Stunt doubles

and all these pillars and the ruins we built ourselves. And way out there, see all those thousands and thousands of charging horsemen? There was really only about 100 of them at that point. This guy needs some dental work. And we multiplied them. But then we did have, there's 500 guys racing around on horses, firing guns. Every time you see any guy on a horse firing gun, it's a Czechoslovakian stuntman. Because no matter how many times we went over it with the extras on horseback, they didn't understand us for some reason. A little language.

7:22 · jump to transcript →

act behind my back, and every one of them in this movie was just spectacular. They were so sweet. And we put them through a lot. Okay, now check out here. We got a stuntman in drag here. Freeze frame right here, and look at that guy. Oh, it is a hideous sight. Right here, right here. You do not want to see that. It's like Rachel, she saw the dailies, and she just hoped we could cut it together well. That's also the stuntman, of course, there too. Now here, watch this. This shot was take one.

13:01 · jump to transcript →

We only shot one take, that's it. Rachel's now crawling in as the stuntwoman is crawling under the camera and I told her to stand up and perfect. Take one, one take only, that's it. 12,000 bucks. Steve called me from the location saying, okay, so what does it look like? Do we need to shoot it again? And I thought, well, I'm not sure what else you'd do to that shot. I think it's about as good as it could be. Yeah, it was a real pain because we arrived on the set

13:29 · jump to transcript →

This is a... You know, this is an interesting scene... ... because, again, the comedy... These two really worked well together. You believe them as a couple... ...and the comic timing is really pretty sweet, I have to say. I remember when I watched a lot of the dailies... ... they would always fool around whenever you... You wouldn't yell, "Cut," and they kind of just... They'd keep going a little bit and do some silly stuff. I think they really-- You know, again, it was a kind of... At times, it was tense being on the set... ...because these actors, who are so good, didn't know why they were there. And on the second one, that eased up completely. Because everyone felt that they had a responsibility... ...because they knew a lot of people would see this movie. Now, here's something I always felt pretty horrible about because... ...particularly once you have your own kids, this is the last thing you want them to do. This was a big worry, I remember. - Oh, yeah. Whether or not this was gonna stay or not. See, no one really ever understood when I'm lining up the sled... . that it doesn't exactly line up with the door. There's people who watch it who actually giggle, I remember... ...saying, "That doesn't line up. How is he gonna do that?" Yeah. You would've smashed into the wall. Yeah. But that was Larry. I remember watching the dailies. That was hilarious. Larry, our stuntman. - Yeah. Stuntman, literally. - He was probably 20... No, maybe he was about 30 back then. - Yeah. And he was your size. - Yeah. He was built like me too. Now, he was amazing. He would do anything. There's one moment coming later when we'll talk about Larry. Where he falls? - Where he falls, and he froze that day. He didn't wanna do it, but Larry had... As most of the stuntmen did in this movie... I don't know if these types of stuntmen exist anymore. Yeah, I know. - Willing to kill themselves for... It's amazing. I have a lot of that, yeah.... ...a lot of memories of these guys doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Oh, yeah. - They were my favorite, the stunt guys. The stunt guys were great. - When you're 9... ...they can do all kinds of neat stuff. - That's true. Ha, ha. Oh, yeah. They were always my best friends. We'll talk about-- A little later, we'll talk about Troy Brown and Leon Delaney... ...the two stuntmen for Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, who were truly... Truly went above and beyond the call of duty. I haven't spoken to them in years... ...but they probably are still in a great deal of pain... ...because of some of this stuff. Daniel Stern is interesting... ...because Dan Stern was my first choice for this role... ...and the studio didn't wanna pay him at the time. We cast another actor, unfortunately-- This is the only time in my career this happened. and we did a screen test with the other actor and Joe Pesci. And the screen test was flat... ...and the other actor just couldn't really improvise with Joe... ...and you didn't believe him in the role. And I had the-- I had the horrible situation of actually telling the actor... ...I couldn't use him. Basically firing him. Oh, boy. And then the studio then understood. They saw the screen test, and they were willing to hire Danny... ...which was really an amazing working situation for me. He's one of the funniest guys I've met. And he truly was up for anything, as we'll see later in this commentary. I still have that sled in my office.... In my office here in San Francisco. I just saw it before I came over here. Signed by everyone. Signed by everyone. That's really cool. - Yeah. And when I get a little older, and things start not working out in the career... ...1 can sell it. - EBay. Yeah, eBay.

