Nobody (2021)

Here it comes, everybody. Get out of the way. A big, big movie with a lot of action and a lot of heart and a lot of recognizable family feelings. And trauma. And blood, blood. Hi, everyone. Bob Odenkirk here. - And Ilya Naishuller. And we are two of the people who helped to make the movie Nobody happen. We're gonna talk about all the people who helped make this movie happen, a lot of people. There I am. Jesus. What happened to that guy? Not good day. Ouch.

Groan. Here come the cigarettes. That'll give you some comfort. Remember, we shot a version, the non-cigarette version, just in case. There was a fear that a law might pass that you can't do something that gets you a different rating, etcetera. So we shot, in the time that we had... There was a version without a cigarette, which was... As we're shooting it, I was, for the first time in my professional life, debating whether it's okay to sabotage something that is so wrong compared to the proper... Yeah. - ...cancer one, yeah.

Well, this little opening is just the best thing ever and it made me so happy to read it. And that little kitty cat, which was not easy to get, a kitty cat to sit quietly and wait inside your jacket. Not a trained cat. - But we did it. We made it work.

And that was written by Derek Kolstad, who wrote this movie. He also wrote the John Wick series of films. I mean, this all sprang out of his imagination. He's got a hell of an interesting head, and he loves action films, and he loves myths, and he loves creating them. And he's just the best guy ever. You enjoyed working with Derek, right, Ilya? I loved working with Derek. The first time that Derek was in the back of your office... Yeah. ...and first thing he says after we shake hands, "Ilya, welcome. Best idea wins." And I was quite blown away by that. Not "quite." I was blown away because... It's one thing if I would have said it. It's rare for someone who's accomplished, who's working with someone who is kind of new and just come in and say, "Let's sit. "You know, it doesn't matter whose idea, best idea." And that was something that this entire process, for the next, you know, a year-and-a-half, two years, we lived by that mantra. And we finished with that mantra, which is also very unusual. We really did, all the way through editing. Yeah.

Now, speaking of best idea wins, this little montage that you just saw was completely packaged, not written into the script. We did want a character who was a bit numb from suburban life, from being a dad, and working a steady and difficult job, kind of hiding out in the suburbs, this fellow. So we wanted to start there. But we really just wanted to start with this sequence where there's a break-in in his suburban house, which is the part of this story, one part of this story, that comes from my real life. I have had two break-ins in my house, with people in my house, one of which, I won't go into the details, but was extremely traumatic for my family, and remains that way and will for the rest of our lives. So I had that inside me, and the feelings of... The complicated and difficult feelings that it conjured up inside me are still with me, and were some of the inspiration for even creating this story in the first place. Although, again, I have to give credit for the story to Derek Kolstad. I did share with Derek when we met that I wanted to do an action movie, and I shared that I felt that my time on Better Call Saul, a TV show, had set me up for a potential audience around the world who understood me as an earnest character who was a Striver, maybe willing to reach above his talents and able to get knocked down and get back up. And so this starts with a simple home break-in, and we can see these two criminals are very nervous and seem to be out of their element as well, but also can't quite tell what they're up to. But this character says no to them taking the wedding ring. So there's something more to him. Do you remember the wedding, if I may interject? Yes. - That it was only the watch... I think it was on set that once we put a light, the flashlight onto the ring, it was kind of like, "Wait a minute." Yes. They were just gonna take the watch, which he says "means something to me." But then I think it was Kelly who said, "What about the ring?" I mean, it's gold and it's gleaming in the flashlight. You have to say something about it. And then for the character to push back on that while he's got a gun in his face tells you there's maybe more to this guy besides for the fact that he wants his marriage to work and has committed his full life to being honest and stay married. It tells you maybe there's more to him than he looks like. What the fuck, Dad? The son rejects him for not fighting back when he could have. And, boy, oh, boy. - Perfect opportunity... There's a lot of feelings in here for me personally, as I shared with you, having had a break-in or two. It's not a good situation to be in. You don't quite know what to do and you wish you'd done more. You always wish you'd done more. But you also want to keep the damage to a minimum, as the character says here in the movie in a few minutes. Yeah. - And the golf club? I also have experienced this moment where the policeman sort of says, "I would have done something." And you're like, "Really? "I thought I was supposed to keep things cool." Anyway... Well, yeah, 'cause society teaches you not to get violent. I mean, you'd think a policeman, of all people, would say, "Thank you for not pulling a gun "and making a bloody mess for us to show up to." Instead, I've had the experience of... Not all the police who showed up, but one of them saying, you know, "That's not what I would have done." Which is an absolutely useless comment and all it did was... I mean, look, it's not a useless comment because all these things... It's great that you were able to take a traumatic experience and have that as a Starting point for this film. At least you got something good out of... -/ agree. -... what must have been pretty terrible. And I have not always been a person who believes that films or games, video games, are places where people get their rage out. I can see, too, where movies and video games sort of engender anger and rage.

There we see they have a past. She's got a... They're in kind of an adventurous place in that photo. And you can think that maybe this couple has had an interesting and exciting past with some adventure. Anyway, there's the sweetest little girl in the world, played by Paisley Cadorath. Paisley Cadorath was an amazing little actress. We did auditions in Winnipeg because we knew we couldn't fly another person out from anywhere, and she was the only girl that could take directions. But more importantly, you can tell that she was really enjoying the process. And we, you know, make them do four or five takes of the same thing just to see how they'll fare. And she was just excited. Every time she'd run out of the room, we'd get the cameras all ready, Every time she'd run out of the room, we'd get the cameras all ready, and she'd run in and we'd rehearse, and she was perfect all the time. And I think when you watched the audition tapes... I remember getting a message from you saying, "We have to get this girl. I'm so happy that we matched perfectly on her." Fuck!

So, I have to do a report on a veteran for history class. Maybe I could just interview you? Yeah, sure, son. You know, I was an auditor, so, kind of a nobody. That makes for a pretty dry story. Yeah, I really don't care. I just want to finish up the project and call it a day. And this kid's a good actor, man. Gage Munroe. He delivers. Look at this. He's just suffering his fucking father, which, yeah, a boy that age often is doing. And also he's mad at him for what happened last night. And, boy, is Connie Nielsen great in this movie, and are we lucky to have her playing Becca, the wife of Hutch Mansell. And these two have a Iot of feeling between them, a deep well, and an estrangement that is unexplained. And yet I think anybody who's been married for more than 10, 15 years, somewhere in there, can Start to feel these complex feelings and kind of a strange feeling of, you know, warmth and obviously acceptance after all those years, and love, but also not real sure if the spark is all there, and if you can bring it back and if you're looking for a new spark...

Look at this guy. He's not even gonna eat his frigging eggs, he's so frustrated and blue. One of the additions that we wanted in the script is that Hutch doesn't eat until the morning after the fight, when he becomes himself again, the real Hutch. Yeah. Whereas Yulian eats before and doesn' eat after. And we kind of re-cut some of the Yulian stuff, so that doesn't land. But I've always enjoyed the juxtaposition of you chucking the eggs out in the bin here compared to the second act which starts with you biting into a pancake with bacon. That's right. He's got his mojo back. - Which was my everyday breakfast on set. Gotta go. I'm sorry for your loss. Now, who is this neighbor? Paul Essiembre. - Paul Essiembre. Isn't he great? He's a real dick. He's not a dick, but his character is a dick to me. Single guy, no doubt. Maybe divorced. Having a great time in his dad's old speedy car and laughing at the married guy next door who... What was he supposed to do? Take out a gun and shoot the bad guys? Come on. Meanwhile, Hutch has taken the bus to his blasé job.

