood isn't taking his career for granted. He's an athlete, a golden boy not yet a man. Youngblood said he identified with his character in "Apocalypto." "It wasn't just my heritage. I will always do right by him because he believed in me." He considers Gibson more than just the director who gave him his big break. It puts me in a position to give back to my family, my people." "As far as labor jobs, I'd done them all. He appeared in a 2005 music video about native American music and dance and went to California to see what else he could do. "I grew up without a father, so I wasn't taught a lot of things. "But I loved movies because I could lose myself in them," he said. He was a football and track jock and had no interest in school plays. Youngblood, whose heritage is Comanche, Yaqui and adopted Cree, grew up in Belton, a town of about 13,000 people in central Texas, about 90 minutes north of Austin. In the film, an epic about the end of the mighty Mayan empire, Youngblood plays Jaguar Paw, a young man who escapes being a human sacrifice and flees to carve out a new life for himself. I thought I was going to be a featured extra. He said, 'You move like an animal, a cat.' Three days later, I was on a plane to Mexico to film," he said. "When I got there, Mel Gibson sat down and talked with me, then asked me to run around his conference table. He was a 25-year-old Native American from Texas, an award-winning grass dancer with no acting experience.
When Rudy Youngblood went to an open casting call in Los Angeles last year for Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto," he didn't know what to expect.