Fresh Air - A Former Stunt Performer Shares Tricks Of The Trade

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Filmmaker and stunt coordinator David Leitch says it's easier to do stunts himself than direct his stunt performer friends. "You are responsible for their safety," he explains. "Your heart goes through your chest." His film The Fall Guy is about the unknown performers who put their lives on the line. He talks with Terry Gross about barrel rolling cars, being lit on fire, and doing another take when everything hurts. Also, Ken Tucker marks the 50th anniversary of Roxy Music's Country Life.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, David Leitch, is a former stuntman who directed the new film, The Fall Guy, about a stuntman who ends up having to execute spectacular stunts in his real life in order to save the film he's working on, regain the love of the woman who's directing it, and save his life. Inspired by the 80s TV series, The Fall Guy, Leitch's new film is a blend of action film and rom-com,

starring Ryan Gosling as the stuntman and Emily Blunt as the camera operator turned director. The film is a tribute to stuntmen and the risks they take in spite of their lack of recognition. It's the actors the stuntmen double for who win the awards and the fans love. In The Fall Guy, Gosling's character is the stunt double for the biggest action star on the planet, who also has one of the biggest egos. The opening scene of The Fall Guy is a series of clips from action sequences in which the stunts include tumbling down a rocky cliff, riding a motorcycle over the roofs of several cars, each car a distance from the next, getting thrown through a bus window, running through a battlefield

surrounded by explosions, and getting blown off the ground. While we watch that, we hear this voiceover narration by Ryan Gosling's character. You'll hear lots of motors, explosions, gunfire, and shattering glass. They're in almost every movie. You just don't know that they're there. Because that's the job. They're the unknown stunt performers. And they get paid to do the cool stuff. They also get paid to take it on the chin. And everywhere else, if you know what I mean.

Oh, that's me. Colt Severs. Getting blown up and hiding my face in a muddy puddle. Which isn't ideal when you're trying to look cool in front of Jody. Who you just so happen to have a major crush on. She's a camera operator. She's definitely going to achieve her goal of being a big-time Hollywood movie director. It's rare for a stuntman to become as successful behind the camera as David Leitch. He directed Bullet Train, Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw, Deadpool 2,

Atomic Blonde, and was an uncredited co-director of the first John Wick movie. As a stuntman, his breakthrough was on Fight Club as a stunt double for Brad Pitt, who we work with on several subsequent films, including Troy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Ocean's Eleven. He doubled for Agent Smith in two Matrix sequels. Leach did stunts for Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum. He's also been an action coordinator and stunt coordinator. Leach is credited as being at the forefront of a new generation that's credited with making martial arts sequences more realistic. David Leach, welcome to Fresh Air. I really enjoyed the new film. And your working career is pretty amazing. Do stunt doubles have a code, kind of like magicians do, not to reveal certain trade secrets? And did that limit what you could reveal in the film? Can I just start by saying thank you for having me? Like, I'm a huge fan, and I'm very excited to be here.

Well, back at you. I'm a fan, so. But yeah, it is a little bit like magic. You know, I think we're always reinterpreting the classic gags and the classic tricks. And so, you know, that's what we did with Fall Guy. We sort of reimagined the big car jump. We reimag um the high fall from the helicopter um and there is a little secrecy i think you know part of it for years because it was such a business where it was um passed down its apprenticeships it's passed down from family usually to kids and it's hard to crack in and and find someone to teach you because they didn't want to share the knowledge so much, you know, because it didn't, again, like it can be a really fun and lucrative business and you want to share

it with the people you want to share it with. I think in Fall Guy, we tried to pull the veil back just enough and not give too much away. You know, you see those fire stunts. We didn't really give the science behind that away. And there is a, you know And that's what's really amazing about stunts. I think people think it's a bunch of daredevils. And there's a little bit of that sensibility in stunt performers. But really, there's a lot of physics and math and legacy tricks that get you through the day. The first stunt that Ryan Gosling does in the film is jumping from alleged 12 stories high.