What do we got, a rat or a possum? - Don't know. I hope you'll notice... I hope everyone noticed that the employee of the month mostly is Charlie, played by Billy MacLellan. But go ahead. Sharon is the... Go ahead, Ilya. So the cat lady, the receptionist, that was Sharon. We had a bit of a faux pas where we were supposed to shoot her scene right here in this reception where Charlie is standing. And we arrived and we painted it the wrong color. And it's the only time during the production where Pawel, the DP, and I were like, "Nope, can't shoot it here. "We gotta repaint these walls. Let's go..." We found that spot, and while we were shooting, Bob, remember, on one of the takes, she hit... She was so into beating the crap out of the ceiling, the tile fellon you guys as you walked past. Yeah. Safety's on. And how about this guy? Billy MacLellan was great. Isn't he great? Charlie, my brother-in-law, who's a huge jerk to me, waving a gun in my face. And he doesn't even know the safety is not on. So, take it. And he's such a tough guy. Billy's a good guy. What a great cast we had. So, keep my sister safe, bro. "This is a matter of need, principle of need." Tough guy. And I don't think the slap was written. I think he came up to me between the takes, said, "Ilya, what do you think of... "It feels like Charlie should be more of an asshole and buddy slap on..." Such a condescending slap. But he was so afraid to suggest it to you. And now you look at him and you go, "This guy's messed with guns before, "and he's not sure he wants one in his life again." But look out. Well, hide it in the fridge. That's always a good place for your extra guns. It's almost like he knew it might come in handy in act three. Yeah. - It's Chekhov's ridge, pretty much. What's that? - Chekhov's ridge. You know, the Chekhov's rifle? Chekhov's gun? If you see it on the wall in the first act, and it fires in the third, well, that's our fridge. Yes, that's right. Michael Ironside. - Yay, Michael Ironside. A great, great actor. - The man, the legend. And he's really good in this role. Kind of supportive, kind of friendly, but also hard on Hutch. Everybody's hard on Hutch. Bunch of hard-ons around him. If I'm gonna sell it, I want it to be... But he's a great actor and he delivers here, big time. Ilya, you put together a hell of a cast around me. Boy, the best. The best. I do. Well, it's pretty easy to get a great cast when you say that Bob is the lead. SO... You know, one thing that was concerning to me, and I love seeing Charlie and I love seeing the father-in-law here, and I love seeing Charlie and I love seeing the father-in-law here, is my character is so down for such a huge chunk of this movie. There's a... I mean, he starts to smile when he starts to cut loose and let out all his rage and frustration. But that's a long time in, and we talked a lot about this. This movie has always been... Has an offbeat construction with this long prelude, longer than most, with a lot of hard feeling and kind of... This guy's got an internal struggle that takes over this whole first 40 minutes, half-hour, 40 minutes. I think in the script, the bus fight used to happen around page 30. And I remember we saying, "Whenever... We'll get to it quicker. "It'll be like minute 25 at most." 'Cause I remember looking at several films as examples, and I think my favorite example was Oldboy, where the first real fight happens on minute 41. But there is a little pre-fight around 27. But it's also a much longer film than this was ever intended to be. Right. So it was that balance of, "Yeah, we want to set up the pins "before we shoot the ball," but at the same time, you're also releasing a film in 2020. Well, now it's 2027. But there's a certain expectation, a certain pace that you can't really rely on as a comfortable pace for a bigger audience. Hopefully, we'll have a bigger audience when it does come out. We are recording this six months before the film hits theaters, which is a little early. But you're absolutely right. There was a lot of discussions on how long and what we should spend time on before we hit what everybody paid to see. It's a different kind of action movie. It's trying to be... Just have more story, more character, more complexity, and I think a more delicate kind of complexity to these family relationships. The son's annoyed with the dad, the wife and the husband love each other but are estranged, but in the house, you know, together, they have a past. We don't quite know what it is. The little girl's oblivious and bringing nothing but sunshine into their lives. And then there's a feeling that this guy just has his own issues, his own challenge of being who he is. And all that turns out to be true and comes clearer as the story goes.

Then here's his dad watching a cowboy movie with a lot of guns going off. It's a family of violence, these people, this dad and the son. And then we had RZA on the ham radio there, playing Hutch"s brother, Harry Mansell. Yeah, I'm okay. RZA was a very, very, dare I say, great choice. He was the best choice. Having such an iconic and unique voice. Do you remember who we used to be? You know, the first three times we come across this character, we don't see him. We only hear him. - There he is as a kid, and there I am as a kid and there's Chris Lloyd as our dad. And Chris Lloyd just couldn't have been a better choice as the father of these two. A funny guy, he's got a dark past, and he just brings a lightness to an otherwise very dark film that is just a joy. I think it's having Christopher Lloyd was what started pushing us towards the idea of... We always knew we were gonna end up in a more poppy, sort of colorful last act. But getting Lloyd in the film, which... I want to give more props to you, Bob. It was your idea. You came across the thought... We were looking at a bunch of different actors potentially for the dad, and you were like, "What about Chris Lloyd?" And it just made total, perfect sense that, of course, someone with such positive baggage... - Yeah. ... wielding a shotgun, killing people is gonna be much more fun to see than someone we've seen do that. is gonna be much more fun to see than someone we've seen do that.

I love what goes on here. He gets home. If you remember the criminals from the night before, this frightened, scared, nervous couple, they grabbed the coins and whatever garbage is in that little bowl, and every family's got a bowl or a countertop like that, where they drop their keys, they drop their change, and maybe the little girl's kitty-cat bracelet would go there if it was on the floor or if that's where she left it 'cause she washed her hands or something, and everyone can relate to that. And he finds out they may have taken her kitty-cat bracelet, and that's really all it took for him to go, "Here we go." It's the excuse. As we were talking about, the sort of... Some of the more unique elements of the action genre we did here, what always really attracted me to the script was that a lot of it is driven by Hutch's inner conflict... Yes. ... father than bad guys going, coming in and, you know, doing something bad to him. It's not a revenge film. - Yeah. It's all about Hutch, you know, for 20 years, which we make quite clear in the speech later on, in the basement, that you make, is that he overcorrected. He became a regular dude, and he's just very unhappy, and all the violence stems from being unhappy because the first time Hutch smiles... You know, part of the inspiration for this journey, emotional journey, and the character, as I shared with everyone, was my personal experience and the feelings of frustration that don't go away. And the questioning you do as a dad if you have a break-in. And if it's traumatic, a feeling of "What else could I have done?" You can't help going over those moments and thinking about other things you could've done. Here he's looking for a tattoo. Tattoos are a big deal in this movie. They're the symbol that unlocks a lot of doors. In this case, obviously, I'm looking for the tattoo that was on the wrist of the woman who broke in as part of the couple. But here Hutch's tattoo will send a signal to this guy. Here he wants a fight. He just wants a fight. Yeah, well, you probably shouldn't flash cheese like that around here, bro. There are three types of people... But part of the inspiration I wanted to share here is an interesting one. Years ago, when I was in college, this would have been about 1983, I saw a speech by someone named Abbie Hoffman. Do you know who Abbie Hoffman was, Ilya? I'm drawing a blank. Yes. And you know a lot of history. Ilya, by the way, is Russian. If you didn't know.

