chad stahelskiand his then-partner David Leitch came from martial arts and stunt work and made a name for themselves choreographing great stunt sequences and directing many films before they got the chance to direct a franchise.John Docht. Leitch went his own way and Stahelski remained a soldier.Keanu Reevesin one of the most intriguing director-star relationships that ends withJohn Docht:Chapter 4, the latest chapter in an action-packed blockbuster that became a box office smash as each film grew in ambition and at the box office.
related story
The Most Fantastic Gun Violence Hollywood Has Delivered Since ThenHeadquartersThe movies were just part of it, as were the hand-to-hand combat, knife and sword fights, and car crashes that left Wick bloodied but undaunted. For their fourth and likely final hiatus, Stahelski and Reeves have added legendary Asian action heroes Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada to speed things up even further.
Here, Stahelski explains why the franchise's mythological underpinnings were their secret weapon, how they managed an endless array of jaw-dropping action sequences (14 in the end) for far less than an expensive rom-com, and why the stunts deserve the spotlight. Oscar recognition. like any other category. Getting that recognition for his hurt and abused brothers could be his next production.
FINAL DEADLINE:This franchise began with the humble premise of a hitman coming out of retirement when the son of a crime boss steals his car and kills the dog his late wife gave him in a violent home invasion. A mythology grew with each film. if you co-driveJohn DochtHow much of that franchise potential did you see with your then-partner David Leitch?
CHAD STHELSKI: [laughter]. Let's see... almost none. Dave and I did a lot of work on the second unit in action and worked on some fairly large repairs. But when you sit in the director's chair? It's a totally different world. We entered with undisguised arrogance and confidence: “We did it! How hard could it be?" Turns out it's really hard [laughs]. I don't take the work part seriously; I mean, well, there's these little things called pacing and tone and storytelling. How do you juggle all of that and you still keep all that shit cool?
We learned a lot from the first film; We were very lucky to get the chance to direct. We made a lot of mistakes. I think if we didn't have experienced producers like Basil Iwanyk and Keanu Reeves, a good friend who helped us, I don't know if we would have been successful. I heard a lot from the guys who were there and I really got advice and guidance from smart people. And have the confidence to carry on. At that point, they gave us a very sober script. It was about a Cold War veteran, John was much older than him, and the movie was very, very down to earth. The number of corpses was three or four people. But what original author Derek Kolstad had was the Continental, a sort of sanctuary, a sort of Sisterhood of the Roses. They worked on the gold coins because you couldn't understand their value, that sort of thing. And there was a bit of the service industry. Had Charon [Lanza Reddick] and those crime scene cleanup guys like Charlie [David Patrick Kelly], the guy who collected the bodies. But it was all very, very grounded, and we came up with the idea of making it a little more mythological. I was a huge fan of Greek Mythology and a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien fan. Someone made a version in the far future, withLeaves.
How do you make a modern fantasy out of mythology? We put this hidden world layer on top of it that suggests this whole other world exists, but we barely touch it. Jimmy the Cop is my favorite scene in the first movie...
FINAL DEADLINE:Looking inside, he sees a bleeding body on the floor and casually asks John Wick if he's back at work...
STHELSKI: You see a crack inside, like: "Oh, other people know that all this is happening." We found this interesting. And then the movie ended and we had no idea. Dave and I took jobs at Second Unit because we were broke and thought we would never drive again. So we thought" or "Oh, that was a nice exception." And then the movie comes out and luckily people like it.
FINAL DEADLINE:Did the second film come along quickly?
STHELSKI: We didn't know if we would do a second one. Six months after making the first one, Keanu called and said, "How do we do this? Do you want to do this?" It took us months to figure it out. We thought, "Well, if there's a Continental in every city, what's the chance of us really screwing up?" that we don't mind that it's a solid, solid action movie and that it could be more of a fantasy movie... well, that opened up The Doors that started with the second one, the idea of taking them apart and Greek Mythology to make it big, we could add all these layers.
