A former stunt performer is called back into action in Director David Leitch’s action comedy, The Fall Guy.
Loosely based on the 1980s TV series, Leitch’s film tells the story of battle-scarred stuntman Colt Seavers, who left the business after sustaining an injury. He finds himself ensnared in a sinister plot when he’s asked to help locate the missing star of his ex-girlfriend Jody Moreno’s directorial debut action film.
On May 25, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Leitch discussed the making of The Fall Guy during a Q&A moderated by Director Jerry Zucker (Rat Race).
During the conversation, the former award-winning Stunt Coordinator spoke about how he approaches that arena in his films.
“Having been a stuntman, and then a choreographer, and then an action Director for almost thirty years, you’re constantly looking for the problems to present your character because that makes them fight out of the box. Like if this was a stage, can we make it ice? Or is it raining? Or add the elements. You’re constantly looking for problems to put in front of them and you’re looking for that anywhere. I love to scout locations and then I’m inspired by a location, and we scrap the set piece and I know what the character has to do for me emotionally and for plot, but this location. Imagine what I could do in this theater. I got people rappelling from the ceiling and this curtain could be on fire or whatever. That’s where the ideas come from.”
Leitch also revealed why he opted to do practical stunts vs CGI in the film.
“It was all practical. For this movie it was a no brainer. We had to fight to be authentic to the stunt world and do as much practical as possible. I like it visually for me, aesthetically. The more you can get in camera the better the visual effects look because you’re challenging the artists on the other side of that to match this real-world stuff that they got to comp in.”
Leitch’s other directorial credits include the feature films Bullet Train, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Once Upon a Deadpool, Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde. He has been a DGA member since 2010.