Interview With "The Fall Guy" Director David Leitch

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[00:00:29] You were listening to the Next Best Picture Podcast, and this is my interview with the

[00:00:34] director for The Fall Guy.

[00:01:02] Who I just so happen to have a major crush on.

[00:01:05] We need to keep it super professional. Cool. Do you want to make out?

[00:01:09] Nope. Because I don't need to. It's not what I'm into right now.

[00:01:11] Making out? Yeah. What are you into? Talking. Yeah.

[00:01:16] There's just one little wrinkle. The star of the movie. Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom,

[00:01:21] writer. He's missing. We need you to find him. Why me? You're a stuntman. No one's

[00:01:26] gonna notice whether you're here or not. No offense. I mean, some taken. Tom?

[00:01:32] Fall disclosure. He has fallen in with some shady people. Just checking in on you.

[00:01:36] And they're not gonna like you sniffing around. All right, I'm Matt Negli with

[00:01:40] Next Best Picture. David, thank you so much for coming back on the show again, man.

[00:01:44] Good to see you, Matt. You too, man. I am so excited for

[00:01:47] you for this movie, mostly because it's a love letter to part of the art form that I think

[00:01:53] all of us love, but yet at the same time it feels so underappreciated,

[00:01:58] and that is stunts in general, man. You've lived this, you've breathed this, and now it's

[00:02:03] finding a way into your storytelling in a way that's so overt that at this point in your career,

[00:02:10] I'm just curious. What does it mean to you to be able to get to this point

[00:02:15] where you were able to craft this love letter in this way?

[00:02:20] It means a lot. This movie's really personal, and it feels great that it's getting the

[00:02:25] reception that it is and that people see with the intention, and that we wanted it to be a love letter

[00:02:31] to the stunt community. We wanted it to be a love letter to the movies we like to go to see in

[00:02:37] the cinema, like the popcorn movies. There's action and comedy and romance.

[00:02:44] So really ultimately we wanted it to be a celebration of fun commercial movies

[00:02:50] and that don't always get the recognition whether it's because of stunts or whether it's

[00:02:54] because it's like, well that's not the type of thing that we would give recognition to,

[00:02:59] but it's the thing we all enjoy. And so I had two great actors as collaborators who are

[00:03:07] incredible dramatic actors that felt the same way and they leaned in and they brought these

[00:03:12] characters to life that you just root for and allowed us to have a lot of fun in that world.

[00:03:19] Yeah. And they represented the film also too so well on the Oscar stage together when they did that

[00:03:25] tribute to stunts. I'm curious to know because I talked with your buddy Chad Stahelski about this

[00:03:29] last year for John Wick chapter four. Are you having conversations with the academy too

[00:03:34] with regards to getting stunts recognized with body Oscars?

[00:03:53] What's an ice crime? Are you saying ice cream or ice crime? Ice crime.

[00:03:56] Okay, since with your answer this time I'm not reporting an ice cream.

[00:03:59] Yes, no I get that. Okay. Yeah there's a lot the the the discussions inside the academy have

[00:04:05] been going on for a long time and so that's not anything new that that Chad may have brought

[00:04:10] to light in that there's been members of the academy like Jack Gill legendary stunt coordinator

[00:04:17] Greg Smerz, Melissa Stubbs they've all been working internally and in fact they're ones

[00:04:21] that got a lot of us into the academy via the members at large branch because the stunts don't

[00:04:28] have a branch inside. That's right. I said there's a lot more momentum inside right now because

[00:04:33] casting got their own branch and I think that there's a lot of positivity surrounding the

[00:04:38] messaging of like stunt performers need to be recognized as the artists that they are

[00:04:43] and the action that they create and I think that's what we're focusing on is like it's

[00:04:48] not about the best stunt it's about we are action designers we are stunt designers we are

[00:04:54] creating sequences that are you know we're filmmakers just like costume is designing

[00:05:00] costumes and just like hair is designing hair and by the way and it's all happening and I do

[00:05:06] think you know judging by the academy you know putting together or letting us present that

