The dirty secret about this movie is that it’s basically just the biggest rom-com ever made. And obviously, let the explosions bring you in if that’s not what you like! But I mean, it’s kind of like if you dropped set pieces from Mission: Impossible into When Harry Met Sally...
—Drew PearceHead Over Heels: stunting with The Fall Guy cast and crew at the action rom-com’s SXSW premiere
On the red carpet for the SXSW premiere of The Fall Guy, Annie Lyons catches up with stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, director David Leitch and more about the practical stunts at the heart of their new romantic action-comedy.
As he introduced The Fall Guy world premiere at SXSW, Ryan Gosling had one promise: “Don’t worry; I’m not going to sing.”
It was worth clearing up. Scarcely 48 hours after Gosling and co-star Emily Blunt were celebrated as nominees at the 96th Academy Awards the pair pulled up to Austin’s Paramount Theatre on the back of a pickup truck, with motorcyclists performing roaring stunts on Congress Ave. to herald their arrival.
Though I can confidently predict that the nearly 1,300 audience members would’ve still loved to hear an ‘I’m Just Ken’ reprise, the vehicular tricks felt like a much more fitting introduction for an action rom-com that doubles as an enthusiastic celebration of the stunt community.
“This is a sincere tribute to the unsung heroes of the film industry, propelling stunt performers to the forefront,” Jeremy shares in a four-star review. “And on that note, the stunt work in this film is some of the best I’ve witnessed in a Hollywood blockbuster in recent memory.”
All filmmaking is personal, but The Fall Guy feels especially so for director David Leitch, who worked as a stuntman for years before moving behind the camera, executive producing the John Wick series and directing the action-heavy blockbusters Bullet Train, Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde.
Speaking to Letterboxd on the red carpet, Leitch told me, “I really wanted to highlight the artisans that make the movie and how they love films, too. When you see Winston [Duke’s] and Ryan’s characters talk about movies, that’s not unlike every stunt person on set. They all love movies. They’re not jaded, begrudged workers. They’re working those fifteen-hour days and risking their life because they love making films and they love them themselves. It’s really a love letter to them, but also to moviegoers.”
The film quickly landed at a 3.6-out-of-five-star average Letterboxd rating, and a closer inspection of the response reveals a common sentiment behind that number: we are soooo back. “So silly n so fun. Crying tears of joy rn, rom coms are so back,” Lieanat reviews, while Franceshaha declares, “Calling all The Nice Guys heads!!!! Ryan Gosling being funny and investigating crime is Back!!!!!!!” From Hugo: “So much fun watching with an audience that matches its energy. It’s that kind of movie where some parts are meant to be cheered and clapped at.”
Inspired by the 1980s television show of the same name, The Fall Guy follows Colt Seavers (Gosling), a stuntman who can’t help but fall in love with camera operator Jody Moreno (Blunt). But after a near-fatal accident on set, Colt isolates himself, suffering from a broken back and heart alike—until producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) tracks him down.
She’s finally giving Jody her big break as a director, but the picture’s egotistical star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has gone missing, leaving it up to Colt to unravel the surrounding conspiracy and save his ex-beau’s directorial debut from the cutting room floor. Rounding out the ensemble are Winston Duke as Colt’s best friend/stunt coordinator and Stephanie Hsu as Ryder’s personal assistant.
It’s an aces cast led by Gosling’s megawatt charisma, as Nathan proclaims, “This crystallized it. Ryan Gosling is incapable of giving anything less than a completely committed, sincere and hilarious comedic performance.” Meanwhile, Raiders of the Lost Podcast praises the more unseen folks: “Finally, a fun action comedy that feels like the great ones from the ’90s and celebrates stunt people as the film heroes they are.”
That old-school nostalgia can be felt especially in Leitch’s approach to the stunts. “We wanted to do grounded practical stunts and really tried to do them for real,” the director explained. “Things that may have gone to the CG in the past couple years, we were going to take on so you feel that visceral nature on screen.”