25:39 · jump to transcript →

We shot two different versions of this... ...and you weren't sure which ones you were gonna use. What was that? - We ended up using both. This one and there's the singing one, and you ended up using both. Oh, that's true. Right. I didn't know we shot them as two different versions. We just-- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. There it is. - There it is. The face that launched a thousand posters. I never expected that to be the... It was Joe Roth at Fox who came up with that image. And realized that that should be the iconic pose. Oh, here we are. - This is Larry's... Larry, our stuntman, who is basically Mac's size... ...maybe a few inches taller, who was 30. Who is completely-- I mean, Larry was just a very brave guy and a tough guy. He was a pro. - He was a pro. But when he got here to do this particular stunt, he froze that day. This was dangerous though, you know? - And it was dangerous and I... You know, you have no protection. So it was-- It took quite some time to film. He was fine afterwards, and it's actually... Looking at it, it's not one of the more violent stunts in the film. But it's dangerous. - Yeah. Because it's not like you got a harness on. No, no, no. It was....

36:07 · jump to transcript →

And, now, I can't remember if this was you... ...or the stuntman running across the bridge. Or even just-- Or one of the stand-ins. I remember I had like 10 stand-ins. Oh, that's true. That is true. And so then you guys would do a lot of, like, just stuff after I'd go off... ...or at the same time, even. "I'm a criminal." I think this was the first day too. Yeah. - Yeah. This entire concept of the Wet Bandits... ... I'm trying to remember if that was in the original script or not. I don't know or.... I think possibly it was. I thought... For some reason, I had... I have a memory of Dan Stern coming up with it, and I could be wrong. You know, that's why I really wish John Hughes was here because he could... But Dan, for whatever reason... ...was obsessed with the concept of the Wet Bandits. The Wet Bandits and the Sticky Bandits. - Yeah. But this whole look of Dan's is this sort of white-trash, trucker look. It's just something that didn't catch on, unfortunately. And just the contrast in size between the two of them... ...and just height and just build. But the, uh... All of these were little touches by Dan, which, on a movie like this... ...people, you know, don't talk about, don't notice... ...but putting the snow globes from each house with the... You know, attaching them... There's a scene on the deleted sequences... ...where Dan wanted to... He's stolen a cappuccino maker, and they share a cappuccino in the truck. I remember that. - I think it was that scene. This was all shot backwards. - Oh, yeah, that's right. Coming up here. This. So I would scream, and then the car would back out... ...and I would walk backwards. And we did it several times. And it looked pretty awful each time... ...and then finally, that one shot, it worked out perfectly. Well, you had somebody shaking the van, right, you know, at the beginning. And I had to walk, like, backwards, like, heel first or whatever.

40:48 · jump to transcript →

Yes, actually what we did is we did the insert shots in the Saugus Cafe, which is coming up. We did it, we laid the guy in the ground and did his... In the back room or something, right? Yeah, no, I think it was right in the restaurant after we had shot the restaurant scene. Oh, and when he does come out, which is happening with the pogo stick shortly, our stunt double couldn't pogo. So we ended up having to slow it down

35:32 · jump to transcript →

Because I think in Warwick Davis's book, he says that they gave him, he asked Ron Howard if he should do Leprechaun 2, and he said, well, you know, my daughter and her boyfriend love Leprechaun, so go ahead and do it. That's great. Now this is, again, now that's a double, as you can see, probably. There's Warwick. We intercut between Warwick and a stunt double.

51:51 · jump to transcript →

There we go. There you can see the dental acrylic nails that were attached to the gloves. There's a scene here. That was a stunt double who broke his wrist hitting the windshield. I hate to think I'm a jinx, but I had two stunt people break their wrist.

57:19 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

had a thing like a telephone pole underneath it that an explosion would hit the ground and flip the car. And that's a real driver inside, a stuntman. This was shot on Halloween. I remember it was Halloween night. We were all down there. And we actually had a robo-pumpkin that the art department spray-painted. And the robo-pumpkin kept moving around. And here's another explosion. And nobody in at that time except the dummy.

6:30 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

the stuntman who played Robo's stunt double. If you keep looking, you'll see a lot of stunt guys get killed, the same people over and over again. Again, lots of gunfire, lots of squids. There's a nice shot. You can see the thing is vaguely human-like, but is capable of moving and expanding and contracting and very scary-looking.

