Stunts & stunt coordination

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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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 Guarda, 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

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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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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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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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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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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Oded, 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...

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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, Keri 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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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.

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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 Croughwell, 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...

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Rob Cohen

the first stunts we did in the movie. The movie was choreographed by Vic Armstrong, my amazing, well, everybody's amazing stunt coordinator and action unit director. He was my partner in all of this madness and a greater guy you'll never find. His name is synonymous with

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Rob Cohen

went there and began to lay out how something that was on the move at 30, 40 miles an hour, whatever horses can do, was on screen for some six minutes and how to do all these stunts. And this was one of the best and most fun technical challenges I ever had because I had this one idea.

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Rob Cohen

The actors should do it all. And if you watch the chase, you will see that there are very few times when there are stunt actors in the chase. And Vic and I had to work really hard to figure out how to make Brendan and Maria and John Hannah, all of them, safe.

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Jed played a character called Void, who was a punk rocker who ultimately gets chopped in half and walks around like this walking torso kind of guy. He also plays the soldier of Rohan who finds Thadred in the water in the very beginning of this extended cut. He's also played numerous elves. And stunt riders too, actually. Jed's a great rider and he did a lot of the horse kind of stunt work for us as well. And numerous orcs. Well, that's right. He's at the beginning of the movie with Miriam Pippin, isn't he? He's the orc that kind of...

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women and children. It sort of gives the battle a purpose really beyond just defending a stone castle you know you're obviously now defending the women and children and in a sense the future of your own race really. The stunt guys were amazing they just you know got drenching soaking wet because all this rain was coming from rain towers

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Another mixture of completely digital Uruk-hai with close-ups for real. We never actually had more than 100 Uruk-hai in any shots. We never built more than 100 costumes for Uruk-hai. And so we were limited in a sense of what we could actually shoot with the extras and the stunt guys. So any time that you're looking at more than 100 in a shot, you are looking at a lot of CG guys.

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He's actually right-handed. Oh, yeah. And my brother was explaining to him, if you're gonna come down with a wall on your right side, you're gonna want to hold the shotgun left-handed. That's a good catch. And Taye spent all day practicing lefty. And then later in the scene, I said, you know, at this moment, you really don't need to be lefty. In the alley with the kitchen? Yeah, in the later alley. Nicky Katt driving all of his own stunts throughout the movie. And the seatbelt shot, by the way, is at the request of Dick Pope, who loves the scene in Bullitt. Oh, right. When they all put on their belts. That's funny.

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Every time I see you coming around the corner, I see the barrel of your gun or I see your foot, I know you're coming. You've got to just come around the corner. And then as we were choreographing the scene, I looked down and saw the stunt guy's foot. And I just said, shoot him in the foot. And it got us out. It would have taken forever. There were squibs and all this other. It was this long choreographed scene and shooting him in the foot worked so much better. It's funny. Of course, sending a prop guy down to the prop truck to rig an exploding shoe unexpectedly.

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Jimmy Caan always reminds me of the stunt show at Universal here. Just popping out of the blinds of the shutters. Trying to make sense of all... This was, by the way, meticulously, meticulously storyboarded. We had a map of the location, and my brother and I took plastic cowboys and Indians. Wow. And I said, okay, for a moment, you're Parker and Longbaugh. Now, where are you going to go to get to the money? And then said, stop, and now be the bag men. And where are you going to go to get Parker and Longbaugh? And it was like playing chess.

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Noah Baumbach

This jellyfish, electric jellyfish scene, I kept Cate separated from all the other people so she hadn't been introduced to any of the actors. And we shot all of it with Cate in the trailer. And we didn't bring her out until we filmed her shots. So for Cate, it was very strange because it was about 5:00 in the morning by the time we got to her angle, and the wind's blowing, and these electric jellyfish are blinking on the beach and there's Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, our friend Waris, Niels, Noah, all in their pajamas on this beach with a crew of people she's never met, and she's brought out, and it was very strange. And I've not really been that big on doing those kind of stunts, but I felt like it might be something, that something might come out of it. And there was, there was a crazy energy on it. And she played this whole scene with them confronting her, and then as soon as we finished it, everybody was introduced to each other and it was... And the sun came up.