And we see him wearing a harness, as stuntmen do in scenes like that, and the harness will eventually be erased in post-production. When you do a stunt like that, and I'm sure you've done lots of those high falls, do you like say a prayer or meditate in the moments right before you jump? Like what goes through your mind and how do you like center yourself and prepare yourself? You know, I had many conversations on the set of Fall Guy with Ryan about that. Because you're standing on the ledge and ultimately a lot of stunt work is trusting your team. Now, we had an incredible what we call rigging team on the Fall Guy.

Keir Beck is an Australian stunt performer. And I've known him since the Matrix years. He's now become one of the legendary stunt riggers in the business. And you're hooked up to this machine and you're trusting the physics of it. And you've rehearsed it and you've seen the weight bags go down and up. But again, you're trusting the physics of it and you've rehearsed it and you've seen the weight bags go down and up but again you're stepping off the ledge and you have to you know have this ability to calm your nerves trust in the process have the confidence that you know we've tested this over and over and it's going to go great and so you do find a little bit of a meditative state

and really just focusing on performance. That's how I do it. It's not unlike an athlete, you know, at the starting line. You really have to focus on the first step and then your body takes over. And I think you wait, you hear that cue, action, and you go. Which made you more nervous doing stunts like that yourself or feeling responsible for Ryan Gosling's safety when he did the stunts? See, Terry, I knew you were going to ask these hard questions. No, I think absolutely as a stunt performer, when you move into being a stunt coordinator, it's harder because you have your friends that are doing the stunts and you're designing them and you're you know you are you are responsible for their safety and so um yeah it's harder to see how someone else do it

than it is yourself you know and especially with my experience of them doing them so long it's easier for me to do it and feel comfortable than to watch somebody else sometimes your heart goes through your chest so apparently ryanling is afraid of heights. So there's a scene where he does the 12 story high jump, but also there's a scene with a helicopter falling from the helicopter. So how, it's kind of cruel with somebody with fear of heights in stunts like that. Like how did you both work that out? To be fair,

he didn't necessarily bring it up when we were working on the script together. Like, he had a crippling fear of heights. And I think... So you didn't know that? I didn't know it until we were now having this negotiation about the first stunt, and we had been designing it and rehearsing it.

You know, that... I went... That Cure Beck, that stunt rigger, we had actually simulated the high fall in a parking lot we had a construction crane we had built the same rig that we were going to be flying inside of that building and we were rehearsing it at different heights and we had the winches that lower you at sort of free fall speed set up and I'm like oh we're going to bring Ryan out for rehearsal and it was that first day when we brought him out for rehearsal, he sort of confides in me. He's like, you know,

I have a crippling fear of heights. And I'm like, yeah, now, okay. And he's like, I'm sure there's a green screen version of this, right? There's absolutely. And I'm like, there is, but why don't we just take you up 10 feet and then 20 feet, and then you can kind of feel how the rig works and sort of, you know, build the trust in the system. And then ultimately, after that first day of rehearsal, he said, you know, I am playing a stunt performer, and I know we want to celebrate the real stunt performers doing it in this movie, but I also think I need to do this so I understand the character. And it's like, we're opening the movie, I'm going to do it. I'm in. One stunt, I think, made it into the Guinness Book of Records. It was a car roll

where the car overturned and rolled eight and a half times. And I think Logan Halliday was the stuntman. So did you know that he would go for eight and a half rolls? Was that the plan? Or were you shocked when that happened? Well, we had a hope for it. So early on in production, when we were working on the script, you know, I thought like, if we're going to do this celebration of the stunt performer, it would be great if we sort of had aspirations to maybe set a record or do something that was like, hadn't been done before. And so I wrote in the script you know and Colt Seavers sets a world record for the number of cannon rolls and I was kind of a little

