Stunts & stunt coordination

a musician who had worked on a couple of our other films. And he just said that, you know, if there's any way he could ever be put in a film where he could get killed. And I gave him the opportunity here. This is kind of interesting because the actress who did this part didn't want to do any of the nudity. So this is our first stunt person that's coming up here in the next cut, I think it is. There she is.

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This sequence was kind of difficult, because I wanted to have the bike actually do an endo, and we got it. Our sound man was an aspiring stuntman, and he did a good job there, because he just turned the wheels and went head over heels. He hit so hard, the wig that he was wearing went flying off. I tell everyone that's me. Oh, doing the stunt? I've been lying about that for years. Well, we'll dispel that one.

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a credit in the end credits for the new double. Yeah, so everybody understood that it wasn't her. There's somebody called Double Lavender, played by Laura Mann, I think it is, and that's her. Well, we're back in Chatsworth in the graveyard at night here. And the stunt person's back.

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That's Cole, our stunt supervisor, right? That was. That was Cole McKay, who was our stunt coordinator. Sneaking a cameo in as the limo driver. Yes, yes. He made him buy me a drink for this. Yeah, Shea Duffin. What's going on here is we're rich. Did you have fun during the casting process for all these characters? Yeah, I tell you, I...

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Stunt girl going down the stairs. I think it's always good when you kill a sweet old lady in the first three minutes. Exactly, yes. There's Naomi. And there's our crane. They gave me a crane that day. This is all a set in a soundstage. And they let me go right up. And if you notice, his ears move mechanically, I guess. Right, right. We had a rig that we would bring out sometimes that was attached to a skull cap and two servos.

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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

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This is Len Wiseman, director of Underworld Evolution. And sitting in here with me today, far too close for my liking, I've got to say, if I can scoot over a bit, is Patrick Tatopoulos, our production designer. Say hello. Hey, how's it going, man? Remember that voice. And Brad Martin, our second unit director and stunt coordinator. Hello. And Nick Tatoth, our editor. Hello. Are you going to do that the whole time? Is that going to be your... Hello.

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It's important to say that there's a combination of CG and practical all over the place. You show a lot of practical stuff as well. That was that extra fall right there on that horse. That's right. That was an accident. These horses, it's funny because we got a horse that it does its one gag. It's been doing it for 14 years. And on action, just on the call of action, it does this stunt. And one of our ADs, I forgot who actually called it.

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called action instead of background, and the thing just reared up and actually did the stunt in the wrong place, and everybody was okay, and everybody ran out there, but we ended up using it in the film. And we ate horse meat for, like, what, weeks at craft services. It was really bad. Remember, Patrick, this scene right here, I was actually stressing out quite a bit because we weren't prepared to shoot this wolf yet. Exactly. The wolf was in the radio at the time, and...

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And you'll see in the DVD extras, there's shots in this sequence that we cut out of the movie. There was a whole entrance into the Grand Palais. And a whole swinging how we got there. It was a big stunt. And that was before we had the rest of the movie together. And it was a fantastic stunt. And when the whole movie was put together, we realized, no, we don't need it. And I was like, let's cut that out. This sequence, we were supposed to shoot it in three days.

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Yes. Who was, all you need is kill. He was Emily's stunt double. And incredible Wushu champion. And we kept thinking about who do we want for this? We were going to cast an actor. It was going to be a misdirection. But it was just too much. What we wanted out of this scene was, you know, that this guy basically kicks the living, you know.

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We were cutting around things. Do you remember? Yep. To try and give pace to it. And we said, no, let's go back. We have the bathroom. We're going back there anyway. We're going back. And let's shoot this so we don't have to cut it. And Henry and I, any time, like at the end, when you're doing a fight scene, first of all, you never admit how painful it is. Ever. Like when you're doing stunts, you never say it hurts. Oh, I always hear about it a year later. No, it's a year later. But on the last day when we were in the bathroom, I looked at Henry and he was like, you know, both of us had that moment of admitting.

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I remember the stuntmen had a terrible time with this mud. It really hurt their eyes and gave them skin rashes and probably had more injuries out of this benign little stunt. Well, what we're trying to set up here is that there are going to be two Blofelds. He is going to make a clone of himself.