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Noah Baumbach

And here's Bud. Bud in his first scene that we shot. And I-- Yeah, Bud is... Bud Cort, who we have admired in Harold and Maude and... Brewster McCloud. Brewster McCloud, the Altman movie, and all the way through to recent films like Pollock, and he had a great small part in Heat. And we had become friends with Bud. I got to know him in California. Noah, you met him in New York, right? - Yeah. And we just wrote this role for him because we wanted... This is where the little tag talks about that you're not supposed to fly these helicopters. And that's Waris Ahluwalia, who was standing on the deck, on the helipads we fly over. I remember the stunt guy saying, "We got a marvelous angle. You see the Indian perfectly as you approach." Waris was standing right next to him. You thought, "They still have a ways to go in Italy." Waris was next to him laughing as he described him as "the Indian." This is "Gut Feeling" by Devo that plays through this scene. You had talked about using this song, I think, pretty early on. I mean, when you were writing it. I think we played it a little while we were writing up the scene, this montage. You like montages. You use a lot of montages in all your movies. Yeah, I like a certain kind of montage where, basically, we can play some music and for a movie like this, anyway, I feel like we want to make as many... We want to get as many jokes into a montage like this. So I feel like each beat of the montage needs something. It's gonna tell the story, and hopefully we can make it into something like a joke. There's one in Rushmore where he has all these different clubs that he does, and we try to kind of make it a gag with each club. And that's sort of the way I always approach these. It's just a musical interlude and jump ahead in the story.

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Noah Baumbach

One thing that was always appealing to us was the idea of having Bill Murray, who'd never-- I don't know if he'd fired a gun in a movie before. In Ghostbusters it was kind of a gun. And he'd fired some guns in Razor's Edge, he's at war. I know he shoots out some headlights in Razor's Edge. Right. - But here he was for an action hero. The first one time as action hero, but he plays the giant action scene-- I say "giant," but-- For us, giant. The action scene in a striped Speedo, a bathrobe, and flip-flops. Well, we'd also talked about sort of the choice of the music, you know, the-- You know, the-- Like you were saying about the color timing and the, you know, the sort of score you use... here, sort of breaks into sort of the Iggy Pop song, which I think sort of brings us back into the sort of playful Zissou world, you know, that sort of-- - The Iggy Pop. The Iggy Pop does. You'd talked about at one point maybe doing it all silent. At one point, we had a version that didn't have any gunshots or anything like that, and all the sound was gone. It was totally silent, we had some music playing, and the effect was much more grave. When we put this music on-- I liked the other way too, but this seemed maybe to be more right for the way the whole movie needed to work. I don't know if I-- I feel like I could've shot more coverage on this. We were struggling. It's got an energy though. I'm not a professional action-sequence director, but I can do better. I guess Bill Murray also fired a gun at the end of Stripes. I think they go to Argentina to rescue some people. One thing with Bill, put a gun in his hand and he can't wait to empty the magazine. This is interesting. We had to throw this gun into the-- Well, you can't throw a gun into the ocean. So actually, he switches hands with the prop guy who's out below the frame and gives him a rubber gun to throw. But we did, when he knocks that guy out and throws him overboard in the earlier part of that scene, we lost a gun. Bill actually accidentally hit the guy, and the guy went in the water, was knocked out by Bill hitting him, and his gun fell, and Bill's gun fell into-- The gun Bill was grabbing out of his hand fell in the water. And then they said we couldn't shoot anymore, and they called the police, who came out and flew over helicopters while our Marines searched for it. I was like, "Can't we keep shooting while we look?" "No." And we were worried our stunt guy was going to get arrested. But then the Marine guys found it in the bottom of the ocean there, which is only like 20 feet deep or something there. But they found the gun, brought it back up, and we were allowed to continue when the helicopters went away. That's why you went a few days over. Things like that. - Variety of things, yeah. How you holding up there, intern? Doing okay?