You, too, old-timer. Abbie Hoffman was a rebel in the 1960s and early '70s who was an anti-Vietnam protestor, who went into hiding in about '72, I believe, '71, '72. Nixon was after him. And Abbie Hoffman had plastic surgery and he went into hiding, hiding in upstate New York for years. But he couldn't help himself. He started to have... There was pollution in the rivers there. And he led a community fight against the pollution in the lakes and streams in his community, and he got his face in the newspaper again. He couldn't stop himself. - Smart move. He was supposed to be in hiding. He's hiding from the FBI. What was he hiding? Why was he hiding? Well, I don't know exactly what they had accused him of, but it was part of fomenting protests in Nixon's America, and he was one of the Chicago Seven. Okay. And so he eventually, I think, had to serve time in prison. But he had his face in the paper, and he was a public figure again while in hiding under a different name. And it's just that thing of you cannot stop the nature of people. You know what I mean? In his case... Obviously, in my case, my character's a badass who did things... We'll learn later who he was, and he's just been sucking it up and pretending to be just a mild-mannered guy, just another dad, and in the most blank, hidden place he can be, working in that tool and dye shop. And now he's letting loose. It's coming out. It's coming out. Now, the watch.

The kitty-cat bracelet. I don't know what the fuck you're... Give me the goddamn kitty-cat bracelet, motherfucker! I don't know. I swear to God! I don't know. The goddamn bracelet. - I'll help you find it! Now, that is a funny line, 'cause has anyone ever been that mad about a kitty-cat bracelet?

I love the disappointment that we have now when you realize that you cant get your fix. There's no action to be had. These people are much more innocent than he previously thought. This realization right here. He completely relates to them, and feels pity for them and knows he can't just... Yeah. Why don't we beat up a wall, a brick wall? Let's do that. Yeah. Why don't we beat up a wall, a brick wall? Let's do that. Maybe that will get the feelings out. There he is, on the dumb old bus, which is where he lives his whole life. Back to nothing. Will God ever send...

Thank you. Bob, one of the things you said that I want to bring up... I think one of the earliest phone calls, maybe even the first phone call, you said, "You could end the film "right with him riding the bus, defeated, deflated, "and that could be a great short film about a day where nothing went right." Yeah. And that's the attitude that stayed with me throughout. The idea that this is a godsend. This moment of these guys... I think the original plan was to have Ave Maria playing in the background for this moment 'cause it was literally a godsend. It was amazing. That person yelling "bus," the character's Teddy Kuznetsov, played by... Sasha Pal. - Sasha Pal. And that man right there is Daniel Bernhardt. Daniel Bernhardt is the man who trained me to fight for two years. That guy right there. He's one of the... He's the greatest. He's maybe the best stunt actor working for the last 10 years. Man, he's great. And you might know him from the TV show Barry. And you might know him from the big fight in Atomic Blonde. And you would know him from John Wick movies and Hobbs & Shaw and every other great action movie of the last 20 years, 'cause he's the best, and he's a great actor too. Bringing a lot of character to this whole sequence. But from the moment things got real with the possibility of me doing an action movie, I started to train, 'cause I was a comedy writer for 25 years, and I did a normal workout of any suburban dad. I hope these assholes like hospital food. "That girl's gonna get home safe."

Shit. This guy thinks he's gonna beat the crap out of these guys. Anyway, Daniel trained me, guys. I do my fighting in this movie, and I always wanted to do that. I won't say the name of the actor, but I told an actor once, who I like, that I'm gonna do an action movie and that I was training, and he laughed at me and he said, "Why are you training? "They have guys who do the fighting for you." And I was like... I didn't say it to him but I wanted to Say, "No, I want to do the action movie. I don't want to just be in one." You want to put in the work. I want to do what Jackie Chan does, my version of it, the best I could do. So I trained for two years with Daniel, and he took me from zero to wherever the hell I am here. But I do this fight that you're about to see, and I had fun doing it. I had so much fun doing the fight sequences. And there are no stunt doubles except for one shot in the entire sequence. Which is... It's one thing coming from me. It's another when... Our fantastic action choreographer, Greg Rementer, he said, "Ilya, enjoy it because you don't get this ever. "You don't get the dedication. "People just come in and they kind of, you know, Stretch a little bit "and then as soon as it gets a little bit uncomfortable "the doubles run in and do the hard work." It was fantastic that every shot, every action beat was done by you. And furthermore, the fact that, you know, we had to cut, and we wanted to make it a little more dynamic than just a steady camera single shot. But we could have done five, six connections in a row, no problem, without cutting away because you memorized the hell out of this whole thing and trained in this very bus. There were moments when you trained, right? Right before the production and prep? - Yeah, we trained in LA. We had a layout of this bus and we trained for this sequence. It changed over time. For different reasons, it changes. There's Daniel and me, head to head. There he is, the guy who trained me. And he's such a great fighter. He's such a great on-screen fighter, and he's such an amazing guy. An amazing, intelligent, upbeat, hardworking, just one of the best people I've ever worked with, known. And he got me here. What else can I say? I love him and I want to make more movies with him and... Then he gets thrown out of the bus. Our hero.

So, this I love. He should just walk home, right, Ilya? That's correct. He's good. Tell us who he is. Fuck! Sasha? - Sasha is not just... Sasha is a very good friend of mine. He's a big actor from Russia. Big in the sense that he has quite a big following, he's been in a bunch of great movies. And I did... He was in my first film for a little cameo, and then we did a couple of music videos together, and I've just been a huge fan of his. And soon as Universal said, "Let's make the Russians more interesting," I said, "Well, the way you make it more interesting "Is you get Russians to play Russians." And... Which is rare for a studio film, not just a studio, for an American film to really go out and get you know... If you have a... If you have a certain nation portrayed, then you actually get people from there, which is what we got with this film, which is fantastic, makes me very happy. And also, I can go back home and people won't look at me weird. Which is also something to consider.

I just want to say this is an extremely violent fight, and this character's meant to overdo it. He just can't... He's just letting this river of anger and rage pour out of him. You know, the character's meant to be a guy with a past. And in a way... Just about gets a bullet off. And this is my favorite moment on the bus with you, Bob. Right there, when you realize it's over and you overdid it and you're like, "Fuck." That's it. And now he's got to take care of this guy because he did it. He just took it too far. There was no excuse for that. Well, they got the knives out first. Yes, they did. - They escalated, but you started it. I know, but he also probably has spent... In our mythical understanding of the character, he was a crazy asshole when he was doing missions in his 20s. And then he said, "I can't go on like this. "I want to have a normal life." And he did it and he sucked it up. And now he just realizes he let it all out, and he kind of betrayed this... It's like a guy with his 20-year chip in Alcoholics Anonymous having a bender. Yep. - And he's like, "Fuck. "Now what did I do? "Did I just burn the last 20 years of good behavior? "Did I just throw everything away?" Hey. - Hey. You know that feeling, right, everyone? Getting home at 2:00 a.m. after fucking up, and your wife... I have no idea what you're talking about, Sir. Whatever is there and... "Well, just better tell her." You know, the truth is that this is a wonderful scene, and I owe so much to Connie for playing this complex thing, which we didn't have completely nailed down. We were never really sure how much we should give away that these two had a past together. But the truth Is, it became apparent after we shot it. And hence the line, "Just like old times." "Just like old times." Which is the biggest hint you get throughout the film. And hopetully, it's understandable enough that people will get their past. I mean, the fact is, she's calm. She's not even reacting, except with... - Slight disappointment. Yeah, a disappointing/sarcastic comment. She's using the... - Superglue. ... superglue, which is what it was meant for, it was created for. Superglue was created for triage, to be used in surgery, to bind skin together quickly. And I can't recall a film where people use superglue. ['m sure someone's gonna point out 100 great examples, but I can't. I thought it'd be much more interesting than... I think the options were, like, a stapler and things that were a little more overused. Yeah, we're sewing him up. But superglue is... That's what it was built for. I did not know that historically it comes from that. It makes total sense, but I wasn't aware.

And this is one of my favorite scenes in the film. Just two people talking, two cameras rolling at the same time. And I think we got this on... I think take one was fantastic. We did one for safety. And I think it's a mix of just two takes, whereas you kind of expect more time spent on such a key scene, but you guys were so great. And right here, Connie's with a little bit of the wet eye. Well, she's great. David Buckley's fantastic score underneath.