[00:05:13] piece that 87 North produced really shows good faith of like we're working in the right

[00:05:18] direction and hopefully in the near future you know we can have something like casting his

[00:05:22] we'll have an announcement that maybe there's an award to all of our listeners of the next

[00:05:27] best picture podcast we know you love movies we do too do you like going to the theater well

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[00:06:29] with the promo code slash regal nbp 24 that's slash regal nbp 24 i know cinephiles at large would

[00:06:40] also really really love that talking about the stunts of your latest film curious to know is there

[00:06:45] a particular stunt in this movie that in your prime as a stuntman yourself even you would be like

[00:06:51] i don't know i don't know if i would do oh yeah totally he'll be there's plenty so um

[00:06:59] because there's so many high level stunts in this movie there were actually um you know

[00:07:07] four or five doubles for ryan on the film you know logan holiday who's an expert driver

[00:07:12] he breaks the world record for cannon rolls and and he breaks it in real life he broke it on

[00:07:18] the film yeah eight and a half rolls that's a stunt i would have never been asked to do i mean i was

[00:07:22] never known for my driving but certainly no one's gonna ask me to try to break the world record in

[00:07:27] cannon rolls um there's an incredible high fall by troye brown in this film which is sort of a

[00:07:33] like a lost art form his dad bob brown was a prolific stunt performer who actually holds the

[00:07:38] world record for highest high fall um and he comes back and sort of brings that expertise

[00:07:45] to life i could never do 165 foot high fall out of a helicopter i we had never done that my

[00:07:51] stunt career um so there's there's plenty of stuff there's a lot of stuff i would have done

[00:07:56] i probably would have got hit by a car you could have light me on fire you could throw me down

[00:07:59] some stairs i could do a hell of a fight scene but um i certainly wouldn't have been asked to

[00:08:05] do some of the stuff that we do in fall guy because these guys are like the best at what they

[00:08:09] do absolutely i think that's fully on display here um when it comes to the actors themselves

[00:08:15] was there any one in particular who really leaned into it even against the advice of people say no

[00:08:21] no we got doubles for this you don't you don't need to do that um in this film or in the past

[00:08:26] in this film in this film we sort of set forth like i think early on what was great about what

[00:08:31] we were doing was that we were going to celebrate stunts and it was sort of like the mandate

[00:08:35] of the film and we knew we were going to have to bring in experts in everything special this

[00:08:41] specialists to create the big spectacle that colt is if colt is the pinnacle of a stunt performer

[00:08:47] we're going to have to bring in the best in the world to make him look like he's the best in

[00:08:50] the world and so um you know there was no one who was like bravado like i'm going to step in

[00:08:56] and do something crazy like actor wise because it was like yeah you just wouldn't have been

[00:09:01] able to do it that being said ryan to keep the illusion alive as you do he did some really big

[00:09:09] stunts of his own there were so many stunts on this movie there was plenty to go around he does the

[00:09:12] descender at the opening of the movie that's him it's a it's a controlled stunt but it's actually

[00:09:18] a scary stunt you have to step off the ledge and you know 180 some feet and trust a rigging

[00:09:24] to fall free fall into a descender is not anything that most people can do you know it's a lot

[00:09:31] of trust um and then we're dragging him across the bridge at five in the morning 35 miles an hour

[00:09:38] you know he that's a lot of trust you're like here grab this shovel and we're gonna rip you

[00:09:42] across the bridge so um he's doing a lot of great stunts and well and i think he stepped up

[00:09:49] every time we asked him um no questions asked um but he also stepped back and said

[00:09:55] how do we make this the best movie about stunt people and he knew what we're yeah

[00:09:59] this is an epic story the cosmic propulsion

[00:10:05] the bad guys are closing in we're gonna hide you nope we're gonna beat this shit out of him

[00:10:12] i never forget a fist i don't mean it like that nothing like a good twist who doesn't love a twist