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Nope. There we go. We added a little stuff there. There it is. That's the one that got me going. Look at that shit. Very serious there. I can't compete with that. Okay, now coming up here is some great stunt work by Robert. Yeah, we did this about 16 times, if I remember. And this is all improv on Robert's... This one. Peek-a-boo, I see you. Where did that come from? There it is. Now that's Robert. That's Robert doing that. You wouldn't tell because it's so wide.

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How was it doing that shot, doing that roll? Because that was a one-take deal. It was adrenaline incarnate, man. Yeah. I wasn't wanting to carry a brother right here, though. Yeah, no, all through the prep of the movie, you were upset about this scene because you had to carry me. And then you had to carry me at the end of the movie, too. Now, Jack, that little roll was not easy. That was my stunt. This is good. Look at the eyes. That's not me, believe it or not.

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Boom. Jesus. Yeah. And that was your stunt guy, Jimmy, did that drop. Jimmy's the best. Yeah. And there it is. What's going through your head, man? You ain't going nowhere. It's just like the mashed potatoes. It was sexy. Yeah. He was Richard Dreyfuss in that moment. Definitely a little Close Encounters moment there.

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The fights are really nice in this picture, Patrick. They're really on par with the other two, certainly. Allan Poppleton was our New Zealand stunt coordinator. He did a fantastic job. - He did a great job, yeah. So, what you're seeing here is actually the set... ... you're gonna see later in the movie, an early stage of the castle. We tried to minimalise the dressing so it felt a little different. But it's basically the same space that you'll see later. And this was the first day of shooting. - Yeah, the balcony part. Yup. The big reveal. Wanna tell you a story about the castle. The castle is such a gigantic structure. Of course, there was no way to build this. We ended up building the, what you would call, the courtyard of the castle. How many feet tall, Richard? - About 20 feet. Twenty-five, 30 feet, yeah. Which was a little challenging for the lighting... ...because we were there on top of the set. When we started, it was difficult for CGI guys to kind of extend that. Yeah, it was terrible for Sound too. Every time it rained, we'd stop shooting. The train outside, the train station? - Yeah, the train... Note to self: Do not build set next to railroad tracks next time. We have a few transformation... ...but this one actually is not a transformation. It looks like one, but everything is practical. There's nothing mechanical or anything. I love it. It's a little more American Werewolf in London approach. There is no CG help whatsoever, though. Unlike the others.... This took a while to get right, just this whole prelude... ...and Kate's voiceover, and getting people caught up. There is a lot of history, and to decide, you know, where exactly to start... ...and how much to prep it with. Hopefully, we covered everything we needed to. It looks like we moved really quickly through. I wish we had a little bit more space, a little bit more in the... Yeah. - There's so much story to....

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Bring them in. SO, like, the nobles are coming now. When we just started to play with the movie... ...and the look, the nobles should be the one that... The only touches of colour in the movie. Because we're in the Underworld world... ...Which is very blue and brown. We're trying to bring colour from those guys. They're the only few people that should be looking... ...also like the actual period of time, which is 12th century. And, you know, the vampire world is a little tweaked. It goes, you know, it feels futuristic and past. Those guys should feel like the period. That's more or less, the way the people look at the time. So it was fun to do something, in some ways, truly period-y. This is our biggest set, the great hall set. When you see the wide shot, the entire thing is set. We built the entire thing. There's no set extensions at all. lt was a huge set, but it was one of the first things that we shot in the film. And being in that big cathedral-type space... ...Was great for everybody, because it really got everybody... ...1nto the spirit of the film, and really feeling positive... ...about the production design and how great everything was gonna look. Tim Raby, I mean, when we did the casting... -... Tim Raby is playing the, you know... - Janosh. I just love the way... Yeah, he was fun. He's good actor. He's fantastic actor. I also love the way you did when Viktor actually rushes over... ...I love that you stayed in Coloman. Yeah. - You just see that... It's almost like, watch this look, and it looks like: "Oh, God, here we go." And he just, I guess, supernatural freak of motion... ...and Coloman's look was like, "Oh, shit." It's coming now, and now. Remember this, though? The first time we shot this stunt, they forgot to turn the camera on. The guy had to go back and do it over again. "What do you mean the camera was not on?" It's, like, one of those classic movie moments. So I always felt we went slightly overboard on the impact. But, you know, it's an old castle. You could believe the rock Is bit... - I love that shot. Oh, yeah, this one. It was littlke much, but... Viktor giving benediction to the other nobles.