bit of like a tongue-in-cheek like if we'd set the world record fine if we don't but the stunt team took it to heart and they were like how do we do this let's do it I'm like okay go for it and so I have um a long time collabor collaborator and someone who I started in the business with as a stuntman way back in the day, Chris O'Hara. He was my stunt coordinator, second unit director on this film. And he took it upon himself, like we're going to break the world record. So we got with special effects who were going to build the cannon inside the car and build the safety cage. We got with picture cars to find the cannon inside the car and and build the safety cage we got with picture cars to find the right car that the physics would work we felt and we went

down the path of r and d how to beat um seven roles which was uh casino royale um you know several years ago and it took a couple takes you know take one um was a really great crash and in any other movie you would say that was epic you know the car flipped in a different way and like it kind of went end over end and it created the kind of carnage that you wanted for the film and it it really would have worked narratively. And I actually told the guys, like, we can walk away now, but they were really excited about setting the record and we'd had prepped for another car. And so we waited to the next day when the conditions were a little bit better. Anyway, the next morning we had, closer to when the tide came in, we had firm sand and we flipped the car and it went eight and a half rolls. And the crew went nuts

because the stunt team had worked so hard on it. They had spent three months, I'm saying, R&Ding that and figuring out the physics of it all. Can you explain in layman's language how you roll over a car, make it flip and keep rolling over? Again, it's physics. So he's going, let's say, 80 miles an hour. He slides the car at a 90 degree angle and the cannon is actually placed where the passenger seat is. And there's a pole that gets shoved into the ground. Explain what a cannon is. A cannon is, it's a pneumatic press. So it's got a lot of compressed air that's sitting in the trunk of the car and it shoves a metal pole into the ground. It's in a cylinder that's into the ground.

And that basically stops the car in its tracks and flips it to where the car is. It's like a lot of catapults. Okay. So as the car slides and he hits the button for that cannon and the pole gets shoved into the ground, the car flips. But it still has the speed, the directional speed of the 80 miles an hour. So now it's flipping and traveling 80 miles an hour. And, you know, they were hoping that obviously it would be barrel rolling. But, yeah, it's like a catapult inside your car that you press the button and it stops you in your tracks and flips it.

So the car doesn't survive, but the driver has to. Yeah. How does the driver stay alive? So inside the car, we build a cage. And the cage is built with steel pipe and welding. And it's designed to create just a box that protects the driver. And then the driver is in a what we call a suspension harness so they're saving their back so they're really almost suspended above the seat

and there's bungee system that's allowing them to take the shock and then they're in a harness that's neck restraints and there's a lot of things that's just built in to protect the driver that I'm not going to say it's foolproof, but that protection of the driver just gets better and better every year with more innovation and more stuff that's coming from the racing world. And there's just a legacy of that stunt and information and how it's done that gets passed down generation to generation. You mentioned you've been in unintentional car crashes while doing stunts. Can you tell us about one of them?

I was doubling Brad Pitt on The Mexican and I'd just gotten the call. I was actually working in Vancouver doubling for Jean-Claude Van Damme. And I got the call to do this movie, The Mexican, and I actually told Jean-Claude I have to leave. I'm going to go double Brad Pitt. He wasn't necessarily excited or happy about that, but I didn't want to lose the opportunity because I had just done Fight Club, and I was excited to sort of build this relationship with that actor because as a stunt performer,

you hope that you get to double an actor and you get to do multiple films with them and you build a career that way. So I fly down to Mexico. We're shooting in this really small town, Rio de Catorce. It's like one road in, one road out. And I get there and that morning, like I wake up and they're like, we got to get you to set right away. We have this car thing we want you to do. And really simple really simple actually they had in the middle of the desert they'd poured a blacktop intersection to make it look like an intersection and they were kind of doing a top shot over the street light all i had to do was take the el camino and drive

it through the intersection fast so i back up about 200 feet and i remember the stunt coordinator giving me the thumbs up and it's like action action, action. And I drive the car and the speedometer doesn't work in the El Camino. I mean, we have these old cars, you dress them up on the outside to film them, but sometimes they're not in the best condition otherwise. I'm getting close to the intersection and I can hear the engine changing gears, but I'm not really thinking about it because I'm so excited. Like I'm doubling Brad Pitt. This is amazing. Like my career is on the rise. This is going to be awesome. And I hit the intersection and where the blacktop, they had poured the blacktop, there was a bump.

