Stunts & stunt coordination

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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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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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.

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Yes. Steven Page. Made a point of not letting us do masturbation. This is the broke your ankle. Steven Page from Barenaked 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 Barenaked 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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produced some quality stuff and worked on it. And after this one, Navy Seals, he did What About Bob, House Sitters, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Star Trek Generations, Blood and Wine, Bowfinger, The Score, Daredevil, and a 2006 version of Charlotte's Web. So he's no slouch. I guess, you know, looking at all this action, I should also talk about the stunt coordinator, Bud Davis, because he's

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like i mean you got a lot of the people in this movie are really like top tier yeah people in their fields um bud davis began as a stunt man in the 60s he he had originally worked in finance but he hated wearing a suit and tie so he quit his job after six months and started working as a bartender wow and he was a bartender in a bar that was across the street from warner brothers from the war brothers lot wow and so he met all these stunt guys who would come in drinking after they would be shooting during the day and he really got drawn to that world and became friends with these stunt guys

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And one day when they needed an extra body one day, he jumped in and did a stunt. And then he just kept on doing it after that. He did stunts on some great cult movies in the 70s, like Race with the Devil and Hollywood Man. And he was the stunt coordinator on the original Town that Dreaded Sundown, which he also played the killer in. Oh, wow. Some of his major credits... He's the guy with the sack on his head? He's the guy with the sack on his head in Town that Dreaded Sundown. And...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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....

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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

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The stunt guys were fantastic on this. There was a fella called Mic Rodgers 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.

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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.

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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.

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I don't remember that, so I... No, you were probably busy doing stuff. It was one of those longer shots, and I was sitting... I'll show it to you. But you guys were far away. And so by the time I got there, you guys were moving on to something else. Right, we were like, oh, whatever, that worked. That's good, you didn't die. Okay, keep going. You know, you did a lot of your own stunts, so... Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot. Because I remember you saying, you know, it's a bit like being on Glee.

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And the stunt coordinator goes, good fall, Lori. Good roll. Because I hit the ground and I did a roll. And he's like, nice job. Okay. I want to back up and talk about some of the stuff that they cut out at the beginning of the film. Because they cut out the whole pre-credit sequence where they explain about the comet. They cut out... One of my favorite things that they cut out was the bedroom set. Because I recently talked...

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It's a comic book. That was awesome. I mean, she actually did that surfing on the... That's a stunt girl surfing on the tank. She actually did that without safety. I know. I'm just... That was... And then the leap, and that was incredible. Yeah, that leap just scared the Jesus out of me. And even the stunt guy's like... And the stunt coordinator was like, wow, that was really incredible.

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But in one take, he flicks the cigarette right into Baldwin's eye while it's flaming. And he freaked out and jumped at him and sort of shut the scene off. But I had a B camera on Benicio, so I was able to use the take where Baldwin gets hit in the eye. Right there. So that's real. There's no stunt involved in that cigarette hitting him in the eye. Yeah.

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Baldwin's a real trooper. Baldwin keeps saying, keep going, keep going, don't stop. Stephen did all his own stunts, and some of which, especially the one where he, at the end of the picture, where he falls face first onto the metal deck of the boat. Oh, five times? Five times, and... Smashing his face every time. Yeah. He's nearly fully recovered from the reconstructive surgery.

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It's really funny because all the Hungarian, of course, is done with our loop group. And so all the actors and the stunt people and all the people involved in the sequence spoke English. And then, you know, we laid the Hungarian over their voice. That quote, you see, belonged to Gary Jensen, our stunt coordinator. He gave it to us with his sole expressive purpose of blowing up. A whole lot has to be done. I've made one of them.

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You'd see that a lot on Entertainment Tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fun. Actually, that shot's coming up. I think it's the next shot. Yeah, this shot right here. Great hanging rig there that Simon Crane, our stunt coordinator, he'd just come off of Titanic and Saving Private Ryan, and it really looks like someone got hung. Brendan was just about to pass out there. Interesting, geeky, technical note here. Most of the scene is looped,

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Okay, here's where the stunt guy gets hurt coming up here. Oh, yeah, this guy got... And he... Now, in a different take, he wanted to... Actually, he was on a rig where he was going to fly, you know, 30 feet back and hit that pillar in the background, and he instead flew 60 feet back and over the top of the pillar and broke his collarbone and cracked his elbow. But like I said, he was more embarrassed than hurt. It's one of those things where you go, I guess we need another stunt guy. The stunt...