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One particular stunt in the car chase required special driving talent, so the producers brought in stunt driver Joey Chitwood. Chitwood would later contribute to the car and boat chase in Live and Let Die. Tom Mankiewicz remembers filming this stunt. When Joey Chitwood goes in, he goes in the wrong way. The car goes out the other way, and there is no way for a car to do that.

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I'd never ask him to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. But he would always be very cooperative, because for some actors, what I consider not really a stunt, you might be uncomfortable doing it, but he's got no fear of heights, which is a great thing.

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takes place in Kazakhstan. It doesn't. We shot it in Ohio, in America. But it looks like kind of Russian, don't you think? You will see it a little later when we reveal it. These parachutes are stunt parachutes. I mean, it's so difficult what they did. Of course, this shot here was done on stage, but this was all done really over Cleveland, Ohio, and with incredible group of parachutists and stunt guys.

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And it was so dangerous to land on that roof, what you see a little later. So it had to be stunt guys. Even not military parachuters were really willing to do this. So none of this was special effects? None of this was computerized? No, no, no, no. It's all real. It's all real. Look at this. It's all real. And, well, he doesn't live that much longer. Gone. That stage, these shots, but, you know, on the parachute. Now you see...

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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.

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The cliff was 2,000 feet high, and there was no protection on the ground, and Tom had to do all the stunts by himself. He needed to climb up to the cliff, and he needed to do the jump. He jumped several times and hanging up on the cliff with two hands. It was pretty scary. The scary thing was Tom wanted to do all the stunts by himself. I was very scared and worried and panicked.

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Because there was a shot that we needed seeing Tom jumping from the wall to the ridge, did it all in one shot. And that shot, I was set for the stunt double to do it. But Tom insisted to do it by himself. We had a really long argument about it because I tried to stop him, but it didn't work. Tom said he liked the challenges. He liked to do something he had never done before.

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And he had never liked cheating. And he told me, whenever he watched an action movie, he said, it was easy to tell which shot was done by a stunt double, which shot was done by the actor, because the body movement, the timing, the performance would never match. And he didn't want to see it happen. And I let him do it. And then I was very scared. And by the meantime, I was scared of heights. So I would stay away from the cliff 20 feet.

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Simon West

I thought she should do something beautiful, but also very athletic and daring. And this is a very impressive routine that Lara does every night before she goes to bed, but Angelina actually had to learn to do for real. Now, I never expected her to do all this. When I cast her, I never thought of her as a stunt person, but during her training program before the shoot, she just learned how to do this thing from top to bottom, and I realized I wasn't going to have to use stunt doubles at all.

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Simon West

My stunt coordinator and second unit director, Simon Crane, and I went to see a dance group called De La Garda, who specialize in bungee work and running around walls. And it was such a great high energy performance that I thought I'd like to do something like that in the film. So between Simon Crane and I, we devised this whole action sequence that is the next two minutes of the film.

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Simon West

Well done, mate. Nice one. Now, the stunt coming up where the Range Rover flips on top of the small Mini Cooper car coincidentally was shot on the day that they stopped making those cars. So on the last day of production ever for these great little mini cars, we actually crushed two of them by sheer coincidence with a flying Range Rover.

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Physical description and characteristics are sort of something that we came up with. He was the lieutenant, probably one of the Nazgul, actually, but he was one of the lieutenants who captained the army's palanau. The shot that we're looking at now of the guards was our very last bit of shooting on Lord of the Rings. That's Kirk, our stunt coordinator, who usually just coordinates. He's not on screen. He just usually controls the stunt guys. But I said, why don't you just put the suit on and have the honour of doing the last shot? And so we filmed Kirk rolling down the stairs.

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Basil, our stunt rider, did a great job riding Shadowfax up onto the stairs, which he did right up the staircase. I love the shot of the big boulder landing in amongst the orcs. I really wanted people to feel the weight and feel the destructive power of these rocks. This shot here is what I call the Pearl Harbor shot. We actually did a previs on this shot about two years before Pearl Harbor came out. And then I saw the shot in Pearl Harbor with the bomb.