And I launch. And I launch up a couple feet and I hit the pavement and my suspension loosens up and I'm starting to drift. And I'm like, oh, God. And I can see the stunt coordinator on one side like, you know, what are you doing? He's putting his hands up in the air. And I'm kind of heading towards Video Village where everyone is filming it. And I'm like drifting there. And everything's now slowed down in time.

So I just crank the wheel the other way. And I start drifting towards the other El Camino, the backup El Camino. And I hit it, you know, I T-boned the other El Camino, the backup El Camino. And I hit it, you know, I T-boned the other El Camino. But I saved Video Village, and I'm just sitting in the car, and I basically destroyed both cars in one morning. It was not my greatest day on set. Were you hurt? No, I wasn't.

I'd scrubbed off enough speed where I was fine. And they let you keep working on the film? For a couple days until they decided, you know, maybe you should go home.

Really? So how did you keep working with Brad Pitt after that disastrous beginning? It was, I think he found it endearing and, you know,

I think everybody knows that when you're working on a set there is a bandwidth for things to go wrong. But long and short, I think he just found it funny and endearing. And he knew that, you know, maybe cars weren't my specialty and that fights were. And so I got called for Troy pretty quickly after. And he's like, we got a great fight movie. You don't have to drive a car.

You know, can you come to London and prep? There's a line in your film in which Ryan Gosling says, it all hurts, getting thrown out of a window, getting set on fire, it all hurts. So what is like the typical kind of pain that a step-man experiences when they're not like injured exactly, but it's just like the standard pain of doing that stunt? I have a lot of experience with that. You know, you talked about specialties and like, you know, the car stunts and cars and fire and things like that.

They actually hurt less sometimes, I think, because, you know because you've built in all these protocols to protect the performer, and there's a lot of science involved. But the meat and potatoes of stunt performing is just physical performance, and sometimes it's like getting thrown down a set of stairs and you know multiple takes and you know how to protect yourself and you know you know you know you're not gonna break anything but you're gonna get a lot of bumps and bruises and twisted ankles and crooked necks and it and um but that's just something that you accept and so having been a fight guy, that was sort of my life. Like, you're doing fight scenes, you're getting, you know, whiplash from doing reactions, and you're

smashing through breakaway tables, or you're, you know, getting thrown out a window. And like, you just, part of it is like, the ability to be a little bit tough and have some pain tolerance and know that you're OK, that they're just bruises. But, you know, you get back up. OK, so you're in a little bit of pain and then the director says, let's do another take. How do you feel when that happens, working as a stuntman? You hate it, but you're stoic about it, and it is sort of the contract that you sign in the sense of the unwritten contract that you sign.

Like, if you can get up, you should be going again. And the stunt coordinator expects you to do that too because he's hired you, and he doesn't want you to not make him look good in front of the director. I think for myself now being in the director chair, I have a lot more appreciation for, you know, the performers. And it's really like if we get it on one take, why not, you know, check the gate? Like, why are we doing it again?

You know, there is a great story from Fight Club, you know, and this is not to, you know, throw David Fincher under the bus, who's like one of my mentors who I love. But we did that stair fall 12 times, 12, 12 takes. And I think the stunt double for Edward Norton was in boxer shorts. And, you know, we had figured out a way to pad the stairs. And the art department had faux painted. It looked like concrete. There were some safety things.

But it's still launching yourself down a set of stairs. And it's like, I don't want to ask him to this day, like, David, which one did you use? And he's like, oh, take two. So that's ten takes that were not necessary. Yeah. Yeah, like, what were you looking for? And again, like, I just know as a stunt performer, like, if it looks like a wreck and it was really compelling and painful and you got it on film, why are we going again? Like, you know, it's only going to get, you know, the stunt performer only gets more cautious and tries to protect themselves even more. I mean, it's just instinct at that

point. Well, let's take another short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is former stuntman David Leitch, who now produces and directs films. His latest is The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling as a stuntman. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.