FINAL DEADLINE:i remember the originalmontanhesesMovie you tried to decode as new version. A great mythology presented in this film that allows for historical flashbacks and an eventual outcome that there can only be one. Later films felt repetitive, although the Adrian Paul series was very good...
STHELSKI: I've been workingmontanhesesto Henry Cavill for years. Being retrospective is difficult. What's the difference between Wick and it? With Wick, you haven't served seven seasons of TV, plus two spin-offs and five movies. If I had to do a remake ofmontanhesesFor now, you'd expect a lot of mythology in these first two hours; nothing could be explored without them. Now,montanhesesAs a TV show, it would be great right now. You would have time to build it, see all those flashbacks and its potential. It's more complicated when you're trying to do something with such a huge mythology. But I agree, it would be a good try. Here we had the chance to really learn along with Wick.
FINAL DEADLINE:Everyone got bolder and bigger. While you, Keanu and your henchmen try to gain the upper handJohn Wick: Chapter 4, what were the questions you wanted answered and the different styles of action you wanted to bring?
STHELSKI: I keep coming back to "why make another one?" questions. If you don't have an answer to that, from my weirdly philosophical perspective, don't ask it if the only answer is money. There must be more story to tell. We put it off for a bit until one day Keanu and I started talking again, just talking about something else. And we agreed that we never really needed to do that spaghetti western vibe that we love, or that samurai vibe. We wanted to write this love letter to the movies we love.
I'm a huge David Lean fan, so I just wanted to do something there. He said, Shit, I love the Moroccan desert scene in the third one. So Keanu just looks at me and gives me that wicked little smile. He says, "You know what?" We were in Japan at the time and we were talking about this whole samurai vibe and some of these leaflets I was reading. And he says, “John Wick has to [face death].” I'm like, "Should we go again?" He says, "We never put any of those things together." And I'm like, "Yeah, I know. We always say that, but you know, you say a lot. We have three movies together that were made independently.” He says, “I know we have time for consequences and we have to do this.”
And then I just read this book calledEl Hagakure, this treatise on samurai ethics. And the fact is that only after a good life can you have a good death. And we were like, 'w' what a scene would be great.” And we are big fans of Hiroyuki Sanada. What if we talked to him and John about the philosophy of dying, the samurai code, on a Japanese roof? "Preparing for death? That's where the fourth movie started. And then it was like, 'How does this expand?' We spent three movies following John and seeing the journey with John as our guide into this world that we're trying to present to the audience. We were like, "Well, we've pushed this. What would make it fun? How are we going to end this? So we wanted a character like the Marquis [Bill Skarsgard]. We wanted it from the perspective of seeing. " Mesa Alta. And someone who just walks in, Shamier Anderson's tracker character. How do you handle relationships in that? Like the father-daughter thing with Hiroyuki and Akira by Rina Sawayama. And we wanted to see, well, what happens when one one person enters and another leaves?
FINAL DEADLINE:That's where you put Donnie Yen, whose character Cain is as blind as he is deadly...
STHELSKI: Donny's character is retired, but his daughter is out there and she doesn't know anything about life. He has to protect her. We thought the best way to expand on #4 would be to tell a story from all these angles. I'm a big fan ofThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly. How do we make this thing work on enemies? Why would John only fight enemies when, what's the quote? "Our choices define us, not our abilities." In every scene ofJohannes Docht 4, we wanted a character to make a choice. Never a choice between good and evil, but a choice between evil and worse. You save your daughter and kill your friend? We let that define who our characters are. In this movie, everyone has to make a choice. And so we all put this box where if John Wick doesn't make it to the top of the ladder for the final fight, nobody wins.
FINAL DEADLINE:This is the scene where Wick has a deadline to show up for the final fight at sunset, and a group of villains are on their way...
STHELSKI: I wanted to go back to Buster Keaton, find the tallest ladder we can find in Europe. And let John fight his way to the top only to get knocked down. We used that as a metaphor for the entire movie.