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It's nice when you have actors that can ride horses like that. You don't have to get stunt doubles. New Zealanders are like that. They're tough. That's the blood stuff. Bill loved it. He's so enjoying it. Bill is a very sloppy drinker. - Yeah. And fake blood doesn't taste very good.

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Oh, these guys are great, like top of the line. Yuen Woo-ping, of course, had his guys in the martial arts and doing the wire work and the stunt stuff. And Tim Yip in the art department. Everybody had these just incredible, they're like gangs. They actually, they're directors. Mr. Yuen Woo-ping, he directs a lot more movies than I did. That's right. Very successful blockbusters, very, very successful films. Drunken Master. A whole lot.

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Ang is making a veiled reference to the fact that I've always wanted to cut this scene down during press production. It's like, okay, come on, okay, enough is enough. Plus that shot looks so fake. But also the entire crew being completely in love with the Mongolian horsewoman who was the stunt devil for a couple of these shots, who was incredible. We just put them on horse, the actors. Yeah.

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And Jasmine, Chow Yun-Fat's wife, went to the bathroom. Remember this? I don't know. I never asked you if this was on purpose. But usually one would make the request for stunt work through Jasmine. But somehow you went directly to Chow and said, hey, Chow, would you mind going 75 feet high up on these wires? He was like, sure, I'd love to do that. And I'll never forget when she got back from the bathroom and looked and says, where's Chow? And looked at her and went, no!

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Doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to guess that not a lot of this was actually Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee. That's the great thing with doing stunt fights with guys with long hair and beards is that you can disguise a stuntman relatively well. I think even the stuntman sustained some injuries from that scene, didn't he? Yeah, one of them cracked their head badly on the side of a trampoline when they were going to land on a trampoline and they fell short and they actually hit the metal part of the trampoline on the back of their head.

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a little bit. But it wasn't even that. What we discovered, when we discovered that the proper pronunciation is toque, I did a little bit more reading and realised, of course, the toques, the head of the family is the thane, and then one of their ancestors invented golf. I decided that I think Professor Tolkien was in fact telling us that he was Scottish. So that was brilliant. Out of all the stunts that we did in the movies,

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The Amon Hen fight was choreographed by our wonderful sword master, Bob Anderson, who did a great job training all of the stunt guys who, you know, we were using stuntmen who had done movies in New Zealand before, but had never obviously used swords and axes and things, and our actors had to be trained up. Well, Sean Bean has used a sword before, no? Sean was probably the most experienced of our sword-wielding actors.

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E. Elias Merhige

Answer me, Herr Doktor. Is this some stunt to evoke fear in us? Henrik, stop being so theatrical. You'll wake the whole house. Go on up, Wolf, and have a brandy. You'll feel better in the morning. What's happened? He's ill, obviously. Take him upstairs and then go outside and help Herr Grau with the camera equipment. Bring the cameras straight to my room, I know. Prepare for tomorrow.

