David Leitch Continues the Campaign for a Best Stunts Oscar

Photo: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

“Yeah, boy! Stunts!” Two characters yell this while high-fiving each other in the trailer for David Leitch’s upcoming film The Fall Guy, and that’s sort of how it feels to watch one of Leitch’s movies, which include the first John Wick (co-directed with Chad Stahelski), Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and last year’s Bullet Train. Leitch, whose first big break came when Brad Pitt picked him to be his stunt double for Fight Club, and who went on to become one of the industry’s top stunt coordinators before turning to directing, is one of modern Hollywood’s great artist-advocates for the people whose job it is to fight, fly, fall, dive, and drop-kick for our entertainment. During the recent WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, Leitch teamed up with his wife and producing partner Kelly McCormick, and his friend and colleague Tim Connolly to organize the first ever Stunt Previz Showdown, which allowed different stunt teams to put together pre-visualizations of stunt sequences to compete for a $10,000 prize. In part, it was an effort to keep stunt professionals busy during a time when almost no major productions were underway. But it’s also a way of showing people the artistry and dedication that goes into stuntwork — something that many of us hope will one day lead to the Oscars finally introducing a Best Stunts category. Leitch (a winner of Vulture’s inaugural Stunt Awards, which is returning in March 2024) talked to us about a Best Stunts Oscar, the Stunt Previz Showdown, and why Ryan Gosling is one of our great comic actors.

How did the Stunt Previz Showdown first start?
A good friend of mine, Tim Connolly, is a stunt performer from my generation. We came up in stunts together. He came to me during the strike — thank God it’s over, by the way — and said, “I want to do something for the stunt community, in particular the fight stunt teams out there. Let’s have a contest. Let’s bring everybody together. We’re not choreographing anything right now. Let’s choreograph and have a tournament or a competition.”

He had a company called Filmik. He’s developing a production app, which basically brings departments together on one format that allows for interdepartment efficiencies. He’s doing this on the side, and he’s like, “I’ll use some of my advertising budget. I’ll promote Filmik and you can promote 87North, and we’ll bring all the fighting guys and gals together and do this fun thing.” That was the germ of the idea. So we put it out there and it really exploded. We got tons of submissions from really talented people in the business.

It seems like someone involved in stunts would be particularly well positioned to understand the importance of making sure all the departments on a set are communicating. Whenever I see one of those behind-the-scenes featurettes on how they did a particular stunt, I’m amazed at how badly things could go wrong if just one person in the chain wasn’t on the same page as everyone else.  
As a stunt coordinator, you work with every single department. I think that’s why stunt coordinators turn into action directors, because you really have to understand what everybody’s job is, because you collaborate with all of those artists. To have an app that can take out some of the busywork of scheduling and sharing information, that’s a really good idea!

Tell me about how you guys went about judging the entries. 
Number one was safety. We didn’t want anyone to come in and go too crazy, because we’re all hoping the strike would end and everybody could get back to work. Safety was one criteria. There was also choreography. Then we had performance, which entails not only physical stunt performance, but also, when you’re doing these stuntvizzes, it’s fun to see a little acting chops. If you’re pitching a concept to a director and there’s a story moment that you want to get across, and then you got a bad performance from one of your stunt team, it’s not great for the coordinator.

Then there was camera, how you’re going to shoot it. I’ve always stressed to my teams and people that have come up under me that you can’t separate the action you design from the way you’re going to visually tell it and present it. You look at the style of how Chad and I created John Wick. We wanted to stay in these long takes and see the full body, like the Shaw Brothers style of martial arts — but our updated version of it with guns. That was a choice. So, where you put the camera is super important. Then we judged them on editing and pacing, being critical on yourself in length, and all those things. You’ve choreographed 17 moves, but are all 17 interesting? Did you need to show me 17?

Scenes from the Stunt Previz Showdown. Theo Buckwald.

Scenes from the Stunt Previz Showdown. Theo Buckwald.

You mentioned John Wick, but also in your more recent work with Bullet Train, the camera seems so integral. Each action sequence seems to have a unique point of view.  
You can’t separate it. The things that we did in Bullet Train versus what we did in John Wick, they’re just two different visual styles that are evoking something very different. The camera’s actually in a place that again is either evoking drama or comedy or oomph or ouch, and you’re using it to help you as a choreographer.