This is Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado. If you're already a Fresh Air Plus supporter, you may have heard Terry talking about the first daily national broadcast of the show in 1987. It was still like making a national debut both to the audience and to program directors because we weren't on that many stations to start with. Dave Davies talking about his job driving a cab. This is a fascinating city of many diverse neighborhoods, and it was fun to just tool around in a cab all day.

Or archival interviews with people like Arthur Miller, Nina Simone, and Audrey Hepburn. Timing you can't rehearse. It's an instinct. Mm-hmm. Especially comedy. I mean, that's what made Cary unique. That's why there haven't been a whole lot of Cary Grants. Are you not a Fresh Air Plus supporter yet? You could be. Subscribe on plus.npr.org or on Apple Podcasts. You were part of a new generation of stunt performers when you started working. And one of the things that you're credited for

is bringing more reality to fight sequences, particularly martial arts fight sequences. And you studied martial arts when you were, like, college age or just after? Yeah. So what were some of the most unreal things that you didn't want to include in the fight scenes that you were part of? And what did you want to include? It's less about making them more grounded, in my opinion, I think it was more about bringing, figuring out a way to bring that martial arts feeling and integrate it into

Hollywood cinema. Like I think for a long time, you know, I was a fan of, like, a lot of different Asian cinema, Korean and, you know, Chinese, Japanese cinema that had martial arts. And the lead characters, everyone just knew how to fight. And they could fight with a martial arts style. And whether it was a police drama or a heightened sci-fi thing, every character knew how to fight. And it wasn't until the Matrix movies where the Wachowskis had sort of like, hey, we want to have that same vibe in Western cinema. And I think after that first Matrix film hit the ground where you saw Keanu and Laurence Fishburne fight in this dojo, and it was the actors doing the fighting. I mean, that had not happened to that

level in western cinema before that really so it was like a light went off for myself and um you know a core group of us who were sort of training together at the time chad stahelski who co-directed john wick with me we decided like we want to take that model and apply it to all the films that we're working on like we want to train the actors to do the fights and we want to bring martial arts to any sort of genre it makes sense like these characters know how to fight instead of like it's just a messy sloppy dramatic thing it's like there will be a level of skill with these characters. And so we started to take that opportunity with a lot of different films. And we were sort of up and coming stunt coordinators, we were really specializing in fight choreography. And we did something that

we learned from that Hong Kong team on the Matrix films. We would shoot and edit our own fight scenes to present to the directors and the producers. And through that, we built a name for ourselves. And we also learned how to tell stories. And we also learned how to direct, you know, technically direct. We were shooting and editing these sequences and presenting them as like sort of finished ideas, like moving storyboards. And now it's something that is like standard. There are jokes in the film about how the stunt double isn't allowed to show their face because you're not supposed to be thinking, oh, that's a stunt double. You're supposed to be thinking it's the film's leading man or whoever the actor is that the stunt double is doubling for. And the audience needs to keep thinking it's the character, not somebody else stepping in to play that character. Yeah. So there's jokes about you're not allowed to show your face.

Your face has to be down. What was that like for you as a stuntman, making sure that your face wasn't going to be seen? You're going to be in awkward physical positions as it is. There's so much to focus on to keep yourself safe and to keep the stunt going in the way the stunt is supposed to go. And to add to that, don't show your face. Well, you do, you know, it was part of, it was definitely part of the, the old school mentality. It's like you, you learned how to, you know, hit a mini trampoline and jump in the air and like, keep your head away from camera. And like you constantly, you know, it was a whole art form of like how to keep your head away from camera, like always try to give them the back of your head. And you just got good at it and you thought about it. And it was really sort of, you know, in the whole protocol of how you approached any physical stunt. It's like, how am I going to hide my face and make it feel natural? Like my hand is up at this point just blocking my face. Now, it's kind of changed in the last decade or so because the ease of face