1:22:04 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

All of the plates, incidentally, were shot in VistaVision, which is a 65-millimeter process. There's Russell Towery again. Yes, the third time he's been killed. That is, again, Robo's stunt double who was in the suit a lot.

1:26:21 · jump to transcript →

This was shot in an elevator shaft, so there's three different locations here. There's a small set that was built for the diner. There's the Eagle Rock Power Station, and then there's an elevator shaft, and then there's a set for the elevator here. Yeah, you don't need more than that. Wow. Even doing that, I couldn't do. I would need a stuntman for that.

1:30:08 · jump to transcript →

Again, this is all pre-CG, so there's no digital stunt doubles or anything like that. That was really different. Are the cars actually moving when you do that? Yeah, they're moving, and they're moving at speed. I kept wanting them to go faster and faster, so we started the scene with the cars going at about 25 miles an hour, and then by the time...

1:32:43 · jump to transcript →

And we rehearsed it with a stuntman. And the stuntman was injured because of this rap. This is the conveyor belt scene. So that was actually shot in the studio. Oh, I get it. Yeah, I was wondering. But this shot as well was with a camera car being on a trailer. And I think we did some of it with rear projection, like old school rear projection as well with the two real actors.

1:33:31 · jump to transcript →

...decades and decades ago... ...and brought as an extension from this person's home. Oh, and the stuntman who was the lead Hungarian... ...was the double for the one who cuts the kid's throat... ...was the double for all of the Pink Panther movies for Peter Sellers.

1:00:51 · jump to transcript →

Hoping you've come for these details. Yeah. That is Kevin, and now is Kevin's identical twin. That guy is the father of one of the, that stuntman is the father of one of the kids who gets killed. Oh, that's, well, the family that slays together, I guess. Lays together. And this is Kevin's double, which. This is, yeah, I thought he, I think he looks great. Yeah. Like, he looks, he's exactly like, I actually trimmed his goatee

1:18:52 · jump to transcript →

Originally a line, scream. Which I like much better. The moon in the background, I'm very thankful for. I think it makes that very cool. And this is Steven the lunatic about to do the jumping. Now this man running who gets shot in the back, boom. He's about 80 years old. He's a stuntman. He falls, clunk, clunk.

1:19:59 · jump to transcript →

As of this recording, he's still alive and well and retired in Durango, Colorado. That makes me think also about Charlie Sheen's stunt double in this. Eddie Braun, who had also doubled for Emilio on Wisdom. And he has nothing but raves for the entire Sheen family and says they're, you know, one in a million or however many they are in a million. And said that after a...

1:30:18 · jump to transcript →

believable in both areas, like he was. So now we have to see how we do this now. His first, this first fight, because we know now he had to lure him away, and then we will have the first fight. And we were working with Harrison and our Doug Coleman, our stunt double. Yes, not stunt double. He was a stunt coordinator with the guy who choreographed.

42:50 · jump to transcript →

So acting like you can see something when you can't see something. That's great. Was it a practical? - Yeah. We built some wax aliens to blow up for that moment when they blow up. The explosion's practical and the bubbles are real. Everything was really here. Tom was in this underwater - in the suit as well - for a couple of shots. That's a beautiful shot. - How deep was it? 15 feet? In a closed set. You couldn't swim to the surface if you wanted to. The difficult thing about this was that the rehearsals you performed with a mask on and breathing from a breathing apparatus. They were all calm. You were marking what you were going to do in that particular shot. You were gonna swim from here to here. This was your action. When they were satisfied that everybody knew what it was they were supposed to do, there's a countdown from six where you're asked to take six deep pulls of the oxygen. When you get to two the mask comes off. Then you're blind. The mask comes off then so there's no bubbles in the shot. You hold your breath for as long as it takes for them to slate, then start the action. In postproduction we put some noises, some voices, and we recorded the voices in a swimming pool with pipes, like... ...to put the pressure, to feel the pressure. This thing - there was no escape from this. You swam up into that thing. The only way to get out was to swim back down and out. Waiting in the wings would be stunt doubles with hookah masks for us, once the shot was completed, to give you air. In rehearsal you could go longer. It was calm, you were swimming gently. Once you were acting and the energy was up you used more oxygen and there was less time to stay under. Virtually every shot in the sequence you're in jeopardy, so the stakes are high. You're operating on pure adrenaline, which is not the case in a calm rehearsal. And then you got Jean-Pierre on a microphone screaming: "I want to see bubbles because they are making it look like you are afraid." So the bubbles are created by you getting rid of your whole store of oxygen and you're only good for about half of what you were during rehearsal. Made it difficult. I don't know about you, Leland, but I for one ran out of air on five separate occasions. Yes. - And started for the surface. Unfortunately the surface was a ceiling because this is a kitchen set. So there was no escaping it unless you knew where the escape routes were, and since you're blinded and disoriented as to where you are at any given time... I was literally saved five separate times by stunt divers who saw me panic, saw me swim for the surface, saw I wasn't gonna make it, followed me and stuck this thing in my mouth. We each had one assigned to us. I just remember the one time that the guy who was assigned to me that day decided to take a bathroom break during one of the takes. I ran out of air and there was nobody there. Remember? It was your stunt double who gave me... I shared air with you guys. He was so used to saving my life that he was just on guard.