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Never want to be a fruit cart in the midst of a car chase. I always liked that eye poke. I always thought that worked out well. Here's another good little stunt right here. Just did a little wire removal and it looks like he hits the whole thing. If you notice carefully in some of the background shots right there you saw a light go by, one of our lights. It happened so fast we just kept it in the movie.

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And also, of course, the continuity of sequence... You show it through each shot separately, but you have to maintain the feel and continuity of light in each different shot. So this scene has some great overlapping imagery of effects. The first thing we'll see is the alien creature as it makes its way into the hospital room. It's done by seeing reflections and distorted angles of it through the different medical instruments. And it was a... This was a stunt man coming down on wires for part of it. Then he would invert, and then I was in the suit doing the actual attack through the plastic curtain.

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This attack was actually the first thing we shot - wasn't it, Tom? - with the alien, and as I recall the paint didn't quite match the arms. I'm always feeling like I'm seeing paler hands than arms on this shot. I think this was a stunt man, on wires, reaching down... Hanging down, upside down. So, you can freeze-frame it on DVD, and I think you'll see a clear demarcation between glove and suit.

1:09:55 · jump to transcript →

Here we have the beginning of the fire sequence, which was quite an operation, really. It was actually quite dangerous because one time we had a backdraft, I think they call it. And a couple of the guys got burnt, including one of the firemen. So these stunts were all shot by the second unit, in the capable hands of my dear friend Tony Spratling, who did a beautiful job here. Obviously, we shot the stuff with the main artists, but Tony matched my images beautifully, I thought. Tony Spratling, of course, had done two or three second units for me on other pictures, so we know exactly what each other's thinking. So our collaboration is always quite successful. We don't have to speak too much about what we're going to do. He's a very good man. Yeah, we were there for the set-up of it, and we thought maybe it would be better to watch this from behind the video monitors. But there were some huge explosions. They're also really seamlessly embellished by Richard Edlund and his guys at Boss Films, where they were shooting some miniature explosions and comping them in over the existing explosions. Really beautiful work. It was quite a sequence, this. And obviously, you know, as I say, difficult to shoot. Well, I mean, you can't underexpose flame. Flame is always going to be very bright. But the thing is to get the surrounding colors to match the firelight, so to speak, to suggest that the light is coming from the fire. Cos you do have to augment it. You can't just let firelight do the job. You have to also... Cos it's so bright that it just flares out everything. So you have to color the lamps, make them warmer, more orange to match the firelight. And the thing is to go for a deep exposure, if you can, to bring the light levels up, so that the flame is more orange. Because if you shoot it wide open, the flame is so bright that it just flares out, becomes so white it doesn't look like firelight, you know. So you have to color the lamps and get a good exposure so that you bring the level of the flame down to make it look natural.

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Beautiful backing there, by the way. That's fake. Yeah, that looks as real as anything. Okay, he jumps. Now, we were actually going to do a stunt and put him on a rappel line with a camera and follow him all the way down. Oh. And the night before, I could see Dick just had little beads of sweat on his brow like, okay, this will be great. Yeah, Fred, I'm looking forward to it. And then we just decided, you know what, it's really funnier if we just see him in the background splat to the ground.

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But, no, I wasn't kidding about the Jackie Chan stunt school approach and Chewie Hark. And, you know, I wish that when the shit hits the fan in this movie during the action scenes that you saw stuff you had never seen before. But, again, some of that are story choices. Now, we'll get to the ninja fight coming up. And I'm really, really unhappy with the ninja fight. I think it basically kills the movie. But in truth –

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We would have digitally put in the sparks at the bottom of the gun so you knew that the bullets were keeping it aloft. But we did that practically. Everything in this movie is analog. It's all practical. So you weren't utilizing any CGI really at this point? Except for the stuff that... The morph stuff. Yeah. And Delta City at the beginning. This is a terrific stunt coming up. Watch this.