What is happening is very complex, you know. But this tells you where her head is at, what happens next. This is beautifully done, Ilya. That she just removes that wall of pillows between them and reaches out to him, sort of saying, I think, you know, "Let's try to make this work, you know. "Whatever it is, whatever happened to you, whatever you got involved in." Now, in the mythos of this movie, Now, in the mythos of this movie, the grand mythos from Derek Kolstad's head, there's a bigger bunch of bad guys like Yulian out there in the world who Hutch has interacted with many years before. Some version of these guys, some group of guys, and she knows that, the wife knows that, and she also maybe suspects that he's back in the game, as they Say. And we find out that inadvertently he is back in the game of big, high stakes bad guys, because he went after the wrong Russian on that bus. So here comes Yulian. Tell us about this actor, would you? Because he's great. This is Alexey Serebryakov. - Say that name again. I'm just pronouncing it the Russian way. I think in English it'd be Alexey Serebryakov. Alexey Serebryakov, a great, great actor. Yep. Before we decided we're gonna do the authentic Russian way, there were all these considerations of who can go against Hutch, who can we have that's right. And ultimately, I'm incredibly glad that we have Alexey. He's the real deal. He's a great actor. He's a presence, physically capable. And when I hear my American friends say, "Well, yeah, Russians are scary," that's what I imagine they imagine to be the scary Russian, the guy who you can't really reason with too much and who will do stupid, kind of, unexpected and violent things.

Of course, he's singing and dancing because that's stupid, silly and violent. There's the example. He's an unhinged character. I have to bring this up, though. A little fun fact, bonus for the IMDb trivia. So the song he sings, it's a very early Russian... A very early '90s Russian pop song called The Auditor. And it's about a woman who falls in love with a simple auditor, and she doesn't need a millionaire or some famous person or... She falls in love with an auditor. So as Yulian sings the song, he's really singing an ode to the man that will ultimately end up killing him, which... Nobody outside of Russians will ever pick up on this, so I'm sharing that information now, that there is a little undercurrent happening with that choice of song. We are satisfied.

Now we introduce the notion of an Obshak here. And that is a very unique notion that we'd never heard of before. But the Obshak is sort of where the gangsters pool some of their money, a small percentage, in case anybody gets in a lot of trouble. They've got this sort of savings account they've all kept. And that's a real thing, yes? -[t absolutely is. In fact, for research, I met with a certain Russian guy back home who is affiliated with the Mob, and I said, "Look, hypothetically, if there was a North American Obshak..." 'Cause the Russian Mob does operate in North America. "Would it make sense..." I ran him by the script and some of the questions I had, and he said, "Yep, everything sounds about right." I'm like, "So what about money? Would it be..." Because /, visually, wanted a lot of dollars on the screen in the Obshak. I said, "What if we have, you know... Is a billion too far off?" He's like, "No, not too far off." And then he added, he's like, "But what you should do, though, to make it authentic, "is don't just make them $100 bills. 'Cause we have everything." Yeah. So what did I do? In the Obshak sequence, there's only $100 bills.

Yulian, I was just...

Or was? So these guys, the Russian Mob guys, these are all immigrants from Russia living in Winnipeg. There's a community of about five or six thousand people, which was perfect for us. So there was an audition Saturday and Sunday where I looked at 200 people. And these three were... - They're great. Right away, I was like, "Well, they're not professional." This is the first time they ever appear on camera. And I thought they did a really good job. -/ think they do a great job. Boy, they look like great actors to me. And Alexey, he works all the time. Boy, they look like great actors to me. And Alexey, he works all the time. We were very lucky to get him 'cause he also lives in Canada. Yep. - Part-time. So, tell us about Alexey"s acting career in Russia. Will he walk again? There's a lot of films to talk about. I think the one that I suspect some people have seen in the West would be Leviathan. The Zvyagintsev film which was nominated for an Oscar, which I think had a very good chance for winning if it wasn't for the political situation at that particular point in time, unfortunately. Alexey, he's just always been...

He's been one of those actors where he is in big films, but he's not, like, sort of the... What's the right term? He's a sign of quality. That was very important, apart from obviously him being the great actor that he is, and just, he doesn't approach it like show business. To him it's a job. "I just do my job and I like shooting." He's very simple in that way, which is interesting. It's like a Michael Caine thing. ls that what you're saying? I think so, if I understand correctly. Quick story. Why I was reminded of Michael Caine is the Jaws Story. I haven't seen the film, but I've seen the house. And the house is nice. - Yeah. But the story with Alexey is that before going to the producers with the choice of Alexey, I spoke to you, and then I asked Alexey to just make a demo, do a phone audition. Obviously, usually guys like this don't do that. But I said, "Look, this is a studio film, certain expectations need to be met. "Can you do a scene in Russian and English and do us this stupid dance? "Just do us any silly old dance." And he sent me, through WhatsApp, a bunch of those videos. I forwarded them to you. You loved them. And then as soon as everyone else saw him, there was never a question. As soon as they saw those auditions, they're like, "Yep, that's him. That's the guy. Let's just get him." And we were actually very close to... I think we were like a week away from production. -! was with Marc Provissiero... - Yeah. ...and Marc Fischer, our executive producer, in a room. And because Alexey doesn't have an agent in America, we were... I remember translating... He doesn't speak English very well, so I was translating, negotiating the deal. That was kind of fun.

Morning. Morning. What happened to you? Dad, you look like shit. You should see the other guys. When you made that tackle, that was a good takedown. You had my back, and I'm proud of you. Morning. - Morning.

Hutch here. Last night, that was you, huh? And then here, we got a great phone call with RZA calling his brother from who knows where and... I think, originally, he was supposed to be on an island. That's what we had in one of the lines. But then we kind of thought, "Well, how does he get there from an island so quick?" So it was changed to a nondescript location. I always like how you step into the shadow when you take this call. Yeah. - Hopetully it's not too on the nose, but I kind of like that the family's light in the back, and then here you are in a little bit of darkness. And he mentions The Barber. - The Barber. And that was not what he said in the original script. No. This is where... So this is act two and act two was very, very different. And I don't know how much in detail we should go, 'cause there's a lot of them. But the idea is that now Hutch gets the call, gets the message to go see The Barber, gets the message to go see The Barber, he gets the phone message, a text message, he goes, and basically what we used to have Is... What we have now is a compact montage of a much bigger act two than we originally had shot and envisioned, which makes the film much, much better. And that was something that David Leitch set down with Evan Schiff, our second editor. I finished... This is right as Corona was hitting the US, and we all had to go home, and I flew home. And David spent time working with Evan over Zoom to put the sequence together. By the way, if you pay close attention to the clothes on Hutch's character, you'll see that it's very lucky that he's always wearing blue. And may I say the reason why you're wearing blue, Bob? Yeah. So, early in preproduction Bob said that, "Guys, I think we should get some blue stuff on me." I'm like, "Why?" He's like, "Well..." I think you said your mother saw you wearing blue... - In the Spielberg film The Post. She saw The Post, she liked it. And she goes, "Your eyes aren't that blue." And I go, "Actually, yes, they are. They pop blue more if I wear blue." You see the blue in my eyes if I wear blue. They're kind of a blue-green, I think. SO anyway... So your mother... We have to thank your mother for putting us in this direction because it saved us in the cut. She will not be seeing this movie. Really? - No. Can we do a cut-down version without... She's 84 and does not watch violent films at all. ...to the tune of eight and nine figures. Anything good? - Fuck if I know. But what I do know is, if he doesn't know who you are yet, he will soon. Now, Colin is amazing. Colin Salmon. Oh, my God, what a great actor. And there's your wife. That's not much. There's my wife. Ten-year anniversary today. Dasha. - That's right. She's a filmmaker herself. - She is now. I have competition in my own household. Good luck with that. - Yeah. I have the same situation. My wife is a manager, but also a producer and a creative, and it's great. You gotta figure it out. It might take you awhile. Now, you guys have 10 years, so you're probably doing pretty good. We're all right. - But it can be hard. Yep. What the fuck? This guy's like, "Wait. Some of these pictures are me. "Who's got them?" - This is J.P. Manoux. He was actually... Bob, he was the second person cast in this film. Obviously, you were first and J.P. was the second. Well, he's great. He's freaked out, working at the Pentagon, and Colin's telling me who Yulian is, and who I've just gotten myself involved with, and about the Obshak. And how Yulian's men are overseeing the Obshak, which is obviously something that's causing him a great deal of stress, but also, he takes a certain amount of pride in protecting it. Goddamn Obshak. He's kind of like, I think, the... Not kind of... For me, the goal was to have Hutch be the quiet guy that's hiding a storm inside himself. Whereas Yulian is living the storm but doesn't really want to. Yeah. - So their trajectories are clashing. There's not a goddamn thing about Hutch in all the documents he can find. It's all blacked out, except for some awesome pictures of the people he's killed. And Dasha decides, "Fuck this. I'm not part of this." And now he realizes what he already knew because that character's smart. My brother tangled with a bad guy. I

