The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub speaks with director David Leitch for his movie
The Fall Guy
, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

The Fall Guy
is about a down-on-his-luck stuntman, Colt Seavers, who’s tasked with rescuing the missing movie star of his ex-girlfriend’s next movie.
During this interview, Leitch discusses stunt recognition at the Oscars, working with Taylor Swift for the perfect love song, and how Gosling faced his fears on set.

According to David Leitch (Bullet Train), his latest blockbuster, The Fall Guy, was a Hollywood production written in the stars. Not only does he tease the timeliness of getting the rights to a particular tortured poet’s song in the film, stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are both coming off of an explosive awards season in the wake of Barbie and Oppenheimer, giving his feature a boost in the zeitgeist. Despite the buzzy duo, however, The Fall Guy seems every bit deserving of the attention it’s garnered, between highlighting the deserving stunt performers in the industry and Gosling facing his fears head-on, performing 12-foot drops, sans the aforementioned stunt performers.

In the movie, Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stuntman who recently left the business and is down on his luck in life and love. When the star of his ex-girlfriend’s (Blunt) movie goes missing, Colt is tasked with tracking down Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but the mystery surrounding the star’s disappearance goes much deeper. The Fall Guy also stars Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), Winston Duke (Black Panther), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once), and more.

While talking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Leitch continues his mission to showcase the crucial role stuntpeople play in the success of cinema. Having been a stuntman prior to stepping behind the camera, who’s better suited to direct a meta peek behind the scenes, and also help spearhead the move to celebrate these unsung heroes at the Academy Awards? He also talks about working with a 14-time Grammy Award-winning singer for the rights to the perfect song for the film and the epic opening stunt Gosling performed on his own, with no green screen. For all of this and more, check out the full interview in the video above or in the transcript below.

The Fall Guy Colt Seavers is a stuntman who left the business a year earlier to focus on both his physical and mental health. He’s drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget studio movie, which is being directed by his ex, goes missing.Release Date May 3, 2024 Runtime 114 minutes Writers Drew Pearce , Glen A. Larson

COLLIDER: I saw the movie again last night. It’s still awesome.

DAVID LEITCH: Great.

It hasn’t lost a beat. I am curious — and maybe this was done on purpose, and I’m gonna embarrass myself right now, but here we go — I thought when I watched it again last night, I noticed Ryan’s stunt double’s face in a few frames, and I thought I noticed some wires that you could actually see in, like, two frames. A., I could be completely wrong, or B., this was done on purpose.

LEITCH: You may see the stunt doubles’ faces at times, like a few frames. That’s fine. That was never anything we were shying away from in the sense that I was trying to be more old-school. When you watch some of those old great movies, even in Indiana Jones or Die Hard, there are times where stunt people can see stunt people, and I think I wanted for the stunt people to see the stunt people at times. So, that was just where that’s happening. But not enough to where we’re breaking the illusion of the journey we’re on. Wires could have just been confused because there’s this scene at the opera house where we’re cutting back and forth from behind the scenes, Jody’s camera footage, and then movie footage. So when it’s movie footage, I was erasing the wires; when it was her looking through the lens, I saw the wires. But otherwise, I hope not. [Laughs]

By the way, it’s just because I have a very specific eye and I can see things in two or three frames that maybe other people won’t see.

The Fight for a Stunt Category at the Oscars Continues
“There’s tremendous support with the actors, with directors, with all the departments.”
Custom Image by Collider Staff

What do we need to do — you address it in the movie, which I fucking love — to get stunts recognized in awards season?

LEITCH: It’s really in process now. I’m really encouraged. The journey that Jack Gill and Gregg Smrz and Melissa Stubbs have been on inside the Academy for a long time, bringing a lot of us in through the members at large. The stunts never had a branch inside the Academy, so we came in at large, and now there’s nearly 100 stunt performers inside who got grafted into the new branch, Production and Technology. Now, that being said, inside Production and Technology we’re working through the Academy, kind of following the same models casting has done. They’ve laid a road map that’s really clear, and I think that we’re on track. I hope, soon, it’s gonna happen, and I think there’s real support from everybody inside the Academy. It’s just really getting through the bureaucratic steps. You can see positivity from the video that 87North produced for the awards, and the support of, obviously, Ryan and Emily. There’s tremendous support with the actors, with directors, with all the departments. It’s just process.