[00:10:25] let's make some traffic get out of my head

[00:10:27] oh yeah

[00:10:31] stay alive i'm not a what we're gonna beat the shit out of him

[00:10:38] i have a better idea

[00:10:41] you want to die okay maniac

[00:10:45] this town man's crazy uh your films have never been adverse to utilizing visual effects as a tool

[00:10:51] not to necessarily replace but to enhance a sequence or two this film in particular

[00:10:57] i've noticed you lean so much more into as you mentioned earlier classic stunts of like you know

[00:11:03] going back several decades and this film really pays homage but yet it also does blend in visual

[00:11:09] effects to help um boost you know i would say certain sequences was there ever a bit of a

[00:11:17] push and pull over like how much CGI do we use do we want to try to capture all in camera

[00:11:21] like you just tell me a little bit about conceptually how you envision this all coming

[00:11:25] together um for this movie there wasn't really much of a push and pull like the mandate was if we can

[00:11:31] do it practically we will do it practically and so we leaned in heavily um you know the big car jump

[00:11:41] the big high fall the big car roll the big all the fire in the mood all the fire in the movie

[00:11:47] is practical um car truck crash truck jump i mean it's all practical um yeah the visual effects

[00:11:55] enhancement on that is sometimes rig removal of safety you know ryan on the hood of a car or

[00:12:00] dragging them across the bridge like wires that are safetying people which is sort of great modern

[00:12:05] technology that we have that you can enhance but you could do that scene on the bridge on a blue

[00:12:11] screen you don't have to drag ryan across the bridge at 40 miles an hour but it wouldn't

[00:12:16] look as good and you wouldn't feel it as much and you wouldn't believe it as much and so

[00:12:22] because we're making a movie about a stunt person the mandate was like 95 practical 5 percent

[00:12:29] you know rig removal and and again our visual effects team was behind it because that just

[00:12:35] makes their stuff look great too you know and if we do a vfx shot they got to bake it into

[00:12:39] all this practical stuff that we did and it just challenges them to make something even better so

[00:12:45] matt stone who is our vfx um supervisor on this did an incredible job we're gonna surround him and

[00:12:52] we beat the shit out of him one last stunt going down in a blazer glory

[00:13:09] we need a big fanani how many takes do you have is that i've got five takes

[00:13:14] oh so big yeah i think this film is going to become the i think just default like greatest

[00:13:25] movie about stunts like when people ask like oh what's the best movie about stunt men stunt industry

[00:13:30] they'll filmmaking in general i think this movie is going to be mentioned alongside that

[00:13:34] when you think back on films that came before this maybe you look towards them for inspiration

[00:13:39] or maybe they just inspired you before making this picture what would you say was like the

[00:13:44] de facto this movie epitomizes stunts in general um hooper hooper is probably the quintessential

[00:13:56] stunt man movie and um everyone from my generation i mean it's a lost movie it's you know it's

[00:14:03] burt reynolds plays a stunt man but for that generation the 80s that was i mean it's how

[00:14:10] needom who is a stunt man who was burt reynolds's stunt man who directed the movie and burt is playing

[00:14:18] basically a version of how and it is a legendary movie about stunt people and it is has the same

[00:14:26] sort of joy in their job that fall guy does like these people love making movies and they love doing

[00:14:33] stunts and burt reynolds's character is like just he's not jaded he's like he knows he's got to take

[00:14:40] the licks and get back up and but he's signed on for the gig and he um he's doing it um and it's a

[00:14:47] really it's a fun movie to revisit if you guys get a chance to go watch hooper again because

[00:14:52] that's another quintessential movie about stunt people and it's a riot it's fun a lot of lot

[00:14:58] it's a blast well your movie is a lot of fun your movie is a blast and also too i can feel the

[00:15:03] love coming through this movie man so congratulations to you on it and i hope it inspires a whole other

[00:15:09] generation of people to make their own classic action or stunt film so that's all to you man

[00:15:15] thank you brother i really appreciate it thank you take care all right thank you everyone thank

[00:15:19] you so much for listening to my the fall guy will be released in theaters by universal pictures on

[00:15:30] may 3rd you have been listening to the next best picture podcast we are proud to be part of

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