I

Nice. Here's that lasagna I talked to you about. That's what we're all gonna look like after the Russians get done with us. Who wants some? Yes. - Me. Right. There you go. Hey, how about... I think one of the bigger arguments we've had on set was with Connie arguing about, "Do we need to add Parmesan to the lasagna?" Yeah? - Yeah, about 34 days of shooting, that's the biggest thing where people were like... We didn't clash obviously. It's nothing to clash over... You do not do that. You do not do that. Add Parmesan to lasagna. I don't like cheese unless it's heated up and fried and... Right. And she was like, "What do you mean? You can't do that." So that was a five-minute discussion when we were supposed to be rolling.

Can we just talk for one second about our black Russian? Araya. Araya is a great actor, Araya Mengesha. Yep. And he has a great part in here, and he plays it so well. Now, is he a stuntman? - No. He is an actor from Toronto. Yeah. - A great guy. And I give him a lot of credit because he... When I talked to him, I said, "Look, I want him to be... "I want Pavel, the black Russian, to be speaking Russian "and to sound as Russian as possible." Yeah. - 'Cause he's based on... I don't know how to pronounce it. "Amalgamation"? Yeah. - Of a few Russian black guys that I know. 'Cause, obviously, we don't... You know, we're mostly predominantly a white nation. Right. But the story that Pavel, or Araya, the character talks about how he's the son of an Ethiopian Olympian from the Moscow Olympics. That's all... There's a certain group of people in Moscow or in Russia who were the result of the Olympics. Just people came over, had sex and left. And so these hyper-athletic kids from Olympian fathers or mothers, fathers, they grew up with a very different skin color in a country which... People were not used to that in the slightest. So they had a very, sort of, in a way, great experience 'cause they were getting the right kind of attention. But obviously, with the right kind of attention also comes, usually, the wrong kind of attention. So he is based on a real concept. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, "Araya, it'd be great if you can, you know, spend some time "and I'll coach you a little bit and let's get the Russian right." And he did. Like, we spent, before recording, you know... Yeah. Twenty minutes a day just going over... - He's fantastic in this. Such a great guy. A joy to work with too. As were all these guys, but... This is a team of people, mostly Canadian stunt people, but overseen by Greg Rementer and Daniel Bernhardt, who did some of the fight choreography, all the fight choreography. Well... -[t was Daniel and Kirk together. Yep. - Well, together. I mean, Greg Rementer is this... What is his title here? -/ think he's both... He's the stunt choreographer and the second unit director. Yes. Anyway, it was a team effort.

These guys were great. And I get dumped in a... He's not happy. He's not happy. Well, look, that's what happens when you get a plate broken across your face. Yeah. - It tends to cause some conflict.

To the doctor. Challenging to shoot inside of a car. - Yeah. Yeah. This is a good little bit of comedy here. "Fuck off." "Scratches?" Pulls a gun. Little argument between the bad guys. That's right. All right. So, the girl on the left, she emigrated from Russia. I think from Ukraine, And she already has quite a résumé in stunts. The guy on the right, it's his first time in front of a camera, again. And I thought he did a fine performance, and he certainly looks the part.

Dislocating your thumb to get out of handcuffs. I'm told it works, but it would hurt like hell. And you also have to reset it afterwards, which we didn't want to show. Right. - To have two painful moments in, you know, the span of 20 seconds, a little too much. Can't jump out on a road that's passing by that fast. But what's in here? Look at that. They've got something I could use. A huge fire extinguisher. Yeah, I know. It's a little too big for a car. -[t should be a tiny one. - Yep. Anyway, we're moving into full-on action here.

I love the VFX, with the smoke coming out the window. Some of the finer VEX smoke I've ever seen. This is great. The car goes flying and it is painful. That's a real car. Flips over and smashes. I was not in the trunk when they did that. You wanted to. We were like, "Bob, you can't." Bob's like, "No, I want to do it." Method all the way. -! wanted to fee! it. - And we had to restrain Bob from getting in the actual accident. It was pretty crazy. It hurts. You know, one of the things we talked about, Ilya, and you know I was concerned about is a lot of action leads and a lot of action characters, they go through real hell and they don't really seem to register it much. And I wanted to play the pain and sort of the concussion that he just had just now. I wanted to go at least somewhat close fo it. And so it's just one of the things that drove us in an attempt to make something that might be, texturally, a little different from other action films you've seen where he would come jumping out of the trunk and ready to go with more fighting. In this case, he's hopetully, at least for a few seconds, exhibiting some of the shock and confusion that you would feel if you went through that trauma. Short story long, I used to be what they call an auditor for those three... I want to tell him who I am and that... 'Cause he wants to... He's got to speak. He's gotta share. Yeah. I think it's a pretty typical of... If we're still looking at it from the perspective of the alcoholic who hasn't drunk for 20 years and now he's drinking, he's gonna share that story. Shit. This is him. - And now I'm back to what I was. My family's at home in the basement. That basement moment is a lot of fun. I think that's where the movie trips over into another kind of movie. When the wife sees that behind the panel, lights switches, is the secret panel with a code that secures the basement entirely. Somewhere in here, he calls his dad and tells him to look out. Here come some bad guys, played by... Here comes the Hitchcock moment. Here come some bad guys, played by... Here comes the Hitchcock moment.

There's Ilya. - Just a little later, but... Hutch arrives at home and realizes that, "Yeah, I can't bring my family out into this."

Something people have to look forward to is what's about to happen back at the nursing home. But there's blood everywhere, and Hutch cannot bring his family into this hell. So he takes a quick shower, puts on some fresh clothes, leaves the lights off... - As if that will help. Yeah. I'm gonna hustle these people out. But you know what? His wife's already seen this shit, we can assume many, many, many years before. She kind of suspected... - But not like this. Not when it's right in your face, in your own household. And then the son... It's that moment where you see your parent maybe as a more complex person than you had ever given him credit for. "Holy shit. Dad did all this?" And of course, we keep the little girl from having to see any of it. Now, what? Are these two gonna come to terms in this moment?

This was a tricky moment because there was always a question of how much can he... How much does Becca know? She's probably scared. She's scared because she knows that he's involved with some big, bad people, and she just wishes he would let it out. But there's too much to say. And, truth be told, Hutch doesn't really know how much to tell her or... He doesn't have the answer. - He doesn't have the answers. And it's too much to say, and he just wants her to go be safe somewhere. And hope that he survives this fucking thing that he's about to do.