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E. Elias Merhige

The interesting thing here is that this is a real stunt. This is where off the side of the mountain we had a stuntman just fall about

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Ridley Scott

He actually said fucking students, thinking it was a stunt, until then people go silent and look at it and think, wait a minute, this looks awfully real. So there's a brief hiatus before the panic. And Hannibal works that kind of thing out. He knows if he walks out briskly, he can leave before the hue and cry begins. That's exactly what happens here.

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Ridley Scott

I don't let actors do their own stunts. It's too dodgy. She slips. But she's an excellent double, so... She did all her own shooting in the fish market and all that stuff. All the running and the rough and tumble, she did all that. But that's a bit tricky. And like all stunts, the closer the better.

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Barry Sonnenfeld

That was his stunt double flipping over. Once he landed... ...we tricked that guy out and Tommy Lee Jones into the shot seamlessly... ...SO it looks like Tommy did that flip.

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Barry Sonnenfeld

Will actually did that and went all the way up into the ceiling. Then we took him down... ...and his stunt double, Randy, was dropped into those tubes. But Will did almost all of his own stunts in this whole movie. All of this stuff, Will is on wire, holding on to green bags and stuff... ...being pulled around the room.

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It's hard to pull off this stunt with rising excitement, meanwhile. I'm amazed by him in this scene. It is a very hard thing to pull off. This is an example of a scene that my editor, Mark, was particular about, collaborating with me and telling me, "Brett, how are you gonna pull this off?" I said, "I don't know, I'll just shoot it." He had me bring Edward to the edit room and took a video camera and shot the scene for me, before showing the way it might intercut since there are devices in here which are the flashes, and you've seen it in hundreds of films and I didn't want it to be false. He said, "I have an idea of how to do this." He shot the scene for me before I shot it. It was a great reference. We adjusted and tweaked things, but this is all protecting the cliché. You can see the power that editing brings to a sequence like this. It startles you and moves the story forward in a way that the story is always a leap or two ahead of the audience. And pulling them along behind it. That's a function of great editing. It is important here because once the audience is ahead of you, you're in trouble, they are sleeping. It's the same thing on The Silence of the Lambs, I used to worry that we were cutting so many tiny beats that the audience would be confused. And Jonathan Demme said, "Better if they're confused "for five minutes than bored for five seconds." And this film is very tightly edited. Gentlemen. Ladies. This is what the subject's teeth look like. The impressions came from bite marks on Mrs. Leeds. This degree of crookedness... Here we... Where was this? - This was shot in LA. This is shot in LA in a government building that the city gave us. Here's Bill Duke. - He's one of my favorite actors. Again, an example of the meticulousness that Brett brings to casting. These wonderful actors who could be the stars of their own movies, who are playing supporting parts in this. I literally called them and begged them to be in the movie. I love actors. I love great actors. I spend as much time on the smaller roles as I do on the bigger roles. It's important because an actor who has one line can take you out of the movie and hurt it in my opinion. It goes back to the whole question of tone. A single wrong note will make an audience self-conscious, and pull them out of the movie. This film is the opposite of any of the films I've ever done. Family Man, that had dramatic moments, was still a comedy. So you can go farther with realism, but this especially, when it's dealing with the FBI, forensics, and scientific... -[t has to be grounded in reality. - Very grounded. In order for the audience to accept the extravagant parts of the movie, the more baroque characters in the movie like Dolarhyde and Lecter, scenes like this have to be very credibly rooted in police reality, in procedural reality. Would you give that up? The other thing also is, when we're talking about the tone, the choice... I was thinking about It, why I really chose not to show, not only because of Silence, because even Silence might've shown more violence than this film. Really, because the only scene we have is the biting of the lips. We certainly tried to hold it down. But I think the reason was because when I went to the FBI at Quantico and started looking at all these visuals of serial killers' work, it was so disturbing to me. It really bothered me. I said, "Why do I want to do this to audiences? "It'll completely turn them off." As with Silence, what you really want to do with this movie is a detective story. You really want to do a psychological thriller, a detective story. You're not trying to make a horror movie at all. Sometimes they're referred to as horror movies. I've never understood that. To me, these are thrillers, detective movies. In this scene, Harvey's Jewishness really comes out. "You're the light of my life." He sounds like my grandmother. I love that line. I can't answer more questions. Here's Philip Seymour Hoffman, a great actor. Who we should not have been lucky enough to get for this small part. Yeah. He actually wanted to play Dolarhyde, and I wanted Ralph to do it. I had dinner with him, and then called them back a week later. He wanted to play Dolarhyde, and his schedule wouldn't let him do a bigger part anyway. And then I called him and said, "I think you should do Freddy Lounds." He said, "Let me read it again." Then he called and said, "I'll do it." He would've been good as Dolarhyde, in a different way. He would've been amazing. - I mean, a great actor is a chameleon. Remember? With the tubes hanging out of me? Forget that prick. This was a very difficult scene, too. This was difficult because... And this was a scene where Edward had a Iot of input as we were revising the script before we shot. Edward said, "This is a difficult transition for this character to make." Here he's out of the loop, he doesn't want to be involved in the investigation. He's sort of done a favor for his friend and mentor, Jack Crawford, but he doesn't want to get deeper into this 'cause of psychological and physical scars. Because of his commitment to his family, he doesn't want to do this. Now he has to do the most difficult thing he could possibly do, which is to confront Lecter again. There was a lot of back-and-forth and a lot of revision, and a lot of talk about how we might credibly motivate this transition in the story. Edward was actually very helpful here with his thoughts. I think it works. Because it's not the cliché of the guy jumping back... Getting back on the horse and showing off. I'm proud of how it turned out. Again, it was really Mark's editing of the scene. It's also Harvey's matter-of-fact performance here. It could, potentially, have been a real glitch in the story. Where the audience says, "He wouldn't go back to see Lecter again. "He's scared to death of Lecter."