FINAL DEADLINE:you mentionThe Good, the Bad and the Uglyand Buster Keaton. What other influences were North Stars for you?
STHELSKI: There's a reason Laurence Fishburne quotes Dante at the beginning of the film. And David Lean, with the famous Peter O'Toole cut that makes the match rock. One of the most famous editions of cinema. I thought I would be brave too if Laurence botched the match and cut this beautiful sunrise that we literally shot where they were filming.Lawrence of Arabia.and you see oneseven samuraireference and another forJojimbo. ApparentlyThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly, ja handful of dollarsjFor a few more dollars.YTwo mules for Sister Sara. Little things, of all things, Sergio Leone, and you gotta see the Walter Hill reference tooThe Warriors.
I love the music, I can't get enough of the needle drops in the movie. Because I really like the orchestration and the score. How do I get more music, more cool drips? We have this long action sequence and I would say to everybody, 'We've got to come up with something, something likethe Warriors. Finally I said, "Okay, fuck it. We put the DJ on and we take the Suicide Girls to the Eiffel Tower. He'll be a DJ, we'll do 'Nowhere To Run''.We will pay homage to Walter HillThe Warriors.It will be great.
FINAL DEADLINE:It immediately catches your eye if you are a fan of this movie...
STHELSKI: Dude, we bet everything. I never met Walter Hill. Hope he can handle it.
FINAL DEADLINE:You started directing from stunt doubles, and that's when you developed shorthand with Keanu as your stunt double onKonstantinjHeadquartersfilms. Why are they clicking so well? You can see that he struggled to use weapons, reloaded...
STHELSKI: Let's start with the second question first. How often do you hear in Hollywood, "Do I do my own stunts? That's what I trained for." It became a behind-the-scenes look, part of the marketing plan. I understand. Someone who puts in four to six or four to eight weeks of training for anything, that's great. It doesn't matter if you're in medical terms learning how to play a doctor or physical combat moves for a good action sequence, everyone should be commended for their efforts. driving a tom cruise car inMission ImpossibleMovies, the amount of racing, directing and fighting... that's all Tom. Far above the high expectations of our industry. It is one of two that stand out. I didn't work with Mr. Cruise, but from what I've heard from the stunt teams, he's that guy. There is no limit to how far we will go. My background is Keanu and that's what I would say about him. There's a love of what he's doing, a love of suffering to get to what he's doing there. There's a love of the journey, the craft, and the personal belief of just... "I'll do my best." And that is all. That willpower and dedication, that's Keanu, and that's not normal. It's a Keanu thing who he is.
A few things about our relationship. First, we have similar tastes. If Keanu was on that call, he'll drive you crazy, man. He just loves movies. He's not a movie fan, he's crazy fan love. We've seen the movie eight times in the past week, and in every city we've visited, he's sat down with everyone to watch the movie. He likes the movie, he loves being in a theater with an audience that likes the same things he does. remember theJohn WicksThey weren't written so much as a movie, but as a love letter to what we love in movies, what we love in life. I love classical literature, Dante, Latin. I love languages, museums. I love dogs. I love cars I love martial arts. I love Sergio Leoni. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen. Korean cinema, spaghetti westerns,the french connection, the samurai. That's all in the movie. HeJohn Wicksthey're not a script that was handed to Keanu and me. We wrote this one from scratch and it started on a napkin and we said, "What do you like?" Yes, and then use shotguns. We love dogs, we love weird stairs. I love car crashes from my stunt world. We're going to make this list huge. And that goes for writing.
I met Keanu when he was a new stunt man, around 24 or 25.Headquarters,when keanu was togetherbreaking point,still early in his career. But Keanu Reeves was already a household name and came in and was his stunt double when he got into a lot of double action? I had duplicated some people before, I made their action. And then you get to Keanu, who's like, "Fuck it, I'll do anything." I saw the level of education he already had. when I enteredHeadquarters, I had already trained with Yuen Woo-ping and I already knew most of the fights, and I had already trained a lot of wirework and everything. Then you get there and see what level it's at, which is way above what I duplicated before work, and then you say, "I need to up my game." 210%. This became the standard and still is.