1:11:06 · jump to transcript →

Taylor Hackford

Now he realizes he's got no one. His own wife, who he needs to confide in right now, he finally is ready... ...to come home and talk, she's not there. She's vacant. She's gone. And at this point, the whole idea of this is to take Kevin inexorably towards... ...a decision. In this horrible moment here, of looking at her body... ...completely ripped open, you know, he's thinking she did this to herself... ...she is really crazy. And that was not an easy scene for Charlize to do, obviously... ...but I believed it was an important scene. I don't believe it's exploitative. I think it was important to kind of see that she has been ultimately raped by Milton... ...and finally by her husband. She's got nothing left. And now, in this terrific scene in the hallway at the hospital. She now has a moment of clarity. She's sedated, but somehow there's clarity that comes through. He's putting her into a psychiatric ward, and she's defining why... ...in a moment of lucidity, why this is happening. The fact that, "We both went after it." She's not saying, "You went after it. "We both went after it. Blood money. We drank it on down." That sense of a contract that was made, and a pragmatism, and a sense that... ..."We want success and what we give up for it doesn't matter. We want... "We have no social conscience. We have no moralistic conscience. "We have materialism as our God." I think in this instance, she's admitting it and Kevin still doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to hear it to the point where he's putting her in and... ...putting her in the ice box, as it were. You see the psychiatric ward there, he's gonna have her sedated. She is crazy, but ultimately, he doesn't opt to take her home and deal with her. Instead, he goes to Barzoon's funeral, which is filled with all the power players... ...and all the people from his law firm. Diana Barzoon... ...again, Judianna dressed her in this fabulous outfit, short skirt, hat. "Doesn't Diana look wonderful?" Jackie says. And, Alex Cullen comes with Alessandra, and, lo and behold, Alessandra is... ...no longer that little girl, that little, vulnerable thing. She's quite a dish. And Alex Cullen has been able to seduce the social worker... ...who before was very much against him. Now, Alessandra's sitting between them. And Kevin is looking at this shot. I think, Andrzej's lighting on Alessandra's back is fantastic... ...and there is a sense here that Kevin is starting to see for the first time... ...what was right in front of his eyes all along. Mary Ann, is just, she's beyond help, all right? Jackie's sitting there listening, and then... ...he's sandwiched in between these two... ...members of the law firm's female side. And, you know, I think that the words were particularly apropos here. Looking at the cleavage, looking at that look on Christabella's face... ...realizing this is the allure, this is what you get. You can have all the flesh you want. And he's in God's house. He's listening to this man eulogize Eddie Barzoon... ...and I think Tony wrote a fantastic eulogy here. If you listen to the words of the eulogy, it's very funny... ...because obviously this is a man that did not know Eddie Barzoon. And in the process of Kevin kind of being lulled into thinking... ...and looking at her back and seeing this unseemly hand of Cullen... ...on his stepdaughter's back, he comes up and, lo and behold, he sees Gettys. No special effects here. This is just cutting. You know, he has an apparition. Mary Ann's had all the apparitions 'til now. Now Kevin has one and he realizes, "Oh, my God, what's going on?" Again, is it psychological or is it meant to be happening? Milton's standing in the back of the church... ...and looking at all the iconography... ...around him of the angels. Of course, he's a fallen angel. And this scene, again, out in the street, on Park Avenue... ...is a scene that I particularly like, because when you have expository scenes... ...when you have to get a lot of information out... ...you try to shoot them in ways that are interesting and exciting... ...and not just have two people sitting there. In the scene with Milton and Kevin at the beginning of the film on the rooftop... ...it's of an expository scene, but it's done in such a way... ...you can't take your eyes off of the surroundings and the art direction. In this instance we're on the street and we start moving. Kevin wants to get away. He's panicked. He wants to run as fast as he can from that image of Gettys in the church. And meanwhile, you see Milton, he's in complete control. Vyto