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You don't really need the scene at all, but... No, not at all. I think painfuls are good in that description. Now, I gotta say that I took this arrow and I shot about six or seven takes and I had no padding. Look, I did a big fall onto the deck, a big stunt fall, and I refused to have any knee pads or elbow pads and I just hit the deck each time. It hurt like hell. But we didn't even see it. Well, no. No. What's the point in suffering for your art if we don't get to see it? Well, you get to hear a loud clunk. The body fall was quite loud.

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Len Wiseman

That's what my brother calls my bad-gas moment. This one here? Were you harnessed in? Insert sound effect there. - The extended version. You were way up in the tower, right? You were harnessed in? No, because eventually, I didn't. There was some... That's right. That was green screen. - No, it was just somebody else. Oh, okay. You refused. - I didn't. There were some shenanigans going on. Somebody made me feel unstable, and I wouldn't get on it. It is a bit bad-gassy-looking... - It is, isn't it? Now come think of it. We went up there. It ended up being Nicole. That first shot is Nicole. I can't believe she did that, jumped off. She did not. That's a rumour. I totally did it. Oh, I'm sorry. The funny thing is, so many people get fooled by that. That shot that's coming up, they do think it's me. I'm sure it was you. You did it a couple times, she did it once. That's not me. - There's you, in the hoodie. Oh, yeah, I'm brooding in the hoodie. Now, he's a potato farmer, apparently. - Really? He is, from Idaho. - Slash vampire? Yeah, apparently he is. My makeup artist was keen on him for a minute. Lovely strong hands. There he goes. But he didn't speak any English, right? - No. As did, like... Eighty percent of the crew didn't. Right. I mean, you barely spoke English. - I tried. Neither of you speak English. Thank you very much. - Okay. There I go. I really like how she did that. - Good knees on that. They're not my knees. - Those aren't your knees, no. This is where we just drenched you for hours. I was miserable. - The rain machines wouldn't work. I felt like they worked really well. I was soaking wet. All the people running up to you wearing 15 coats... I thought it was still cool that there were rain machines... ...and I was going to get wet. By the end, I was cursing water. I Kept falling there, slipping down. This is like-- Inside the subway was the very first week we did. Yeah, we did that fake set, right? - Yeah. Was that a fake set or a real set? - Wasn't it real? It was real. - No. You were there, weren't you? I was there. It was a subway station, but didn't we build something too? Well, yeah. It was actually... lt was a repair yard for the trains. Then we built that set around the train. - I knew I was on to something. There you go. - Here's love. Immediate love. - Damn it, I have a pimple. Do you? - You don't see that? I see it first. I thought we wiped that out. - No. Oh, my God, it was so tense. lt was so hot in that subway. Yeah, it was brutal. Boiling hot week there was in Budapest before it became arctic. And everybody's in these leather coats. This was the first thing we shot, right? - Yeah. Yeah, this was the second day of filming. The first day of shooting was you in the hospital. Then I came in with those horrible boots and tried to get your approval. Yeah, that's right. I remember I did not want to shoot that scene first. That moment I won't talk about. - No, neither did I. I felt like I'd had absolutely no preparation on firing the guns. They told me, "We're going to do a take." I said, "Oh, my God." Literally almost shook, afterwards. Felt like I'd drunk, like, 20 cups of coffee. I was worried I was gonna get in trouble, because it was a cheap movie. "You have one chance. We don't have money for another pillar." Like, "Oh, great." - You did great, though. No, there was all that stress... ...because we really didn't have a chance to re-squib things. He says, "No pressure, Kate, but we only got pillar with squibs in. The thing's going to be ruined if you mess It up." This sequence is still pretty much the same. Yeah, this stays the same. Here I go, panicking. I remember all this. You did an amazing skid. Did that make it? Yeah, it did. - That was fantastic. But I do grab her crotch, unfortunately. Right. I ass-grab her. - You did that in rehearsal too. She cried afterwards. Is that why? - Probably, it was real claw. She was terrified with this squib. She had never done one before. And she was horrified. - Yeah, she had a real sob after. There she is. I did not mean to. That was unintentional. They're all looking at it now. Remember when we were shooting that scene... ... for you peeking your head out, to get the reaction, I kept firing guns? Yeah. Yeah. I was asking you to do that, yeah. We ended up doing that the entire film. - Here I go. Ass-grab! She was really cute. Everybody was harassing her because of that. Really, everybody was harassing her. - Yeah. But not after my grubby hands got all over her. Oh, my stunt guys. Look. Hank, he's always the one who was, like, pulling. He was my favourite one to pull wires. - Oh, this is where you save me. Thank you for that, by the way. - Kind of a lady-boy.