1:09:46 · jump to transcript →

I think this is one of my favorite scenes, this thing in the med lab, where Ripley goes in and finally discovers what her true origin is, and where the audience discovers it, too. I think the reason I like it is because it's such a... Because we had a lot of creative freedom in coming up with the look of these alien clones. That was a big deal, to be able to go in and design all seven of these things, and have each one be so different. There was a lot of research into birth defects, as well as all the physical alien attributes that we would combine in various ways. We really wanted to get a feeling of pathos out of each one of these sculptures, so that you would see the pain and the torture that the evil corporate scientists had put these poor ghastly creations through. We had some great artists working on these, too. Jordu Schell was really key to the designs. Chris Cunningham did conceptual work on it as well. Steve Wang sculpted. Steve Koch. Mike Smithson did a great job sculpting as well. Mike Larrabee was painting. Didn't he paint all these? Him and Jim Hogue? Beautiful. These are all made out of translucent silicone. So many layers of skin to give them the right levels. The set design is just beautiful in this scene, too. Also having these things in these tanks of this badly-colored liquid is... It's made it very cool. Then the number seven clone, which was great, because Sigourney is so willing to stick her neck out and go through the grueling rigors of makeup, and she's OK making herself look bad. This was a mechanical body, with a silicone skin, that was grafted onto Sigourney. She was coming up through a slant board, through a hole in the table. Tom and I applied the neck makeup, along with Linda DeVetta, Sigourney's makeup artist. I really love the breathing mechanism on this in particular. The tube of liquids coming out of her body, there was some discussion as to whether or not we could get away with that. But look at her. And she sells it so well on both sides of this scene. Then we had to torch the actual one, didn't we? We built a stunt one for the fire gag, but, because it was so close in frame, we looked at it with Jean-Pierre and he said: "I know you want this for your display room, but it's gotta be in the foreground." So we said "Yep, you're right." And there it went. - That's it. We did get it back. It kinda turned into like an overcooked marshmallow. Luckily, for the rest of this scene, we got to make blow-up dummy copies of all of these clones. Look at her go. What impresses me about Sigourney is that she's... Look at the emotion there, while she's firing a big-ass flame-thrower. You know? It's really... She really makes this series, I think.

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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 →

So out of the water and up onto the tower, up onto the ladder. From underwater to sparks and steam. After three weeks of being underwater we ended up... For another two, three weeks on this set. Climbing the ladder. High, too. Perilously high. Like, three stories high. The stunt people on this film really earned their keep. Big stunt. Big, big stunt. For real. We showed just Winona falling in the water, and I just remember staying up there with the stunt girl doing that thing. I was very impressed by what she did because I was at the same height. Oh, God. And I saw this little hole there and I thought she would never... Every day we received some sparks from the top and it was hot, if I remember.

1:14:52 · jump to transcript →

It was really exciting to get to those moments in the movie when we were producing them, when we were making them, to see how Russell was going to do it. Because it wasn't like there were great stunts in the movie. There was a lot of physical stuff. There was fist fighting and jumping and stuff. But Russell did it all himself. And you had no problem believing it, the credibility he brings to that element of the movie. And subsequently in his career, on a lot of the bigger movies he's done physically, it's always been...

1:49:05 · jump to transcript →

There was, what happened that went wrong? That's right, I have to jump up on a, I jump up on a sort of deck by a window to shoot out the window. And I, as I jumped up onto the deck, I sort of gripped with my hand, the wrong hand and fired three shots off in the actual, in the motel. So lucky it was, there were blanks and not real bullets. I don't think I killed anyone. It was really well orchestrated obviously from a stunt point of view and

1:59:00 · jump to transcript →

And I went to the rehearsal in a van, laying flat on my back. We shot that in, I guess, June or July. And I had surgery in April. That whole scene at the bar, I was sitting on a little stool when I was in between takes. And all that stuff on the floor, that's Peter Bucossi. You know who Peter Bucossi is? Peter Bucossi is a stunt coordinator for sopranos.

54:28 · jump to transcript →

know actresses gymnasts stunt women um who have gone on to do other things also but it's pretty wild and oh oh sorry well i just want to interrupt you because he's only on for two seconds this is like a blink and you'll miss it cameo that guy playing the pilot was jimmy buffett the musician uh and he was here he was he was good friends with frank marshall and had played a cameo role in the marshall and kennedy produced hook as a pirate later he would also appear in another frank marshall production jurassic world

18:54 · 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 →

Alexander Payne

I want to point out that Reese actually fell and did that little stunt very well in one take. She didn't want to rely on a stunt person, and I didn't want to have to do that either. I like seeing the real thing, and we patted her a little bit, but she did it.

46:48 · 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 →