FINAL DEADLINE:So you developed a shorthand?
STHELSKI: I did the firstheadquarters, and I was a stunt double in2j3. The Wachowskis were great and allowed me to be one of the stunt coordinators and choreographers. I have to go with R.A. Rondell, one of the greatest stunt coordinators, does these amazing learning sequences of his. And then I was able to be part of Yuen Woo-ping's wrestling team, work on the choreography, and train all the martial artists. Keanu and I grew up there together. When I started directing the firstJohn Mecha,There was reason to walk with the confidence of arrogance or ignorance, depending on how you want to say it, because sometimes what you don't know kills you. But sometimes it gives you the confidence to survive. And sometimes you really have to look in the mirror and ask yourself, "If you don't know what you don't know, how will you know what to learn?" We try to be very honest with ourselves. And there's so much more that I didn't know the first week. like: “How do I talk to youIan McShaneand Willem Dafoe,” these great actors? How do we discover the story? Keanu came to our trailer even after a 14 hour day and we worked. He never called us shitty idiots, he never rejected us. He just became an equal partner in the creative process and we tried to make a better film to show what he's capable of. He did the same for us in direction, story, and character mentoring. There has never been a hierarchy in our association. He knows when my show is and he asks the questions and he's completely supportive. And there are other times when he's in the writing process when we're creating characters where, you know, he understood and he was trying to figure out what John would do and what he would be. That's probably one of the most unique things about it. We had this ever-evolving relationship where we both tried to help each other and get better, knowing that if we don't get better, the movies won't get better either. And if the movies don't get better, we don't make those movies. It was a learning experience for both of us.
FINAL DEADLINE:Lance Reddick has become a major part of the John Wick canon, however.he diedJust before the last movie was released. Except for his characteristic commanding presence that he displayedO Fio, Oz, Boschand others describe what he brought to the table in building a deep mythology that elevated these films far beyond simple revenge fare.
STHELSKI: I remember when we had to cast and explain the movie and I hope you want to work with you, you come up with this modern day murder story where the guy comes out of retirement because someone killed his dog. Also, the character doesn't talk much and we're going to do that layer of Greek mythology of Odysseus with this modern assassin. I got some weird looks. Lance was the first or second person we cast after Keanu, and Dave and I were still practicing our speech and weren't doing very well at the time. "We have no money, but will you still work with us?" We said to Lance, 'This is why we need you. Your character Charon is the Warden, the Warden, the man between the River Styx and the underworld." Lance took off his glasses, wiped them off, put them back on and said, "I totally understand. Very smart idea. I think I'll do it this way..." He just got it. Cut to filming at the Continental in New York, and he says, "This guy's supposed to be a world traveler; he should have an accent and be very stoic." We knew Lance fromor cape, where he owned the room, yelled at people and stuff. Here he said: "I'm going to stand still like a statue of Oscar, the concierge par excellence." I'm the caretaker's caretaker. Dave and I looked at each other. My God, he understands, the keeper of the Greek gods, the myth of everything.
RELATED:Lance Reddick: The projects the actor left behind
The hardest part is setting the tone. Keanu, Lance and Ian McShane and Willem Dafoe mean business, and we can go wild with the action all we want as long as we keep the characters grounded. That solid foundation started with Lance giving us this myth of the guardian of the Greek gods.
FINAL DEADLINE:Charon was always really nice to John Wick, like there's a backstory to the day before John Wick retired?
