Falling for The Fall Guy and the Joy of Practical Stunts

The Fall Guy (Courtesy of NBC Universal)

The greatest magic of the movies is making you think that a megastar can fall off a horse, jump into flames, or bounce off a brick wall – then get up and deliver some snappy one-liner. What they’re really doing is waiting for their stunt double to give the all-important thumbs-up showing that they didn’t just die.

The Fall Guy, which receives its world premiere as the centerpiece film at this year’s South by Southwest Film & TV Festival, isn’t just an action-packed rom-com love letter to those daredevils of the screen. For the husband-and-wife duo of director David Leitch (John Wick, Bullet Train) and producer Kelly McCormick (Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), it was a chance to make a movie filled with old-school practical effects. “We did high falls, car jumps, car rolls, fire burns,” Leitch, a former stuntman himself, said. “It was all the classics.”

The movie updates the beloved action-comedy series of the same name. It was producer Guymon Casady who first approached Leitch and McCormick’s company, 87North, about making the film, and Leitch was immediately on board. “It’s such a touchstone in my life,” he said, “and there are a lot of stunt people in my demo that it lit the fuse for them to become a stuntman or stuntwoman.”

In the show, which ran on ABC from 1981 to 1986, Lee Majors originated the role of stunt guy Colt Seavers, who supplemented his meager paydays by risking his neck as a bounty hunter. Movie Colt (Ryan Gosling) is the stunt double for an arrogant star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but when the leading man goes missing mid-shoot, it’s up to Colt to find him and save the movie, which just happens to be the make-or-break directorial debut of his ex Jody (Emily Blunt).

It’s just the kind of high-stakes hijinks that made the original show a smash. Indeed, one of McCormick’s favorite stunts in the picture is an homage to one particular star of the series: Colt’s pride and joy, that gorgeous brown-and-gold 1982 GMC K-2500 Sierra Grande truck. “It was always jumping over something,” she said, “and it was such a moment where this actual vehicle jumped over this funny thing and landed in a street that didn’t have enough room for it.”

But beyond reviving a beloved show, Leitch and McCormick could celebrate these purposefully anonymous heroes of film. McCormick explained, “They have the courage to fall again, and that’s harder than falling the first time.”

Inevitably, there are a few digs in the script about stars who falsely claim to do all their own stunts – which is not something that can be said of this film’s star. Leitch said, “When Ryan signed on, he was like, 'I want to make it clear, I want to celebrate stunt performers, and I want to celebrate old-school stunts.” Gosling was insistent on hiring the best in the business, but Leitch was also eager, as in any film, to keep the lead in the frame as much as possible, “and Ryan was game for that.”

“We dragged him across the harbor bridge at 30 mph. We hung him 16 stories in the air and did a descender. We put him in multiple fighting situations. He’s got action chops, but what also we did in this movie was some really amazing stunts that only a few people on the planet can do.”

Far from being reckless daredevils, stunt performers are incredibly safety-minded. “They know everything that can go wrong,” said McCormick. “I’m married to one, and I can’t cross the street without him holding me back and making sure that all of the cars are gone.”

It’s all down to what professionals call SWAG (per McCormick: “scientific wild-ass guessing”), and all calculations happen in the crucible of shooting schedules. Leitch explained that whatever the show, it always seems the stunt is the last setup of the day. “And then it’s, 'We’re losing light, we’ve gotta go!’ and we’re like, 'Wait, but we needed 10 minutes to set the safeties!’ 'Well, we gotta go now!’”

That’s such a constant that it’s been a running joke among stunt performers for years. And if there’s one way in which Colt Seavers is a throwback, it’s that he’ll do anything. As the lyrics to the show’s theme tune, “Unknown Stuntman,” put it, he might fall from a tall building or roll a brand-new car, but these days stunt performers tend to be specialists. Leitch said, “Logan Holladay, who did a lot of the driving stunts in the piece, 99% of the stunts he does are in a vehicle. Ben Jenkin, who’s Ryan’s double, who is more of a physical athlete, he comes from parkour, he’s doing the car hits and the wall smashes and the fire burns. They’re doing things that are related to the sports or activities they’re really skilled at.”

So, what was Leitch’s specialty? Well, McCormick knew what it definitely wasn’t. “No one should ever hire him to do a car gag. He’s the worst driver.”

Leitch looked a little sheepish. “I was doubling Brad Pitt on The Mexican,” he said, “and we had two El Caminos on set. I was doing a really simple stunt, and I crashed the one El Camino into the other El Camino, so we had no El Caminos. By accident. Not meant to be.”

At the end of the day, stunt performers want to walk away with little hullabaloo. That’s why there are no Hollywood airs and graces around Gosling’s Colt Seavers, and for Leitch that’s why audiences will identify with him. “He’s a blue-collar hero, out there working hard and giving his best, having a positive attitude and not super-jaded, and he gets knocked down and gives the thumbs up.” And that’s how the stunt performers Leitch knows are in real life. “The stunt people on set aren’t jaded and they are fun, and they are likable, and they love making movies.”

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