She's gonna punch him right in the face right now. Which is the feeling we wanted and... It's either kiss or fist. Want to lose your teeth or... - She tells him to hang in there, which is all he could hope for.

There goes the family. Maybe the last time he ever sees them, but it's time to get to work. Maybe the last time he ever sees them, but it's time to get to work. Before we do that, though, let's take a moment. Play some music. Get our resources together. Wait a second. And... - Pinball surprise. Derek knows how to build a myth. Here comes a guy with all this gold he hasn't touched for 20 years. He's living cheaply. You need to take a moment and savor this. His old life back around him. Tell these guys a story. Well, at least one of them is there to hear it.

A couple of chapters back... And I believe the man I'm talking to is an actor named Curtis Braconnier, or Braconnier. Braconnier. He's a great guy. He was my stand-in for the whole movie. And he played the one bad guy who lives, just a little bit, through this story, where we learn what motivated Hutch to go into hiding in the first place. Which is he was gonna take somebody out, one of the things he did as a job. Great little moment here where he gets the gun wrong and straightens it out in his storytelling and the visual plays along with it. There's little comedy moments throughout the whole movie, little tiny touches everywhere that hopefully make you smile if you're paying attention. And I love that. I love that. I always wanted to make it... I wanted to make this movie earnest and not ironic. And we did that. But we did also throw in a lot of little moments. He had a wife. She came with two kids. Especially, you know, if you're going dark or somewhat dark, every little bit of... Every crumb of humor, by contrast, due to contrast, gets funnier and the violence gets more brutal. - Yeah. So it's a win-win. ...but in that moment, I wanted what Alan had. -[t made him mad that this guy... - Was having such a great life. Was having a good life. This guy had said he would go straight and had done it. Why did that make him mad? It's like the guy who's an alcoholic, right? And his friend says, "I'm quitting." And a year later he goes and figures he'll be drinking again and he's not. And he's like... 'Cause what it does is it proves to you that it can be done, and now you have a responsibility to try, if any part of you still believes that's a better life to have, a better way to be. Now you've been proven wrong and it made him mad. I love that. I love that that's the reaction he has to this guy going straight and getting his life together. It's jealousy, in a way. Where is that kitty-cat bracelet that he was looking for? lt was under the couch the whole time. Fun fact. Golly gee. Ain't that the way of it? This whole thing could have been avoided. Anyway, he wants... -/ think it ties into the theme of everything that Hutch did, he brought on himself. Yeah. There was no need to go and get those 20 bucks back or the watch or anything. He was always looking for an excuse, and he got the excuse. And because of that stirred a whole lot more trouble than he was really looking for. 'Cause, I think, the way I see it, if it wasn't Yulian's brother on that bus, the story would be over. Yeah. -[t really would. You just beat the shit out of some people. Okay, fine. Cops would come looking for him, probably. And I think that's what really makes it, the story itself, different to what we expect in an action film. Is that the bad guy's not necessarily really the bad guy. He's only the bad guy due to the good guy's actions. And the good guy is a mess. Yep. Yep. - He's got a lot of rage that's... I'm curious what the audience will feel in terms of the anti-hero value of Hutch. Yeah. - Because it's all there. I don't think you have to pay too close attention, but I am curious to what the audience's verdict will be.

Well, he's gonna get into his car and then he decides, "Forget about that. "Remember that car that neighbor told me about that was so good? "Let's take that and do that." I love how his neighbors come out of their houses to see his house burning down. This was the first scene that I storyboarded because it's a music video and I thought I'd start with easier stuff. Right. - And... I just loved the idea of everybody seeing... And then Hutch, he doesn't give a shit, 'cause he steals the car in front of everybody, while everyone's seeing. Yeah. - One thing I do miss, though. lf I was a little bit smarter, I would have had Paul Essiembre, as Jim the neighbor, run out after screaming. That would've been a perfect ending to this drive off. Yeah. But I realized in the edit, great. My character's probably upstairs in his bedroom with a stripper, knocked out from two nights of drinking and partying. Wait. The nursing home? What's this? Yeah, remember he warned his dad that he was tangling with some big, bad guys and to watch out. And speaking of big bad guys, there's Ilya Naishuller, our director, right there on the right. My first Hollywood part.

And who's that you're with? So on the left is Sergey Shnurov, who is a rock superstar in Russia.

I've... He was in my previous film for a little bit, and I did some music videos with him, and I've gotten to know him pretty well. Great guy. Strangely, not a big fan of movies. He just doesn't really watch movies. So I said, "Look..." We were shooting a music video when I got a call about this originally in 2018. And he was like, "Why are you so excited all of a sudden?" I'm like, "Because I think I have something I really want to do, "and I think they just might take me." And he was like, "Well, if you ever do it, call me. "It'd be great to be in it. I want a cameo in an American movie." I was like, "I'll hold you to that." So two years Iater or a year later... - There he is, dying. Dying, but he had a great time. He showed up. He was on a tour through America. So from San Francisco, we flew him up for one evening, So from San Francisco, we flew him up for one evening, and he had a great time getting killed by Lloyd. 'Cause I didn't tell him who was gonna be... Yeah? So he arrives and he sees Christopher Lloyd. You imagine anyone's reaction, and now you're doing a scene, okay, good, with Christopher Lloyd. And that was a lot of fun. Sergey was great. Great guy. Very nice of him to participate in our movie. So, this scene... - Say his name again. Sergey... Shnurov. - Shnurov. And I just want to say, this... I love this scene. lt was a hard scene to do. 'Cause it was just... It just came together great in editing. It just came together great, Ilya. Well, I did not have a hard time cutting it because I think the performances were all there and the tension. I think the most important thing is that we upped the conflict as much as we could in the room. The juxtaposition of Billy being so big and really pissed off and Hutch is just super calm. Yeah. - You know, we have conflict. You're already at a good starting point.

And now we see what happens after he buys the place.

Can you just tell me Sergey's... What does he record under so people can listen to his music? Leningrad is the band. - The band is Leningrad. And if you go online... - Spotify has them, right? Spotify has them, but I would recommend, if you want to check out Leningrad, you go to YouTube and you look at their top 10 videos. Okay. - Not because half of them are mine, but because there are very entertaining and they spent a lot of money on it. And I think he stopped doing albums. He just does singles and music videos for quite a few years now. It's an interesting approach, and it's served him very well. He plays... Constantly he sells out, you know, 50,000-seaters. So it's a fun wink to the Russian audience. Fucking with the Russians? Classic, Hutch. Fucking with that batshit crazy Yulian? I mean, that's a whole other level of recklessness, man. And now we got... Oh, God. Nobody better than Bobby Digital for this role. Holy shit. RZA was great. And he loves action films and he can do action stunts. And he's funny and he's smart and he knows movies. I mean, he makes movies, he makes TV series. His film was supposed to come out, it got canceled. I don't know where they moved it to, but it was Supposed to come out right when Corona hit, Cut Throat City. And just as he was... He finished with us and he flew back for the final sort of pass. He directed that, right? - He directed it. I don't know if he wrote it, but he definitely directed it.

And now Hutch takes down the Obshak before he goes after Yulian. 'Cause, you know, hurt the guy... - An eye for an eye, a house for a house. .1n his heart. Yeah, the thing he loves the most. His money and his paintings and shit. - And that right there... Sorry to interrupt, Bob. The guy you're shooting is Tyler, who was our stunt driver, who did all the crazy things that are gonna be happening fairly shortly. Yeah. Tyler was great. Tyler did a lot of great work. He also doubled for me in actual scenes, as you point out, in the driving. But he was able to simulate me or the other way around. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Tyler Witte or "Witty," either-or. Yeah. - So we'll leave it Tyler for now. Tyler Witte. - But Tyler was fantastic. I think the whole stunt team was just so, you know... They're used to much, much bigger movies. Sean Skene, James Binkley, Moses Nyarko, Tristan Carlucci and the driver, Mike Scherer. But Tyler drove when I was driving in that white car. And then I would imagine Mike was behind him and driving the other cars.