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This whole thing was in the script. The first shot was exactly the way it was in the book, which was, it took place on an open beach. Right. I said, "Ted, I just feel like... "I don't know how to shoot suspense on an open beach. I just don't know." We changed the ending of the book, and everybody had a contribution. Dino and Martha said, "The boy has to be in more jeopardy. "The son has to be in more jeopardy, that's what will make this work." Brett said, "It has to be more claustrophobic. "Interiors are scarier than exteriors. "We have to have hallways with doors where he could appear from anywhere." And then this great, great moment with the mirror which is pure Brett Ratner. It was not in the screenplay originally. It was Brett's idea that the reveal to this character should be the broken mirror. It was wonderful. This sequence is an excellent example of how a screenplay evolves from the producers, from the director, and from the writer. And what I wanted, which was not in the original ending of the book, was for Will Graham to be more heroic. And then we added... In the ending of the book, he's injured by Dolarhyde on the beach. The kid hooks Dolarhyde with a fishing rod. Graham Is injured on the beach and runs away and hides, leaving his family to deal with the bad guy. And I wanted Graham to be more heroic at the end here. So we each had a shopping list for this sequence and got what we wanted. I also wanted Graham to show cleverness here. He can't overwhelm Dolarhyde physically. But he can outthink him. That's what he's good at. And taking all this, because Ted even said to me, "Brett, I don't write action. I don't really do that." And so I said, "Okay." I sat down with my stunt coordinator, Conny Palmisano. We went through beat by beat of what could possibly happen physically. We called Ted and went through it, and he came up with this whole thing... Where he stabs his leg with a... He's got a second knife hidden. But the whole thing about him using what he saw in the book, which is much more heroic than anything else he could do physically. This was where we took quite a leap. And tried to use things that the book suggested but didn't actually dramatize. And it really worked. And Tyler Patrick Jones who's... Wonderful little boy. Who did an amazing job and went through hours and hours of being thrown to the ground and being yelled at, berated. And very smart and... He's the sweetest little boy. We should have put at the end, "No children were harmed during the making of this." It's not his first movie. - Yeah. He actually worked with Spielberg on Minority Report. He had a small part. He said he actually liked me more than he did Spielberg. So I was happy about that. Don't cry at me, you little faggot! He said my beard wasn't as big as Spielberg's. Nor your bank account. "I'm a freak." Say it! No. - Say it! Dad! - Say it, or I will cut it off! "I'm a dirty little beast." Ralph did a great job here, and he was nervous about this. "Is this gonna work, Brett?" That was his question. And I said, "Let's shoot it and find out." - We won't know until we finish. Sound Dogs did a great job on the sound design here. They did Family Man with me, and they work... I love how you drove this whole sequence. This just goes like a freight train, this sequence. It's a classic. It's like the end of Psycho or something. It's just a great, great suspense sequence. Every shot selection and the pauses. Josh? - Mom? Will? Where are you guys? I thought I heard some kind of... Will? Great set. It was great. It was modeled after a real house that we saw in the Keys. It had very narrow hallways. These types of doors. Rattan louvered doors. We needed the doors to be louvered, because Molly has to be able to reach through the door here in order to unlock it.