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Len Wiseman

Oh, yeah. - That camera just kind of disappears. You don't tuck it in your jacket. - What do you mean? She picks up the camera, and then it magically disappears. It movie-disappears. That was great. Thank you so much. Thanks for that. Another great stunt she did.

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Len Wiseman

You see, I just... That voice is incredible. - She thinks the voice is fake. I think he has a voice like Mickey Mouse... Everybody thinks his voice is fake. It is not. I have known the man for a good seven, eight years. I remember... - And if he is putting up an act.... Well, it's not an act. It's not... It's his voice. Lily was four, and I remember we sat there, and he said: "Hello, pleased to meet you," and Lily's eyebrows, like, shot up. It's a shocking voice. - "What the hell is that?" It's an incredible voice. She was more surprised by that than by meeting the werewolf. Oh, did you ever let her see them? Yeah, she hung out with the stunt guys, which we still have to deal with. Yesterday, she said to us: "Can I be shot out of the cannon?" I'm like, "Damn that Brad Martin." - Yeah. But no, she was fine. She went up, and she said, "Why have you got no underpants on?" You hooked her up on the wires, right? - Yeah, she loved that. I liked that. I liked doing all the wire stuff. Yeah, so did I. I think you did the most takes... - Probably. ...on the wire stuff, because you would not let up. No, I like doing it. - I would let up. No, you'd just do it right. - Oh, thanks. Hey!

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Frank Morriss

Yes, we actually threw this guy out of the helicopter. Bill Ryusaki, who is a sensei master... ...was roped on to the helicopter, and harnessed and everything... ...so he could fall out and drop down about 20 feet out of camera. And then we'd have to haul him back up if we needed to do it again. We only had to throw him out three or four times. And even though he's a stunt guy, and skilled and brave as anything... ...it'll upset you. And I think it made him pretty sick. But he did such a good job there... ...that we brought him back on Point of No Return. .. ...to be teaching martial arts. You remember that, Frank? - Yeah. That's where you told me, "That's a sucker punch."

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Frank Morriss

Now, Candy Clark actually was a pretty wild driver. And she didn't do that particular stunt, but she did some that come up later... ...and I'll point them out. And I was foolish enough to get in the car... ...and ride with her while she was driving. Scared me to death. I'll tell you one thing, it's hard to read.

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Hoyt Yeatman

The guy who just went out the door-- This is Terry Leonard... ...one of the great stuntmen of Hollywood. He was our stunt coordinator. And he's a phenomenal guy who's done... ...the most amazing stunts in Westerns where he's being dragged... ...by a stagecoach, right in between the horses. Terry directs a great deal, so we were very lucky to have him. And one reason I bring it up... ...is he's got a lot of broken bones and hips and pelvis and so on... ...he's accumulated over the years... ...and yet he insisted on doing this stunt where he falls down. And the reason he insisted on it was, he felt bad... ...because the guy he hired for the job couldn't show up... ...was stuck on a movie at Universal that went over on the day. And he said, "Well, I'll do it. I'll do it." And I said, "Terry, you can't. Your bones won't stand for it." "Oh, no, it's fine." That's how nuts these stunt guys can be. This car was being driven by great stunt driver, Carey Loftin. Carey Loftin did all the driving in Bullitt. .. ...that Steve McQueen did not do. And he was a phenomenal, phenomenal driver... ...and he was pretty elderly at this time. He was almost 70... ...but he could still whip that car around like nobody's business.

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when you get tonight, especially when you have explosions and fireworks and helicopters going over. It looks like the fucking Dirty Dozen and shit. It's amazing. That stunt, which is obviously coming up, it is...

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The next day we'd see dailies and then drive through rush hour traffic. You know, Kevin was pretty damn good with the bike. That's Kevin right there. It seemed like there was a lot of shots where that's not a stunt guy. You know, he's really rocking that triangle. Gary Heinze was our coordinator. Did an awesome job. And he's been for years the best bike guy in the business. And we just spent time in India with him training one of the Indian stars to ride a bike. Oh, he worked on it too. Wow. He came along too. It was not...