Do you feel like stunts are finally starting to get the recognition owed them in Hollywood?
I think they are. I think we still have ways to go for the general population, but in Hollywood we’re starting to be seen as filmmakers, and the people in the know in film production know how important stuntviz is to the creative process of any action film. The action designers and the stunt coordinators and the choreography teams are essential to all of the Marvel movies. All of the movies that I create, all the John Wicks, putting those teams together. There’s obviously this hope for recognition from the Academy and being able to celebrate with our peers on that special night. It would be beautiful to see the action designers/stunt coordinator celebrate with the rest of the crew, in a perfect world.

There are so many notable filmmakers and actors who support a stunts Oscar. And it feels like every year I hear, “Oh, it’s going to happen, it’s getting close.” So, what’s the holdup?
I am not quite sure. I’m a member of the Academy, and I have actually chosen to stay in the production and technology branch where the stunts are located. Now, inside of the production-technology branch, stunts don’t have our own branch, so we can’t be eligible for an award. I think there’s movement inside the political structure to help facilitate that, because they know that the audience wants it, the industry wants it, stuntpeople obviously want it. But there are just ways that they have to go about it through the Academy, with the Board of Governors and the votes needed. All this sort of necessary or unnecessary bureaucracy that has to be either circumvented or we have to go right through it.

Let’s talk about your new film, The Fall Guy, which comes out in May. Were you a fan of the original TV show? 
I was a total fan of the show. I remember watching it, I think it was Friday nights. That show lit the fuse for a lot of stunt performers from my generation. So when the title came across Kelly’s and my desk, we got super-excited. It was a no-brainer, really. I loved the working-class hero that Colt is. Was never pretentious and never jaded. He had these skills that he didn’t need to flaunt, but they became useful to him and they were sort of wish fulfillment in that guy.

It seems like people are finally catching onto the fact that Ryan Gosling is one of our great comic actors. 
It’s in his DNA! Kelly and I actually went to him before we had the script. We had an outline, an idea of what we wanted to try. What I thought was really interesting was Ryan goes, “Look, I’ve done big action recently” — he’d just done Gray Man, and he was excited about that — “and I’ve obviously done drama and romance, and I’ve also tried a little comedy here and there, but what’s great about Fall Guy is I think we can do all of it inside of this.” And I’m like, “Yes!”

He’s also a very physical actor, and underrated in that regard. You see it in Barbie, you see it in La La Land, Drive, and Nice Guys too. 
That’s where you see his fearlessness. I think that there are actors that can be funny with the quip or that can be dry funny, but to put yourself out there as a physical comedian, you’re standing up against some of the greats.

You’ve worked with a lot of actors over the years who are really into doing their own stunts or being as involved as possible: Keanu Reeves, Charlize Theron, Brad Pitt. Where does Gosling fit on that scale?
Oh, he’s in line with all of them. They’re there because they’re putting in the work, and they are a hundred percent committed to their craft, and they will go through anything. My process as a director is to train the actors to do as much of their own action as possible. All the people you listed, including Ryan, had already had a high aptitude, but they were challenged by that process, and hopefully gave some of their best action performances.

Emily Blunt is also an incredibly physical actor, in movies like Edge of Tomorrow. She’s another one who doesn’t necessarily always get that opportunity, it seems.
Yeah, she doesn’t, and you’re right. Those are some really memorable performances like Sicario or Edge of Tomorrow, where she plays this physically tough character who does great action. When you have that discipline and you put in the time to learn the choreography and bring that choreography to life through a character, she’s a pro. I would add her to the list of the people you said before. She can hold her own with anybody.

Of the stunts you’ve done personally over the years, which was your favorite?
Chad and I did so much stuff on Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions as Keanu’s double and Hugo’s double. There’s a fight scene that’s in the sky where we had invented, with the special-effects department, these flying rigs that now everybody uses. The Wachowskis, who are my mentors, were doing take after take after take, and we’re in these rigs and harnesses. It might not have been one moment of peril, but it was like this war of attrition to get something right and different and cutting-edge. I watch that fight, and I think the elements that we did still really hold up. It was such a formidable moment for me as a stunt performer. It’s not like a one-off gag where I flip a car or you’re on a wire. You’re hanging 40 feet in the air, doing a martial art fight. It took skill and perseverance and balls.

Congrats to the winner of the 2023 Stunt Previz Showdown, Team Femme Fatale, led by captain Josh Fried and including members Enele Tauteoli, Sinalau Tauteoli, Bethany Curry, Clanique Greyling, Mallory Thompson, Chelsey Goldsmith, Colby Lemmo, Kara Petersen, and Samantha Win.