Ruginis, who's playing the federal attorney here, is a fabulous actor... ...again, from Yale, and, he was saddled with the horrible task of... ...having to give all this exposition in this scene. But the fact is, by intercutting it and intercutting it with Milton... ...you're getting these pieces of information about the law firm... ...and what Milton's really into, and then intercutting it with... ...Milton's delight at being in church with his former brethren, the angels... ...and playing with them, enjoying it. And in the process of Kevin discovering what's really going on... ...what Barzoon was trying to hide, why Barzoon was possibly killed... ...and inevitably not wanting to hear it, he's a lawyer. "What do you want from me?" He's just a lawyer. All this can be explained by the fact that he's just a lawyer. He's a businessman. He's doing his work. And then what happens in this instance is the federal attorney uses... ...a piece of information that he knows will stop Kevin. He's basically going to lower the hammer right now. He talks about Gettys, the fact that he got Gettys off... ...and now Gettys has killed a young girl. And he knows that will get to Kevin. Look at him. There's a little smile on his face. We're all capable of ego, and as he walks across the street... ...ready to lower the boom on Kevin, he doesn't look. Now how's that for a stunt? That's a real stunt. That isn't special effects. That's a real stuntman taking a hit. And it's one of the best I've ever seen, and I included it in the film without a cut. Basically at this point you can explain this death two ways. You can say that Milton stuck his finger in holy water and caused the accident... ...but I have a certain belief that Milton doesn't kill anyone... ...until they ask for it. Barzoon, if he'd given the watch up, maybe those guys wouldn't have killed him. In this instance, when Peter O'Guiness smiles and walks across, he's guilty of ego. We're all guilty of the ego of sin, the sin of vanity and ego. He has Kevin where he wants and he goes to reel him in... ...and he doesn't look left or right. Kevin goes to see his wife. He wants, again, to try to see Mary Ann, to connect... ...with the person that he can really care about, and what he finds is Judy Ivey. Judith Ivey, Alice Lomax, his mother, has come calling, trying to find him... ...finding out that Mary Ann's in the hospital. He's completely... She's thinking, "Why aren't you there? "Why aren't you at the hospital? What are you doing, Kevin? "This isn't the son I raised." And he comes and sees that his wife is so sedated on Prolixin. Prolixin is the kind of thing that they give to mental patients... ...to just completely knock them down. She's just incapable of communicating with him, or doesn't want to. You can see in Mary Ann's eyes that she really hates him for what he's done to her. And he's now gonna come into the hallway. And, again, these are moments that... ...we're trying, at the end of the film, to explain to you. You've watched the film almost for two hours now, and it's been... ...hopefully, intriguing, certainly mysterious. Now we have to come clear with what the film is really about... ...and who these characters really are. And the characters are not complete strangers to each other. They have had a past. Alice Lomax is explaining to her son that she isn't just the woman... ...that she is purported to be, that she has a past, that his father is not dead... ...that she didn't tell the truth about that. And, in fact, when she walked into that lobby of the apartment building... ...at the beginning and saw Al Pacino, she had an apparition. She saw the man that fathered her child, and she was looking right at him. I think Kevin's reaction here, I think Keanu's acting is wonderful. I think it's very real and I think you realize the pressure this guy's under... ...what he's been through, and everything that's now coming down on his head. I think he did a great job.

1:41:31 · jump to transcript →

I love this game. This is also your stunt. That was me. We had a stuntman do a version of that, but we wanted to use your stunt, which actually wasn't... You bounced. He rolled. I remember first production said, I couldn't do it. And then the compromise was, okay, we'll have the stuntman do one, then you do one, then the stuntman will do one, then you'll do... What was the point?

34:51 · jump to transcript →

Inconvenient place, frankly, just to try to milk it. This was a fairly dangerous stunt to have a guy dragging his legs like this. It was a wonderful stunt double for Arnold.

1:42:32 · jump to transcript →