“It was pretty amazing that Universal really got behind the idea that we wanted to do these giant stunts practically that don’t happen as often as they used to,” added producer Kelly McCormick, Leitch’s wife and creative partner. “The high fall is the highest fall in ten years. There’s a car jump over this crevasse that literally did not look like we ever should have done that in the history of our lives. But of course, we had the best drivers and the best stunt teams to make sure that it was [as safe] as possible, and that’s really the key.”
Perhaps fitting for The Fall Guy ethos, Gosling performed a few of the movie’s stunts himself. One sequence required the actor to essentially surf on a metal scrap piece while hanging onto a shovel as he got dragged across Sydney Harbour Bridge one very early morning. To hear the details from Gosling, the wee hour tactically kept the actor sleepily pliable. “It was very smartly planned because I was just so tired,” he recalled to me. “They dragged me across a few times and then I went back to sleep. And I was like, ‘That was a weird dream—or was it a nightmare?’”
Logan Holliday was my stunt driver in this. He’s like Gene Kelly on wheels. There’s nothing he can’t do.
—Ryan Gosling
But although Gosling gamely stepped up to the plate for a few stunts, he made a point throughout the premiere to shine a brighter light on the team of stunt performers who helped create Colt. As he put it on the red carpet, “It basically took five stunt doubles to make one ‘fall guy.’”
Expanding on his collaborators’ talents, he remarked, “Logan Holliday was my stunt driver in this. He’s like Gene Kelly on wheels. There’s nothing he can’t do. He broke the Guinness Record for most cannon rolls in a movie. Anytime someone gets set on fire or gets hit by a car or does anything cool and parkour-like, that’s Ben [Jenkin]. Troy Brown did this incredible high fall—it was, like, 150 feet, I think. Justin Eaton did all the martial arts. Chris O’Hara was our amazing stunt coordinator.”
The accomplished stunts consistently earned cheers from the Paramount crowd, but to focus on the action only tells one part of the story. The Fall Guy is also, as Mattea exalts, a movie featuring “Ryan Gosling crying to ‘All Too Well’… Emily Blunt karaoke musical number… the split screen montage where they’re discussing Julia Roberts rom-coms….. I LOVE FUN CINEMA WITH SEXY PEOPLE!!!!!”
My favorite love stories are the ones that aren’t too serious, too earnest. They’re messy. They’re chaotic. They’re life! We wanted to humanize the love story.
—Emily Blunt
Embracing that rom-com element was essential for the film’s team. “The dirty secret about this movie is that it’s basically just the biggest rom-com ever made,” screenwriter Drew Pearce confessed to me. “And obviously, let the explosions bring you in if that’s not what you like! But I mean, it’s kind of like if you dropped set pieces from Mission: Impossible into When Harry Met Sally...”
Considering Blunt and Gosling’s on-screen sparks, he continued, “Their chemistry together is insane. I remember the first day I saw them on camera, and you’re just like, ‘I don’t even need to cut away to anything.’ Just have a two-shot and just have them bing-bing-bing with each other. They are incredible.” (Fittingly, one of Blunt’s four favorites is Romancing the Stone).
Audiences got a recent preview of Blunt and Gosling’s shared comedic timing when they introduced a tribute to the stunt community at the Oscars, trading playful jabs about their Barbenheimer rivalry before agreeing it had to finally be squashed. “Or, did we just flare it even more? That’s the question. I feel like we might have ignited it. It kind of got away from us, that bit,” Blunt joked to us.
She explained, “We both really love to improvise, and I think that helps because then you capture these rare moments that are not scripted. They come out of nowhere. They make you laugh on the day. The camera sees how fresh they are.” Aka, bing-bing-bing.
The blend of action and romance is a “tricky line” and “both are equally relevant and important in our movie,” Blunt added. “My favorite love stories are the ones that aren’t too serious, too earnest. They’re messy. They’re chaotic. They’re life! We wanted to humanize the love story, and the two of them are a mess. They just can’t get it together and can’t figure out how to be together. It was just so much fun to play with the messiness.”
I’ll leave you with a request from Ben: “Let’s get that Best Stunt Oscar category up and running NOW.”
‘The Fall Guy’ releases in theaters worldwide on May 3, courtesy of Universal Pictures.