This Artist Captures ‘The Fall Guy’s Love Story All Too Well
Image via Universal Pictures

So one of my favorite scenes in this movie involves no action. It is just Ryan in a car to a song by a very popular artist — I don’t want to spoil it — and it’s him reacting to the song, he’s very emotional, and it’s the banter between your two leads. Talk about filming that scene, because it’s fantastic, but also landing that artist.

LEITCH: So, we didn’t have that artist on the day we shot it, but we played an equally romantic song — that I’m not going to remember — at the time, that we were playing through the speakers from the time he’s walking to the truck and getting in. It was just to build up the emotion for Ryan. It was a conversation I had with Ryan. He really wanted to make this a genuine, earnest scene, but also, we could undercut it with some comedy. So, we knew we had to land that track. We weren’t sure what it was going to be yet. After we’d shot the scene, which, by the way, is so incredible watching them work — the two best actors working today — I’m watching this unfold in front of us, and we have so many great choices. They were really genuine. You believe that they’re stumbling back together, and it’s awkward, just like anyone else having a real relationship. But then they also had fun ad-libs and things that you’ll get to see in extended versions and things. You just knew you could undercut the scene in a million different ways.

But it wasn’t until once we got into editorial. We were drifting through a bunch of different tracks, and Kelly [McCormick] was playing a lot of this artist — a lot of it — and she was not subtle in hinting to me what the song should be, and constantly playing this song. So I just said, “Okay, fine. I’ll throw it up against the montage, and we’ll see,” and it was like it was made for it. It was such an insightful grab and insightful thing from her, so we got it. And then we reached out, and she graciously gave us the rights for a price. But it’s great. It’s the perfect moment. It was even really slightly before all this stuff, the thing going on with the NFL and all that. It was even before that we had that in the movie. It was in there for a long time.

Before this artist became part of the cultural zeitgeist in a massive way.

LEITCH: Correct. So, it was another sort of beautiful thing. We have these two actors that are having this incredible moment with Barbie and Oppenheimer, and then we just happened to have this track in the DNA of the movie that is this other incredible artist who’s on the top of their game. I’m like, “How did this happen?”

Whatever Universal paid for that song was worth 10 times over.

LEITCH: Yeah.

Yes, Ryan Gosling Performed that 12-Story Drop for ‘The Fall Guy’
“There’s no green screen involved.”

I hate doing spoilers, but I want to talk about the very opening shot of the film, which I love. It’s a very long oner, you involve an elevator, and it involves Ryan getting hooked up to something. I think people are gonna want to know, when Ryan’s getting hooked up, how real is that versus how much is CGI and a blue screen? What’s going on there?

LEITCH: So it was funny, this was a question that Spielberg asked me, too. Steven got to see the movie, and he graciously invited Kelly and I to come talk about it. We were talking about this, and we were discussing, “Were there any stitches in that shot?” And I said there weren’t any stitches, we went all the way up the elevator — until the moment we had to hook him into the rig, and there’s a really beautiful stitch. I’m not gonna spoil where it is. So we needed to be safe and hook him up to the rig, but all of that is real. Then we just stayed there, leaned him off the edge, craned out, and he’s hanging 12 stories in the air. That’s Ryan Gosling hanging 12 stories in the air. No green screen. Then we dropped him — free fall.

He likes to say that he was putting the sunglasses on to hide his panic, like it was an acting choice. [Laughs] But we built him up from shorter distances. He has a fear of heights, he had mentioned. That was the one stunt he was trying to negotiate out of at times, but he knew ultimately it was important for him to feel what a stunt person must feel at that moment, and I credit him for that. So he went through the progression we asked him to do. We took him out to a parking lot and we brought him up at different heights and we showed him how the rig works. We tested it a couple times so he could get used to it so on the day he knew what it would feel like.

I just have to say that is incredible acting because he must be scared out of his mind, but he has to deliver this incredible performance as Colt where there’s super confidence.

LEITCH: I know. Super confident and he’s setting up the love story, and then they have their chemistry and they’re super flirty and they’re charming, and then he’s walking basically to his biggest fear. But he’s just laughing with her and telling jokes. Again, he’s an incredible actor, and he was able to compartmentalize all of that and obviously bring this character to life. It’s a pleasure working with Ryan. It was one of the best experiences.

Just so it’s clear for people that want to know, is it definitely Ryan getting hooked up, and it’s definitely Ryan taking that fall?

LEITCH: Yeah, 100%. There’s no green screen involved.

The Fall Guys free falls into theaters on May 3. Click below for showtimes.

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