1:07:27 · jump to transcript →

anything like Kevin. He already knew it or he picked it up. He really looked convincing. He knew what he was doing in a lot of this. And we had a good double for death-defying stuff. Yeah, yeah, of course. All right, here's a stunt. This is a toe gag. No CGI, not even really regular visual effects. We just did this. This was a trifecta. Every element you see in the shot was in the shot. The bike, the truck, and the helicopter. The bike, the truck, and the helicopter. And gunshots. Just a couple different camera angles, shit flying around. It was terrifying. How many cameras did you have on it?

1:07:57 · jump to transcript →

Yeah, and the stunt here is interesting because the stunt coordinator, whose name is Charles Petroni, and this was the first time anyone had used this kind of technology, this repeller technology to come out of a helicopter. And Ken Bates actually won an Academy Award for using this. And the building we scouted in downtown LA was an old school, I believe. And it was the first time

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this film i just want to say i was the first person to do the severed eye uh opening a door trick which now movies yes that's become a staple staple demolition man we were there first we're going to keep saying that and wesley trained he trained for a couple of months with uh martial arts experts and he did a lot of his own stunts which was really

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And this was the stunt coordinator, actually, he's fighting right now. Oh, wow. Get him! Yeah, for all we know, these are just more villains, but, you know, I like the revelation. This is very cartoony. I love Dennis Leary's line, what a fucking hero.

1:01:28 · jump to transcript →

I will leave here now. They're not very good security guys. No. No, they're very weak. They have very weak wrists. Well, we noticed the Canadians didn't like to do stuff full speed. Right. No. We had a little... Some of the stunts. Remember, I have to ask them to go faster? Yeah. I thought we could speed it up in post. Jump out of a movie? They're all talking to each other. One of my favorite moments is everyone literally laughing at him. That was like... You're crying and they're laughing.

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We're golden. Right. Nobody told me about the profit thing, so I didn't get upset when that didn't happen. Yeah, we were in profit. That was a real stunt. Yeah. And that was Jeff Sessions. No, no, no, no. That wasn't Jeff Sessions. And also, you're dating this whole thing. He'll be long dead by the time people see this. Yeah, this is the gag that I thought was great. And it's really a Warner Brothers cartoon. Yeah, yeah.

13:57 · jump to transcript →

Yes. Steven Page. Made a point of not letting us do masturbation. This is the broke your ankle. Steven Page from Bare Naked Ladies. David broke his ankle doing that stunt that you just saw. Yes. On the second take. Yeah. On the first take. And they were thrilled. Let me do one more. Yeah. And this is the Bare Naked Ladies when they were still all together. Yeah. Yes. And they wrote an original song for the movie that they sing for us. Yeah.

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Again, I know I sound like I'm blowing smoke, but I don't have to work with any of these actors again, so it's not like I have to, please. Although I'd work with all of them again in a hot second. Notice that guy? There's one of those extras there who's got this huge... See that over to the right? See that guy? Doesn't he look ridiculous? It's like I kept saying I didn't want Caucasian Arab stunt guys in London. That's what I kept getting. So we had to cover some guys up with...

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With really great-looking beards, I might add. Oh, God. What you try to do is you try to keep... When you have a little problem like that, you just try to keep things moving. And hopefully you won't... But we had a terrific stunt team. I mean, this whole movie is very multinational. I think the stuntmen came from... I know they came from Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Czechoslovakia, England, France...

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Odette, several times, I thought at one time he broke his nose, but these actors really had to put up with a lot. No, they don't do all their own stunts, but in a movie like this, you get thrown around and beat and punched and kicked and knocked and thrown off of horses and camels. There's no two ways around it.

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big stunt or action set piece, which is what you might expect. The idea of starting in the most intense, unexpected, intimate, scary way and see Ethan in a way you've never seen him before. And your vulnerability in this scene, especially in this moment when you see just how scared you are at this whole situation.