replacement allows you to just let the stunt performer perform. And then, you know, if it's a few frames where we see a face, we can use a digital still and wrap it around their face and with motion blur and simple visual effects, you can, you know, mask the stunt performer's profile or face or whatever. And it allows the performers more freedom in doing the action and not like trying to make audiences or have already made audiences kind of numbed to all the risks that stunt performers actually take? Because you can now assume that it's all done in post-production or most of it's done in post-production with a green screen. So you're not so worried as you might have been in the past about the risks and the technique and the art of stunt performers. I know that that's where the world is heading. And I think that that's okay. You know, for me, as someone who enjoys action films, I the difference in the stakes um of what's

happening on the screen with the characters when i feel that it's real and so i think there'll always be the want for that um i hope and especially with for you know for action film lovers but actually just really good storytelling. If the visual effects and the CGI can't deliver the reality of really feeling the stakes behind it all, then it's always going to fall flat. I would like you to give us a list of injuries that you sustained over the years

as a stunt performer. Well, I have torn my meniscus in both knees, that you sustained over the years as a stump performer? Wow. I have torn my meniscus in both knees. I have broke my ankle. I have broken my wrist in four places, and it was pinned back together. That's a crazy story. It was actually my first day on the Batman live show at Magic Mountain,

and I was just rehearsing. I had not even gotten in the Batman costume. And I was so excited. And I got hired for the job. And, you know, sometimes that's when it happens. We were rehearsing this simple stunt where the car is sliding under a catwalk, and I had to jump off the car and grab the, um, the bar and the car drives away. And then I would do a backflip and land down. And I went to do my backflip and I under rotated and I put my hand down and I broke my wrist in four places. Um, I had, um, two concussions and, um and I have knocked out my front tooth. So that's pretty much

comprehensive list of my injuries. Have you seen a lot of like the early westerns, movie and TV westerns where stunts included just like jumping from a rocky formation onto a guy riding by on a horse, or jumping onto a moving stagecoach, or just tumbling from a rocky formation onto a guy riding by on a horse or jumping onto a moving stagecoach or, you know, just tumbling down a hill, falling off a horse. Sword fights in a lot of, you know, MGM kind of movies. Yeah. And I'm wondering what you think about that. With the state of the art now, when you look back on those westerns

or on the sword fight scenes, what do you think about? I love it. I mean, I think when, you know, I look again, I'm always looking at those movies when I'm prepping for a new film to find inspiration, because it is sort of like, how do I reinvent the the the gag and make it my own? And, you know, it's a magic, it's how do I reinvent the magic trick? How do I reinvent this dance and make the choreography my own? You know, the swashbuckling pirate choreography would be a fun experiment. Like if I had a pirate movie, I would go back and watch, you know, Captain Blood, and I would go back and watch Errol Flynn and watch all of that choreography and then take that, expand on it, and make it my own.

You look at the old westerns, that's what Indiana Jones is, right? Dragging under the stagecoach, which was Yakima Canuck who did that first stagecoach gag. And then Spielberg repurposed it in Indiana Jones. And so I love going back, seeing what was done, finding ways to reinterpret it. And Jackie was the master of doing that too, Jackie Chan. He really studied Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, and he applied it for all his films from the mid-late 80s till today.

He's doing reinterpretations of a lot of their physical gags and a lot of times besting them. If you're just joining us, my guest is film director and former stuntman David Leitch. He produced and directed the new action comedy film The Fall Guy about a stuntman played by Ryan Gosling. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. When you were just getting started, and you weren't even getting started yet, you were

hoping to get started. You had graduated college, I think you taught elementary school for a year, then went to L.A. And with some friends who were also aspiring stuntmen, you lived together in a house that was nicknamed Stunt House. And it became kind of famous in the world of stuntmen and some directors because you had your backyard outfitted to practice stunts on. What did you have in the backyard? So we had rented this house. It actually was a, I think a family was living in Florida, or the landlord was living in Floridaida and i i was i actually moved