STHELSKI:when we didJohannes Docht 3, and we wanted Lance's character to perform an action. And they shared a mutual respect that went far beyond concierge and client. I spoke to Lance and told him it would be great if one of the more peaceful cast members did something about it. He said: "Wow, wait. I said to him, 'Charon was always this gentle giant, and he said, 'In my eyes, Charon was always the worst of them.' He's done so many terrible things and that's why he's on this path of redemption, on this path out of it." I was shocked. After four movies, it would have been easy for someone to make a phone call. Lance understood the image and characters better than most.
RELATED:
FINAL DEADLINE:I interviewed Burt Reynolds, who told me that refusing to do stunts was not sexism for him. The experts were all his friends. And I would do a lot of stunts. When he got up in the morning and felt the pain of what he was doing, he said he could put it down to a trick he shouldn't have done. Do you feel that when you wake up in the morning and what do you do with Keanu? He wants to do it all, but he's your star. You see Tom Cruise hanging off the side of a skyscraper or an airplane. He's dangerous and if he's injured the movie could end. How do you balance it all?
STHELSKI: There's a lot of faith and trust, but safety always comes first and you always have to see it that way. But it is also up to us to define what a trick is. If you're a world-class motorcyclist, is riding a Harley-Davidson a gimmick for you? No. This is just action. For example, if you have a background in martial arts or are a professional dancer or gymnast, the shoulder roll is not a gimmick; It's a skill set you already have. We try to determine what is skill, what is action. By definition, a trick is something beyond a person's capabilities. Exceeding the limits carries with it the risk of injury. Keanu Reeves is filming a nunchaku fight scene, based on his skills and experience as a martial arts stuntman, there is a very high chance of success and maybe a bump or bruise. Keanu owns his own motorcycle company; He runs better on the track than I do on my best day. He is what I would call a motorcycle expert, even in the stunt world. Hundreds of hours with the best rally, drift and stunt drivers in the world. He's a better driver than I am, and most of the stuntmen I've ever met are as well. So it's a trick that he slides in traffic? No, it's action. Of course there is a risk. But I have faith in my team and its abilities. Now Keanu is hit by a car. I could do it once Yes, but is there a high probability of injury? Yep, that's two tons of metal hitting you. One wrong move and that's it, we're done. Everyone packs their bags and goes home. Do we put it in big, tall drops or do we light it? No. I mean, we would have to analyze the situation, but the probability of something happening compared to capabilities is not where we want to go. We try to be smart and very aware of what we think is a gimmick and what isn't. Keanu is also part of the conversation.
It may surprise you, but Keanu is not... macho. I don't want to say bad, but the ego has nothing to do with it. He's not trying to be sexist. He'll take a look and walk away, no. Like the scene where the ladder fell. Check out his stunt double Vincent [Bouillon] here. It just seems like, "No, it's Vincent, all day." But there's an overlay on falling down the stairs, onto the hood of a car, and he says, "I'll do it." He wants to help determine what's best for the court. We'll say, "This is where Marco Wick is going to kick the truck in the chest and side." And he says, "Okay, hold me tight." He wants to do the best for the recording, the best for the film.
FINAL DEADLINE: This scene on the stone stairs is one of 14 action sequences. I may have seen this in a Roadrunner cartoon, but I've never seen anything quite like the stunt cars staged at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. There are shootouts, fights between drifting cars accelerating and people getting run over.Netflix has canceled a romantic comedy directed by Nancy Meyers.with a budget of over $130 million. With all those action sequences, how the hell do you make around $90 million?
STHELSKI: [laughter]. Two things. One of them is a woman named Louise Rosner, the best producer in Hollywood. I used to work for her when I was the second unit leader and when I finally could afford her and she was available... that's reason 1. Putting every penny on the screen is a good saying, but really it's suffering, really be smart . and forcing decisions and that's your show, man. The second thing is there's this built-in methodology, an algorithm, which, for whatever reason, is how people budget and plan. And nobody questions that.