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That's real. This is all real. No, that's all real. No, that's all real. It's not CGI. No, that's CGI. Now, this is a stunt we came up with that night. Well, we got that place, and Tom was saying, you know, the way we come down, it should be cooler. And you figured out this thing that if the car stops...

21:12 · jump to transcript →

It threw us forward. The thing is that Ving, of course, couldn't be driving doing that. That was a stunt driver driving. And as soon as the camera went away from the car, Ving ran in. He was off camera. God, what is that? You can't hear that? What's wrong with her? Now, Carrie really set the pace for me later when I have that in my head... ...because I basically just did her version.

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Paul M. Sammon

But Peter could also be a method actor. And when he was in the suit, he always wanted to be called Robo, which I thought was kind of silly. But, you know, there you go. Method is method, and each performer has their different way. But, oh, by the way, this man just getting shot, that's Russell Towery. That is Robo stand-in. Any of the stunts.

1:02:21 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

This was a Texas stunt guy. The way they stopped that motorcycle is they had a hidden cable on it, and he went over the bars. Now again, we're still in LA, down in the industrial area. This place has been shot so many times for so many films, it does not look like this now.

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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 →

Not because of some big stunt or anything. No, I was just walking down some steps with some heels on. And with Stuart watching. Yes, and with Stuart watching. This was an interesting scene because when it was scripted, we never knew we were talking about shooting it or going in with special effects to kind of see the tongue taking the pill. And then we never did anything digital because I was lucky enough to get my real boy there.

4:02 · jump to transcript →

It's a little difficult talking about you when you're sitting right next to me, but I think that it's important to mention that Charlie Crowell, who is our stunt coordinator, put together an amazing team to both train and to stunt rig for these very complicated action sequences. And one of the first things that Charlie said to me was that he had never worked with an actor

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male or female, who got it as quickly and made the process so easy and made the stunt team look so good as Charlize, that she has a natural facility. And it seemed so important to the character as well that because Charlize is in 99% of the action sequences, that that becomes so much part of the character. It's not...

18:15 · jump to transcript →

that information. And... I remember seeing these dailies and just thinking this was totally dope. It's just like, oh my word, the scale of this, I love all the cast there, all the extras, the characters behind them, it's so good. Yeah, most of them, most of them are actually stunts, loved working with these two and their first day on the movie. Yeah. When they showed up, I handed them a couple of pages of dialogue and said, don't worry,

31:47 · jump to transcript →

the steering in the car, and now the stunt driver is trying to control the car. And it just had a mind of its own. And we added the bus later and just used the shot. You'll see this was a little bit longer. They used to spin around in front of the wedding cake monument. Well, that was it. We were getting a lot of notes about length in the car chase and in the train, and we just kept pulling out shots one at a time. And in the end... There was also, there was a sense that the...

1:01:04 · jump to transcript →

There was an eight-foot-high sculpture of smashed scooters. And here we are. This is the essence of this chase. For all the energy and all the resources that go into it, the cops, the stunt performers, the street closures, none of it would work without the performance of these two actors. And speaking editorially... And always covering them, almost always, in a two-shot. There were very few single shots. And that means that

1:02:02 · jump to transcript →

Well, and I love when it rains and they play that as a sound blip on the radio. God, I've been giving Sean credit for that. Well, believe me, Sean gets credit for a lot. He's just amazing. Now, Amy, how do you feel about these big stunts here? You've got a stunt going. I know, and I'm a girl, and I fail the driver's test five times, so cars totally scare me.

44:27 · jump to transcript →

You know, this is the kind of thing where, like, everything's planned out. The stunt guys come with their little matchbox cars, and it's all storyboarded, and then you just... It's when you really have nothing to do. It's like you sit back, and then it gets accomplished, or not. But they pulled this off. They made this look great. That's good. Now, was the full set of tools yours? I love that. He's got the full set of tools. Don't remember.

44:56 · jump to transcript →

And then we went and we shot the actual, you know, our actors, our cheerleaders and Sean and all of that. And we had to shoot the game. And I didn't have any of this, like, heavy-duty, you know, body-crunching stunts and the close-ups of Forrest, you know, making animal noises. That's not me. And the studio...