He's off singing and I'm burning down his whole fucking everything that he has. I love the final look that you give as you walk away. That was a late find. We had to really dig deep in the dailies to find this moment. That's, for me, the best part of the montage. That one look, perfect. Well, you made me look great. And so did Pawel Polkerzeski. Pawel. - We were very lucky to have Pawel Pogorzelski, who was our DP on this film. Great man. Sweet man. - Great talent. Brilliant, brilliant artist. And super fun to work with. Like, just honestly, one of the most fun DPs I've ever had the pleasure of working. I wanna say that Pawel... The great DPs don't need a lot of lights to work. l've had some of them on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but Pawel, I think, wins the award for working with minimal equipment.

You have some nerve to be here like this. Yeah. Maybe. I loved facing off against this guy. I loved it. Do you remember how we shot it? 'Cause we changed... A lot of it was... I think we rewrote quite a bit of it. And the issue, the complication was Aleksey, due to not having perfect English. - Yeah. We had to... We had to do it in such a way where... 'Cause we were shooting both you guys at the same time, once we sit down and we get tighter on the faces. So he is basically phonetically speaking. But this scene was even more special because I asked you to... When you were saying the key moments that he had to react to, you would give him a signal, whether it's a positive or a negative reaction, then that's... lt was directing via proxy. -! don't remember what that signal was. -! don't either. I just remember that he was reacting not to the words, but as you were saying them, you would signal him a little bit. Well, I've done this. Sometimes, I have to speak Spanish. In Breaking Bad I had to and in Better Call Saul. When I do that, I'm doing what Aleksey is doing here, which is phonetically... Although, he knows some English. No, he can get by, but, you know, it's an important scene where you gotta be on point with the right reaction at the right time, so it was just fantastic to see. He's a very programable actor, if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, it's your job as an actor. And... I mean... You're not a puppet, but it's kind of like... That's the joy and challenge of acting is, "Tell me what you want "and then I figure out a way to make it land for you." Yup. - And that's your challenge and your joy. The last I saw, he was still breathing. You wanna hear things. You often wanna hear things that are challenging. I think the best way, generally, with creative people is to not provide a solution but to provide the question. And then you get the fun of making it your own and getting something that can only come from you rather than from a writer or a director said. This is the way I see it. You know, when I get notes, I much prefer the stuff that is like, "I feel this. What can you do about it?" Yeah. - Instead of, "Do this to fix my feelings." Which is not the right approach. - Yeah. 'Cause what else am I here for if 'm not doing the creative stuff? If I'm not problem solving? You got a nest egg. I mean, besides from what's still smoldering. So? Get some work done. Maybe open a tiki bar in one of the lesser-known Caribbean islands, and live your life far from me and mine.

Think it over. Small fun fact. The setup of the three shots, we just didn't have to go far. We thought, "What's our favorite scene of two people talking, villain and a hero?" And we went to Heat, the Pacino-De Niro dinner scene. So it's a rip-off. Pawel and I, we watched that scene like... "Yup, we just have three different shots and that's it." No camera movement, nothing unnecessary. Let the actors tell the story. So, Hutch is walking away, but as we can see in a moment, hoping against hope that this guy will come after him. 'Cause he wants nothing more than to blow everything up. Including himself, I think. Let's see what happens. I love this. Gets in the car, aims the rear-view at the door, and prays, "Come out, bad man. Let's do this. Let's do this." Hello. Here we go. And Pat Benatar, Heartbreaker. So many different songs were tried here, so many different songs. Yeah, you guys just decided on a vibe for this movie. Yep. Yep. We always thought it was a gritty movie. We talked about movies from the '70s.

And these old songs throughout the whole movie... Tie it together. They really just... It just feels like... An analog movie and not a digital movie. I would have shot it on film had we had the option. Instead, we had to do a little bit of the post-production grain. This car chase Is incredible, man.

And props to Greg Rementer and Larry who was... I forgot Larry's last name, but Larry who was a DP, who did second unit on films like Top Gun, so he's got quite an experience. And they had to shoot... So we shot all the stuff with you, and then we went off to do more dialogue scenes. And quite a bit of this was done by Greg on the coldest possible Winnipeg night. Brutal. Yeah. The second unit was shooting at night, we were shooting day, so I went over after... I think it was one of the kitchen scenes that we shot. I went over afterwards and it was just... You know, I had two jackets on, three pairs of pants, snowboarding pants... it just... lt was so cold that you really felt it in your bones. Not just the saying. It really was that bad. So the fact that they were able to pull all this off and, you know, Stick to the storyboards when needed to, and step away and do slightly their own thing... -/'m super excited by how great they did. - Yeah. Yeah. As a director, you're like, "I don't wanna have second unit," but you have to. There's no other way we can get this filming done in days. Very important that he pulls into the owner's spot 'cause he bought the place. I think it's very important. It's... lt matters to him. Jesus. That car is a wreck now. His neighbor's not gonna like that. Here they come.

But Hutch has this place booby-trapped, so fuck them. Not good. Get tagged before you go in. He would have parked closer if he wasn't so ego-driven to get the owner. He would've been fine, but no. - It wasn't a... It's the principles that get you every time. Principle of the thing Is, "I fucking bought this place. "Wait. From heaven." The man himself. Finally. Visual confirmation that RZA really is in this film. Dad? I loved how that dialogue... It's so great. None of that dialogue was done on the day except for now. - Yep. Everything else, he's not speaking at all, but, boy, it looks like he's shouting each of those things. "Remember I said I wasn't gonna come save your ass?" It all fits perfectly. We got very lucky with that one. - And this is a great line. We just missed the great line. So many of the lines in this movie... Well, obviously, Derek wrote the script, but some of the great funny lines come from Ilya, and I want to give him credit right now for, "Hey, Dad. You brought a lot of shotguns." And then Chris Lloyd says, "You brought a lot of Russians." Great line. And also on the bus, "I'm gonna fuck you up." A simple line. Derek had written a long monologue. -[t was a grandiose statement. - Beautiful monologue. lt was very much in line with the way that Derek writes, and I love that stuff, and we have it in here too, but simplifying it just down to "I'm gonna fuck you up" just was a joy. A joy to say and it crystalized everything that needed to be said in that moment. Ilya's line, is what I'm saying. So, we got a booby-trapped place, and we can assume that Harry knew Hutch would do this kind of thing 'cause they seem to know each other very well. I bet we're gonna have questions about, "How did they know?" Well... These guys have an unwritten everything between them. I mean, the phone calls that you saw earlier, they... They set up their relationship. - Yeah. So hopefully it's not too big of a question.

We did not have Bobby Digital for too long. He was only there for what, three days? -/ think four, including the rehearsal. Yeah, this is a lot of work to do, but, you know, he's done action before, many times. Directed it, starred in. Of course, you know, he knows... He's definitely seen more action movies than I have. Yeah. - Which is rare. It's hard to find. - Yeah.