There are 10 weeks of preparation. You budget it. It's 10 weeks of shooting and then 25 to 29 weeks for release and then delivery. Good? And for a $50 million budget movie, that's $4 million for an effect. It's like pulling numbers out of her ass. I mean, a script is a piece of paper. And then someone sits in an office that hasn't been on set in years, and without talking to me or anyone who actually makes a living, they put a number on it, they put a price on it. By the time most directors or actors walk in, they're already out. For example, you need to set $4 million. You start, you know, your videographers come in within a week because that's going to save a lot. It's about economics. And when they have to do the math, the first thing that gets destroyed is preparation. And then the mail tightens, and then the daily count tightens and you have people telling you how to spend it. So when I come in, they say, "Chad, you've got $50 million to do something." And they keep telling me how to spend it. "You got 10 million for wardrobe, you got this for that, you got 10 million for that." And I'm like, "Can you give me the money?" They say: "We'll tell you where to spend." I say, "So you have people who don't make movies telling you where to spend the money on your movie?"
After doing so much repair work on the second unit, you would see it from the outside and be brave. We said, "We know we're new and young, but 10 million?" Some movies need less, others more. The guy said, "Well, that's how we do it." And we've been getting that response for months now. "Well, that's how we do it, that's how it's done." We thought, 'Okay, but what if we didn't do it that way? What if we spend all the money on preparation? And we've been prepping with the cameramen for 30 weeks. Most of the time, cinematographers, even directors, don't see the fight scene until they get on set. The stuntmen do the previews and everything, but the cameramen and the cinematographer don't. And then you get on set and wonder why they only do five cuts a day. I'm getting 30 to 50. You see Keanu running through traffic on the Arc de Triomphe and you don't realize it, but there are also two camera crews in that traffic; These cameramen dodge the cars just like the actors. That's how we get those shots, and if you think you can do it without rehearsal, you're wrong. I spend at least twice looking for locations, at least twice the biggest shows to see. I spend more on location searches and rehearsals than they do. I bring my wardrobe, makeup kits, everything to stunt rehearsals. So when people get on set, we have a plan. We know exactly what we are photographing. It's not just everybody walking around with their heads cut off trying to figure out what we're doing. Everyone saw it a dozen times when we were filming. That's why we are so efficient. In fact, we are preparing. Most people just spend money on preparation but don't actually prepare. The next thing you know is how to match the right people. What's the point of spending $5 million on my stunts while Keanu trains for 10 weeks and doesn't train the cameramen? Who do you think is shooting? This is crazy to me. Like any other show, they don't pay cameramen during the prep weeks. So how do you think this is going to happen? [laughter]. Or they simply pay like three experts to do the tests and then call the experts on site during the day to save money. But local experts haven't seen the fight yet. And then Keanu will fight guys he's never met before. Again, how do you think this will play out?
FINAL DEADLINE:How did you solve it?
STHELSKI: We threw everything out the window. It freaked everybody out the first two movies, like I'm the crazy one who loses it and spends all this money up front. But then you finish it in time and you get the shots that we do. And then everyone's like, "Oh my god, how did you get those pictures?" Well, there's no magic to it. Everyone talks about the fights and the great camera work. Honestly, there are scenes in the fight scenes that are so epic, you don't know how I did it? They are the simplest camera movements. This is not magic. The magic is the time we spend on camera capturing the shit that happens. To do the timed long shots and do all the doubles for the cars. It's the attention to detail. That's the secret. The Arc de Triomphe scene lasted 14 or 15 days, but it was four months of preparation, much of which was bad. Nothing is left to chance.
FINAL DEADLINE:You've spent the better part of the last decade making four John Wick movies, each bigger than the last. Do you have other stuff leaking out includingrainbow sixcom Michael B. Jordan.montanheseswith Henry Cavil. Want to keep supporting yourself?John Dochte seus spin-offs, prequels?