47:23 · jump to transcript →

Oh, the to fuck your wife line? Yes. He asks me where I'm going in Spanish, and I tell him to fuck your wife. That's very good. That's a great shot. That's a shot by Tom Richmond. Tom Richmond is up on the bridge covering that from another angle. That's great. Great shot. Very good stunt driving by Bobby Ellis. Very good. Bobby Ellis, an outstanding, outstanding player. Outstanding teamster and outstanding... Here it comes. Here comes the...

22:47 · jump to transcript →

exactly what it is. We laid Venetta's lines in on the post also about the hot, the car being hot, et cetera. That's where I put it in the Roswell, New Mexico town. He's still doing much right of the Valkyries. Dick Rude's stunt. Oh, you know that hurt. Planned or non-planned? This right here, Del. He sort of planned it, I think. So good, so good, so good right there. You look...

47:54 · jump to transcript →

into the pocket. Alex always insists that his actors do all their own stunts. Remember Eddie was mad because there was garbage on the ground? Oh, he didn't think there should be garbage. Yeah, he says, garbage, I don't like this garbage when I come out.

48:24 · jump to transcript →

There it is. That's the money right there. Back left pocket, which is where I still keep all my folded signals. I remember this. It's so sad, but you love doing this. You love doing this. Are you kidding? I thought I was Harrison Ford. You did. You were all over this. I thought I was one of the Duke boys. He was doing stunts. Mac was doing stunts. He was very into this. That's the thing that's funny.

6:06 · jump to transcript →

You know, that's the thing. I'm still waiting for my barge. But, you know, absolutely. Wait, so seriously, though, and this is, I hope viewers aren't frustrated that we're not commenting on these spectacular stunts. Believe me, they're going to be much more into this. But wait, so we were about halfway through filming when...

13:57 · jump to transcript →

Yeah, well, that was kind of them to actually have you wait 10 more minutes instead of having to do it again. I think he was being kind to all of us. I would concur with that. Yeah, absolutely. Sustained. So, yeah, I remember that Rod, our director, was freaking out at that point because you had a stunt woman, actually. Your stunt person was a woman, I think, in her 30s or 40s? Probably, yeah.

16:27 · jump to transcript →

Macaulay Culkin

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 →

Macaulay Culkin

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 →

Macaulay Culkin

There's a Barry Bonds baseball card. - Yep. For those who wanted to see Barry in his younger, thinner days. Um.... Now, this was actually the real house here, which was in Winnetka, Illinois... ...and, um.... It was interesting because we were... We were able to shoot a great deal of the film at this house. None of the interiors that you see in the film were shot here... . UM... ...but this house worked out very well for us. Strangely enough, you know, with today's budgets... ...we would've built the back of that house completely... ...because the fact that we did all of those stunts later in the film... ...on the actual location was just ridiculous. And they were very friendly. - They were great. They had T-shirts made up. - They loved it. They used to have hot chocolate and stuff for us... ...and invite us in. They were great. They were a great family. It's incredible because I see... ...the things people do to people's apartments and houses... ...when they rent them out, like, you Know, for production. I'm like, "I'd never do that." - No, I know. Once you learn... Once you've seen it done, you know... Not to discourage any of you guys out there listening... ...to renting out your houses to future productions. But make sure you're paid very well. - Yes. That voice on the answering machine was Raja Gosnell... ...who was the editor of this picture... ...who's gone on to become a director in his own right. I

37:15 · jump to transcript →

The stunt guys were fantastic on this. There was a fella called Mick Rogers and Simon Crane. I had to have two of them because it was such a huge job. Overall, I had a good team of guys.

51:00 · jump to transcript →

to display exactly what was going on, almost like sports coverage, so that there wasn't a dull moment where you lose interest because you don't know what's going on, where it just turns murky. So that was very, you know, we got a table and little plastic soldiers and myself and the stunt coordinator and the first AD and the camera guy and all the heads of department got together and we planned this battle. And we made it up as we went along. I mean, of course, we borrowed from medieval battles.

1:21:27 · jump to transcript →

And the style of the editing in the battle is just what I wanted. It's just very fast and staccato, and it just moves from piece to piece, and it's mostly just kills. And it's really quite brutal in your face. Of course, this is where the stunt guys and the camera guys and the makeup guys and everybody just came into their own. The editing, spectacular.

1:29:16 · jump to transcript →