Every action movie needs them, but they are rarely in the spotlight: stunt workers. That’s where the new film takes us The Fall Guy change in. Ryan Gosling plays a stuntman in the action comedy. “It’s heroic work.”
Een auto die 8,5 keer over de kop gaat (een wereldrecord), een sprong vanuit een vliegende helikopter en Gosling die zichzelf van twaalf verdiepingen naar beneden stort: het is een kleine greep uit de actiescènes in The Fall Guy.
Regisseur David Leitch heeft jarenlange ervaring als stuntman en verzamelde een ervaren team om zich heen. Toch was de spanning soms om te snijden op de set van de film, die gaat over een stuntman die een vermiste acteur moet terugvinden om de film van de regisseur op wie hij verliefd is (Emily Blunt) te redden.
“Het is zenuwslopend om toe te kijken”, vertelt de actrice aan NU.nl. “David slaapt de nacht voor de stunts niet, en de stuntwerkers ook amper. Ze zoeken echt de grenzen op van wat mogelijk is. Het is heldhaftig werk waarin totaal geen plek is voor ijdelheid. Ik zou de druk waar ze onder staan nooit aankunnen.”
“Ze zetten veel op het spel”, vult Gosling aan. “Het is zo veilig als ze het kunnen maken, maar het blijft natuurlijk gevaarlijk. Het is zo spannend dat je een speld kunt horen vallen op de set. Als de stunt klaar is, is het ook heel emotioneel. Ik hoop dat we die euforie in de film hebben kunnen vastleggen.”
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Director Leitch and his wife, producer Kelly McCormick, recognize the actors’ experience. “We are also standing there with bated breath,” they say. “We had the best teams, so you have to trust the plan. But you become friends with those people, so it’s very exciting right beforehand,” says McCormick.
“If we had done the stunts mainly with visual effects, you would feel less tension as a viewer. Now you really notice what is at stake,” Leitch thinks. “The euphoria you see after the stunts is real. Not only were we breaking records, but we were also making the dreams of stunt performers come true. When a stunt was successful, we all went crazy,” says McCormick.
The couple had big shoes to fill. The Fall Guy is loosely based on the series of the same name from the eighties. “The series really paved the way for the stuntmen of David’s generation. They did bigger stunts than are now done on television. Big jumps with cars, falls from great heights, really bizarre things. That put the pressure on us to continue the series really do justice to,” says McCormick.
‘The biggest stunt in the film is the love story’
Cars fly through the air and people are set on fire The Fall Guy, but Leitch believes that the love story in his film is the biggest stunt. The biggest task of the stuntman who plays Gosling is not to find the missing actor, but to win back the heart of the director. “The film is packed with action, but we want to make that accessible to a wide audience. We do this through the romance between the characters of Ryan and Emily.”
Gosling and Blunt, for their part, had a lot of fun with their romance on set. According to them, that is the secret of their on-screen chemistry. “Working together on this film was messy and chaotic, and maybe you feel that as a viewer,” Blunt explains. “We worked very freely and we both loved that. Ryan’s eye is always on the horizon, looking for something even more interesting, stranger, funnier, more real.”
“We were improvising a lot,” Gosling says. “We did have a script, but we deviated from it more than we stuck to it. That produced the most exciting result.”
The couple in the film also needed their own song. That became the classic I Was Made For Lovin’ You from the band KISS. “I really wanted that song in there, but no one else thought it was a good idea,” laughs Leitch. “KISS is, like no other, the band that does both camp as cool is, and that was exactly the feeling I wanted the film to give.”
Tags: Ryan Gosling held breath stunts film heard pin drop Movies Series