Chris Lloyd with a shotgun. Chris was game, big-time, for this movie. He was just there for whatever you wanted to do. He was like, "Let's go." This is a very funny moment. Totally by accident, that thing was just there. Thank you, Roger Fires, production designer, for putting it there. -/ think he was hinting. - Yeah? Because Roger also suggested... The ending that we had, I think, he didn't want to push. It was only when I went to hide there that David Leitch came up and said, "Hey, why don't you reach up and erase?" You know where David got it from? - Where? Rob, who was our dolly group. He was like, "That's a fun sign." I saw it in the morning, I'm like, "Kind of, maybe too cute." I was very cautious to not get too cute, but then Rob brought it up, David brought it up. At this point, everyone's reacting well. You'd be foolish not to embrace... If so many people are reacting to an idea, you gotta just take it, shoot it. You don't have to use it, but shoot it. - Yeah. And I'm glad that we did. I'm glad that Rob brought it up to public debate. Chris had a good time doing this. He's never done an action movie, and he's done every kind of movie. I don't think he's ever done one. Certainly not one where he... Wait. Blasting tens of people with shotguns. - Yeah. So he was game for it, big-time. Look at this guy. What a pro. What a great guy and what a pro. Super warm energy. Just... A very sweet man. And this is called Family Reunion, right here.

This is where we enter the operatic, fun, non-serious part of the film. And that's why this shot is there. This is the only fancy shot we have in the entire film. 'Cause Pawel and I came up with a lot of cool shit to film. But at a certain point, we're like, "You know what? "Let's keep it super basic." And then we're like, "We should keep one just so people know we can if we want to," but we decided to restrain ourselves. But here we cut loose and we wanted to have this almost... Certainly these shots circling the guys are very Michael Bay-ish, which is not the tone of the film, but I thought we can get away with it and I think it works. These guys are having a good time, boy. They're in their element. - The bright light is just very... And here comes Yulian. He's so great. My brother gets shot. You out? - Yeah. Dad? This was so hard to do. - Why, Bob? 'Cause I got the sickness. We had a flu that went around. Norovirus. - Nurovirus? No, no, I think it's Noro. - Norovirus. Nuro would be scarier. - Yeah, Noro, and it hits you fast. And I had avoided it for what, a week-and-a-half? Yeah. There was a day when 35 people had to leave this shoot because they were just that sick. 35 people, all in one day. So it was that bad. I'm getting sick as you're watching me here, and I got sick very bad and very fast. And it was not good. I'd like to say that the sweat on your face, that's not makeup. - Yeah. That is real sweat. But holy cow, this impact is huge.

Oh, man.

Ilya... It's...

You know, I promised myself early on that if I do action films, ['m gonna make sure the villain always goes out in the most crazy, unexpected, but exciting and original way. And this is a continuation of that tradition. And I came to Derek and said, "Derek, what do you think about this?" And played around with it. It was actually a much longer sequence originally, but we simplified it to just one explosion. Make it cleaner. - Yeah. And... -/ think it's much better with just one massive, right in your face explosion that just tears him apart. Just sends him flying. And then these guys with their grand goodbye. The heroic... -/ really enjoy the warmth in this scene. And just how throughout it's... I love these guys, and I only got to hang out with RZA for a few days. Chris Lloyd was there more and we did go out to lunch and stuff and hung out but, man, I love them. I love the whole... Everybody who made this movie. So, he goes to make his call to his wife. Tell her what the fuck just went down. And he hears a kitty cat, which was the cat or the animal we heard from earlier, in the pipes. Becca, it's me. And if you remember his daughter saying, "We need to go get a cat." And now the message he left for his wife makes it clear that she knew he had a past and that's what was going on in some degree. It had come back to haunt them in some way. And there's where we found the kitty. And we got... I don't know if you spoke to him yesterday after he saw it, but one of the things he pointed out that he was incredibly happy with, and it surprised... When you're walking with the painting, with the cat, he said, "You can tell that Hutch has maybe 20 more feet in him." That's it, so it really is sort of the end, in a physical sense, which was the goal. I'm glad that Derek felt that way. It's answer enough. That's rich.

And these two hard-ons are gonna give me trouble. But then their boss calls them and tells them, "Hey, that guy you're talking to..." "You should probably let him go."

So, Adam Hurtig on the right, he was the casting director's assistant in Winnipeg, and he was helping me out with all the auditions, and as he was playing all these parts, I thought it would be great to get Adam in the movie. Yeah. He's very good. And who's the other detective? It's Kristen Harris. Yes. - Kristen Harris. Both fantastic. And right this way, we've got the beautiful dining room. The walls used to be a lot darker, but it's been recently renovated to have a brighter look. Here's a little addendum. Which is nice to know that they're back together. And they need a new house. We knew that. Seem to be getting along pretty well. And this was... Remember, this was the first shooting day. It's the first scene we ever filmed in this movie. Jeez Louise. Really? - Yep. Now you're reminding me. That's hard to do. Yeah. It felt pretty strange. -/ remember... - Yeah, it just feels strange, right? I was talking to Kelly and David, they were like, "If you're doing more than seven takes, then something's wrong." I was like, "Okay, that makes sense. Fine." I'm used to a lot more back home, but here I was like, "Okay, these are rules of the game." And I remember, at the very end, the final, the basement line, we did that 15, 16 times. But Connie really nailed the... Oh, boy. Yeah. - The step into the frame and just... The very sort of pop aspect of it. Well, I guess he's finding out that they're probably still after him, or they know... He's on somebody's radar. Does this house have a... It's actually the only time in the film where we don't hear the other end of the conversation. We break our own rules and it works. - Yeah.

I just love these characters so much. I think if we get to do another one, and who knows? Come on. I hope people like this. I hope they love it. I wonder if tonally it would be very different. Just because we go to such a different place at the end of this movie from where it starts.

Anyway, that's a worry that I hope I get to have.

Here comes this other extra moment. Whose idea was this? Derek? Well, originally, one of our earlier endings was the whole family together, and then the RV would arrive and you would get on the RV and drive away. But we felt that it's... lt makes sense for the character, but it also feels a little cold. Yeah. - So I think we split it. We came up with the idea of the basement, the realtor scene, but we also wanted to have a bit of Lloyd and RZA at the end. 'Cause why the hell not? So this was the first thing we shot with them. And they met each other only once. They got into the RV. "I'm your dad" and "I'm your son." "All right, let's do this." So right into the deep end. With this luggage? This was not filmed on the actual PCH. This is all green screen in Winnipeg. Oh, yeah. We were lucky that these plates exist, and the light matched. Congratulations, Ilya. I love this little movie. It's not so little. It's big. I love this movie. -/ love it. I love it. - I enjoyed working on it very, very much. I never would have imagined I could feel such affection. I knew this would be a challenge. I knew I'd be out of my wheelhouse. I'd be pushing myself. I knew I wanted it to be non-ironic. I've done a lot of comedy in my career. I've made fun of action movies a million times. I've made fun of the swagger and the surety that action stars put forth. But I think I've now had this experience of years of playing someone without that safety net of comedy and making fun, and I find it to be the greatest magic to try to conjure up the non-ironic and intense big feelings that TV shows like Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, and movies like Nobody work to present and to explore. And so I was thankful to have you. I mean, you just did a great job here, and we all understood what we were making. And Derek did such a great job, and we were so lucky to have these producers. Kelly McCormick was the first one to... Well, Marc Provissiero, my manager, understood immediately. Braden Aftergood also seemed to immediately connect with it. Kelly McCormick was the linchpin, because Kelly has great experience with action movies. And David Leitch then joining and leading, I think, tonally, this whole project. David has been a part of the biggest action movies of the past 15 years. And so that's what brought us all to where we are. I just gotta thank you and, you know, you were with this movie through two different regimes, two different companies. Yep. - And you hung in there with it. And, of course, your experience... We didn't once mention Hardcore Henry, your first film. And I'm sure that's worthy of hours of talk too. Anyway, thank you. - Thank you very much for listening, guys. This was Ilya and Bob, talking about something we spent a couple years of our life on. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And have a nice day. Thank you so much. I'll see you next time. Bye.