into this house there was a friend of mine um tim rigby i think who actually had the lease um my friend um was brad martin at the time and another friend of mine brad simonson who's now a visual effects producer um and what we did in the backyard, we had bought a trampoline, an Olympic-sized trampoline. And we were learning trampoline skills because it actually helps you for a couple of reasons. One, for high falls. You know, when you're falling off of something,

you want to be able to, you know, understand air awareness and get your head under and fall to your back, you know, into the pads. You always want to get to your back. Um, so your trampoline allows you to train that, you know, that, that skill and that instinct at constant repetition. Like you're doing, you're jumping up, you're doing a header. We call it where you're just like landing on your back and bouncing, landing on your back and bouncing landing on your back and bouncing and your body gets used to you fall off to something you get to your back that's why trampoline is so crucial to the stuntman's um training so we had this in the backyard and we just decided you know why don't we dig it into the back it should be great if we

had like a flush with the ground so one afternoon we just got the shovels out. We didn't ask the landlord and we dug a hole and sunk the trampoline into the ground. And then later that month, I think we bought cinder block and we made it perfect. And we sort of really dressed it out. And it was funny that we stayed in that house for four years, three, four years. And the landlord never said anything. And then we've always paid our rent on time. And we would train at this house in Redondo Beach.

We'd fall off the roof. We would use the air ram. We would bounce on the trampoline. It was just fun times. It was really, really fun times, training ourselves to be stunt people. When you moved from the house, did the landlord notice that there was a big ditch for the trampoline? It's funny that house stayed in

sort of the stunt world for a long time. So we didn't want to, I remember when Chad came back from the Matrix movies, he just made, you know, some good money and he's like, I'm going to buy the house. And we're like, what? You're going to buy the house? And so he got someone in real estate. I think his brother was doing real estate at the time. And they reached out to the landlord and they made an offer on the house. And then Chad ended up just to keep the trampoline. That's our mindset. Like we wanted the trampoline more than the house. He's like, I'm going to buy the house. I had already moved out. I was renting from Chris O'Hara and living in a different place. But he's like, I'm going to buy the house. I had already moved out. I was renting from Chris O'Hara and living in a different place. But he's like, I'm going to buy this.

So then Chad bought that house and then he remodeled it over the years. And then he moved out and he sold it to another stunt performer from our generation, Hank Amos. And he kept the trampoline in the backyard. And I'm quite sure, I think it's still in the stunt community. I'm not sure who was bought in the house from Hank. But I think that house still exists. And I think the trampoline is still in the backyard. Oh, that's so great.

If you hadn't become a director, could you still be doing stunts? I don't know how old you are now, but at some point, your body really can take that. You can. You have to evolve. I mean, there's a lot of great stunt performers that are still, that are, you know, my age that still perform, but they have know they just the years behind the wheel of just the precision of all of the fine you know motor skill it takes to like hit your marks in that world and it's not so hard on your body but being a fight double and being like the physical double that's you know getting ratcheted back from explosions or falling down the stairs or you

know taking the big hits, like, yeah, you can. I'm so grateful I was able to transition out of it because you don't want to be doing that at a certain age. Yeah. So my last question to you, what is the first action film that you remember seeing? And do you have a favorite? I feel like the first one that really connected with me was Lethal Weapon and I don't know why that crazy character that Mel Gibson played, Riggs, like the classic trope, he's a live wire wire he's a loose cannon you know as a teenage boy in the 80s like that just was like so fun and exciting for me and i remember seeing the action and watching it on hbo um another one that was really impactful for me obviously in my martial arts world is i watched

kung fu theater as a kid on channel 18 um and i remember there were a couple of my friends in high school. We would watch it on Saturday night and would come on at midnight and we would, like, someone would come over, walk over to somebody's house and we would all watch it together until, like, 2 in the morning and drive our parents nuts. So Kung Fu Theater was a TV series that showed a different Kung Fu movie or martial arts movie? Yeah, they would show these classic, like, Shaw Brothers movies like you know dubbed movies from hong kong and it was on the local um the

local sort of station you know it was called kung fu theater and i'm sure they got the rights cheap so they could air these you know sort of kung fu movies from the 70s. And it was the best. And I remember trying to like the next day, you know, play fight. You know, I put a heavy bag up in my garage. My parents are like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm going to teach myself Kung Fu. I love it. Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

