“Kind of paternal instinct both ways”: Untamed stars reflect on the unlikely emotional connection between Kyle and Naya

Netflix's Untamed, a six-episode limited series that premiered on July 17, 2025, whisks us deep into Yosemite National Park's bosom, where, besides the untamed, danger makes itself present in every human encounter. The series follows Special Agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana), a battered and bruised investigator for the National Park Service's Investigative Services Branch, as he looks into the death of a young woman on El Capitan.

During an interview with Screenrant, describing the relationship between Kyle Turner and his green associate Naya, Eric Bana said,

"I think it’s really special. He’s so rude to her at the beginning and you just have to lean into that as an actor and know that there’s going to be this interplay … there’s a kind of paternal instinct both ways, actually. Not just from Kyle to Naya, but back the other way as well.”

Far from an easy one, the killing gives rise to disturbing revelations of possible wrongdoing, conspiracy, and internal trauma. Assisting Kyle in solving the puzzle is Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), an ex-LAPD homicide cop and new park ranger. Their partnership takes a front-row seat in the series not because it's romantic and emotionally epic in the old sense, but due to tightly written development.

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Untamed stars reflect on the unlikely emotional connection between Kyle and Naya

Lily Santiago of Untamed reflects on her immersive training with the physical demands of playing Naya. As per Screenrant, she said,

“I’m from a city, and Naya is from a city, it was such a gift as an actor. I was learning alongside Naya. While she's learning how to ride a horse or navigate mountainous terrain, I was also doing those things."

She added,

"I'm folding in her background and she has different fears than I have, but it was also kind of beautifully simple in that I got to appreciate it all alongside her."

Wilson Bethel describes Shane Maguire as someone comfortable in isolation but capable of societal moments when he chooses. As he said in the interview with ScreenRant,

"Somebody who lives in a very isolated way in the middle of the f***ing woods, deadly, just straight up, very unique-to-himself moral code. He chooses when he wants a hit of the other part of the world. He is also very comfortable coming out of the woods and going to a bar for a night and maybe getting a little drunk and maybe seeing if he can find a woman to cozy up with.”

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Confirmed roles and cast pairings of Untamed

Before delving into character relationships, it's essential to discuss who plays whom and what those on-screen relationships are:

Eric Bana portrays Kyle Turner, the chief investigator. His figure is emotionally scarred by a personal loss, the loss of his young son, and this pervades his investigation style and interactions with people.

Lily Santiago appears as Naya Vasquez, a single mom and rookie Yosemite ranger with former big-city homicide experience. She's trying to rebuild her life without the horrors of city law enforcement.

Shane Maguire is played by Wilson Bethel, a lone veteran wildlife officer who is peripheral to the central investigation and doesn't have a main dynamic with Naya.

Rosemarie DeWitt guest stars as Jill Bodwin, Kyle Turner's estranged wife, and helps fill in some background on his dysfunctional home life.

This helps reinforce that the narrative and emotional focus is still on Kyle and Naya, not Shane and Naya as was deceitfully suggested in early rundowns.

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Kyle and Naya: From uncomfortable companions to professional acquaintances in Untamed

Naya is immediately out of water when she first comes into Yosemite in Untamed. Successful at city crime scenes and commanding precincts, she is gazing into the face of a great wilderness where evidence does not line streets but hides in caves, canyons, and predator trails. Kyle, at first aloof and only concerned with the case, receives her as a stranger, one not yet initiated into the wilderness logic that governs his world. But in the process, the two forge an unwilling partnership.

They do not trust each other initially. They forge it slowly as they encounter threats together: swollen rivers, subterranean hidden passageways, and the psychological horror of old scars reawakening to haunt them. Naya learns to earn her deservingness, even in environments that are not conducive to her. Kyle, however, starts to view her as not only someone who holds great value for the case, but someone who provokes his instincts in counterintuitive ways.

That is where the "paternal" tone comes in, not because Kyle is formally mentoring Naya, but because he starts to take responsibility for protecting her in small, suggestive ways.

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Emotional subtext without overt sentimentality in Untamed

The interesting thing about their dynamic in Untamed is what's unsaid. Kyle doesn't speak of concern. He observes. He inserts himself. He cautions. Naya doesn't thank him either or require his approval, she calls him out on his bad behavior when he needs it, and sticks up for him when he messes up. There's a relationship forged out of need but polished by emotional restraint.

This subtle emotional richness provides the show's larger themes with its foundation: loss, healing, distrust, and how people guard against future emotional pain. Kyle's traumatic history, the loss of his son, is ever-present, infusing his behavior and his relationships. Naya is similar as well, bearing emotional baggage: the burden of firsts, the complexity of sole parenthood, and whether she has any business being in this lonely universe at all.

They are collectively the heart of the show. Not in that they change each other completely, but in that they express a type of wary solidarity, understanding that sometimes, to live, you have to get along with someone you're not altogether sure you can trust.

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The bigger picture: Untamed as a character-driven mystery

Apart from the Kyle–Naya bond, Untamed is a bigger narrative that revolves around danger, loneliness, and shattered identities. It's an unflinching character study that has faith in its world to make every interaction count. The merciless environment is not a setting but an omnipresent power within the story, pushing the characters to the limit.

Untamed scrapes against conspiracy and cult rumor and law-enforcement institutional collapse, but its strongest moments are quieter ones, those where obligation and trauma meet, and emotional hurt comes back on itself in the most unintentional of ways. Kyle and Naya don't fix these things for one another. They just keep moving forward together in an environment where trust may be hard to come by, but sometimes it does.

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Netflix’s Untamed thrives in its ambiguity. It is not a show with neat answers or strongly delineated relationships. Instead, it provides us with new characters sharpened in pain and unease, losing their sanity and one another in the process. The relationship between Kyle Turner and Naya Vasquez is one of the more realistic and grounded of the show. Not only is it not paternalistic in the literal way, but it is also not effectively transparent. It is withdrawn, utilitarian, and deliberately protective.

While audience reactions will vary, official word is clear: the emotional tension of Untamed is not the result of heavy-handed declarations, but in the unobtrusive, enduring bond between two detectives learning to trust the other, one step at a time.

Also read: “Trying to be the best investigator possible”: Untamed star Eric Bana digs deep into his character’s grief and trauma