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This is our much more intense version of Jesse getting pinned to the wall. We actually redid this in visual effects with her splitting in half and her guts dripping out. But yeah, that was her stunt double for her, and that was real-time, in-camera, actually hit the wall. I thought she snapped her neck when we did that first stunt. We probably did it four takes. I could not believe how hard that stunt woman was great.

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How helpful is second unit? You know, because you lose some control over second unit, but you need them to finish. Yeah, and we had 52 days, but they had 35, which as a ratio to first unit, it's a pretty big second unit. So, you know, I mean, a lot of... And again, first unit, kind of the rule is we have to deal with the talent, we have to deal with the actors. Anything with dialogue falls on us first, and anything with stunts and anything with creatures...

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Roman Coppola

By the way, the driver is a Sikh driver from Mumbai who we brought in to be the stunt driver. But, in fact, this is-- I consider this to be stunt driving except for the fact that all he's doing is driving fast around Jodhpur. There's no blocked streets or any planned stunts of any kind. There's a degree to which driving in India is stunt driving just by virtue of getting in a car.

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Roman Coppola

I remember doing this scene was-- That driver? No, I don't remember the driver. Because he was-- That was a driver with henna hair who we always would see at the place where all the auto-rick drivers wait there. We would always see that same driver. He was our stunt driver for this shot. I remember this sequence, with the dialogue scene with the short story... Yeah. - ...we found a little hill so we could roll the rickshaw down the hill without having the motor on ruining the sound. Yes, that's right. We rumbled down the hill. And what's the name of that--? Of the boy on the bicycle? He was a... - Spot boy? He was a spot boy for us. He brought tea, chai, onto the set, and he was very bright. I'm trying to think of his name. One thing about Brendan's character, I just wanna-- Would just mention just as an homage is his hat-- There's a logo on his hat for Francis Whitman Industries, which is actually my father's business. I mean, he's retired now, but it was-- His business was called Mel Anderson Communications. That symbol was his-- It's his-- It's based on his logo. In this part of the train, we have Brendan's living quarters. I think this is the non-a.c. section. These cars on the Indian trains usually don't have windows. The engine, as you can see there, is-- The paint job on it is based on the Tata trucks that you see on the roads in India, hand-painted by the drivers.

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Ron Howard

countering the angles of the set, so there's never anything that looks flush or that's a right angle. Here's Bill Irwin. He worked this bit out with the ladder himself. I sent him off with some of our stunt guys, and he sorted out this routine. Very creative guy.

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In his world, really. Because your instinct would be to think these people are bullshitting. It's some kind of mighty trick that's being played upon me by... Who's that guy who plays that trick on you, you've been framed? Beedle. Beedle, he thinks. That must go through his mind at some point, then. It's some mighty TV reality stunt. But he kind of keeps you rooted in his own dilemma, really. And it's the first moment where he...

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