It's really been fun and very informative. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. David Leitch directed The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. It's currently streaming. After we take a short break, Ken Tucker continues his series of great albums turning 50 this year with an album by Roxy Music. This is Fresh Air. As part of his summer series about great albums celebrating their 50th anniversaries, rock critic Ken Tucker has chosen an album by the British band Roxy Music. Led by singer and songwriter Brian Ferry, Roxy Music released the album Country Life in 1974.

The band was always more popular in England than America. Country Life was their first album to crack the Billboard Top 40, and it became a centerpiece of the group's reputation as innovative art rockers. Here's Ken's take on the album and its historical context. In America, we tend to like our artists passionate and direct, straight shooters. It's no wonder Brian Ferry and Roxy Music were not the most successful British exports. Ferry aimed more for archness and irony. He moans beautifully, artfully aloof. Yes, he falls in love sometimes quite desperately. But he's not going to let his tears stain his white dinner jacket

as he moves languidly toward the microphone. I fear I won't share Now I know there's a future for all of us Not so long ago I was so scared Country Life was Roxy Music's fourth album, its title taken from a British fashion magazine about country life at its most posh. In 1974, the band was readjusting itself. Keyboardist Brian Eno, who'd done the most to put the art in Roxy Music's Art Rock on their first two albums, had left unhappy. Brian Ferry may have played the detached dandy on stage, but when it came to creative differences, he was a ruthless winner. From now on, Roxy Music would be his project, designed for a series of grand melodramas.

The sky is dark, the wind is cold, the night is young before it's all great We will know We will know The thrill of it all The time has come It's getting late It's now or never Don't hesitate The storm, when I call

Don't spoil the thrill of it all That's The Thrill of It All, one of two extraordinary cinematic compositions on Country Life. The music there is a roiling swirl of chaos created by guitarist Phil Manzanera, saxophonist Andy McKay, and the keyboards of Eddie Jobson. Paul Thompson's drumming propels the melody forward, never permitting Ferry's vocals to go slack with his decadent ennui. The effect is to heighten and intensify

the romantic agony. By the time Ferry gets to the climactic line, a quote from the American wit Dorothy Parker, you might as well live, the song has taken on a delirious intensity. Much in this control Pressure at his hands So I'm told Something's got to give I'm there I like bankruptcy You might as well live The other high point of country life

is the song buried next to last on the album, A Really Good Time. It begins with an orchestral fanfare that ushers in Ferry singing to a woman as dissolute and hedonistic as he is. He and she share the despairing belief that a really good time can only end in a messy breakup. You've heard enough of the blues and stuff You're pretty swell now cause you're pretty tough But I don't have to tell you how hard it can be to get by You never bothered about anyone else You're well educated with no common sense

But love, that's one thing you really need to get by All your troubles come from yourself Nobody hurts you, they don't care Just as long as you show them A really good, really good time. Brian Ferry, born working class, the son of a coal miner, liked to play up his blue blood pretensions during this period. He'd be insufferable were it not for his immense talent as a chronicler of love corrupted and ruined. As a result, he, Roxy Music, and Country Life remain thrilling.

Rock critic Ken Tucker revisited the album Country Life by Roxy Music 50 years after its release. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, autocracies. We often think of autocracies as strongman governments focused on holding power within their own borders. Our guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum, will explain how today's autocracies work together in loose networks to spread their influence globally and dismantle democracies. Her new book is called Autocracy, Inc. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews,

follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering today by Charlie Kier. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salat, Phyllis Myers, Ann Rebo Donato, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Teresa Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Joel Wolfram.

Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Tariq Rose. You might remember How it used to be Three and nine could show you

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