STHELSKI: Good question. I can give you the director's answer that I want to do something that expands whatever it is, but I'm much simpler. It's that algorithm of releasing a movie in Hollywood, it's availability versus budget versus creative vision versus creative freedom. When everything is online, accept the job.rainbow sixI love Michael Jordan and the creative team behind him. That will definitely be in the frame, and now we're working on the script. We'll see where and when this all fits together. The other project that excites me isspirit ofTsushima. It's a distraction from what I've been doing so farJohn Mecha,but it's still about ethics and loyalty, these big questions that I find fascinating. I love the idea of a code of honor and chivalry and all that and the way it changes those issues. as forJohn Mecha,Keanu or I will never say, "We're done." We're proud of what we've done, flattered people want to see more and we want to keep it that way and we'll be there to help. What Lionsgate does with the properties is up to them. but as withballet dancers, this is the baby of Len Wiseman and Ana de Armas. When he reached out to us and asked our opinion on things like appearance, we were happy to share everything we have. But we also want you to do whatever you want with it. I would like to be involved in all aspectsJohn Wick.It's fun. I love the world There's a reason why we did this4and it was nothing else than to love the world. It gives us freedom. It gives us the opportunity to flex those muscles and you can't help but be proud when you create something out of nothing and people really like it.
FINAL DEADLINE:They award many Oscars, but never one for stunts. Ask the Academy to reconsider this. HeCertainlyit would be a way of working in large commercial operations that is the domain of specialists.
STHELSKI: Well, when you say "reconsider", let me summarize a little. What makes you think you've really thought about it? Have you spoken to anyone at the academy about this or have you spoken to anyone in the stunt world who has spoken to the academy about this?
FINAL DEADLINE:I had not.
STHELSKI: In order. So you see the fundamental problem here. I guess if I went to the gym right now and asked, "Do any of you think stunts shouldn't be at the Oscars?" Could you find just one person? I do not think like that. So ok, what seems to be the problem here? The problem is that no one is leading the conversation.
FINAL DEADLINE:did you create it with them?
STHELSKI: I'm just talking to you, and you're going to help me ask them the question. There isn't a single valid reason not to do stunts at the Oscars. Nobody will deny that we are at least equal to all other departments. We are part of every film, be it the Hollywood lore, the music, the costumes, the technical achievements, the direction or the camera. And none of the people in those departments are going to deny it. I just don't think we've had that conversation. I think there are some challenges with that. The double department works completely differently. The cameraman is a person, as are the costume designers and the director. stunts?
FINAL DEADLINE:Is it a team game?
STHELSKI: I have Scott Rogers, he's my senior stunt coordinator, but he's in charge of the cars, rigging and security. I have Jeremy Arenas, a choreographer who pulls all these great moves together. I have three other editors and three other choreographers and two assistant stunt coordinators. And I manage half of that myself and my editors put it all together. Let's say we won the Oscar for best stuntman. Which of the nine people should get it? And why are they giving you the Oscar? There's John Wick Leiter's big takedown and some big car stunts. A large drop falls from the window. But the effect ofJohn Dochtit's the overall action of the movie. So do you award best stunt, best stunt sequence or best stunt constant? Experts don't know the answer. And I guarantee you, neither does the Academy. But I have faith that if all the smart people in academia and all our smart people sit around the table, we can figure it out and make it happen. So I'm asking you to throw down the challenge to help make this happen. I'm happy to be there as a representative of the professional world alongside other great people to sit down with the Academy and say, okay, we're all on the same page. How do we do it? Let's find out together.
FINAL DEADLINE:I've heard that some actors don't like it because it dispels the idea that they don't do all these stunts. But I think of movies likeMad Max: Street FuryÖcrouching tiger hidden dragon. Including the great films can only help the Oscars regain its audience, and why not give a joint award to a film and all the people who risked their lives for the kinds of things you see everywhere bring to the screen. .Johannes Docht 4?
STHELSKI: We're as relevant as any department, and I'm going to be a little cocky and say that I think we would add something to the Oscars. It's a legitimate win-win situation. No great stunt performers or performers that I know of do that for awards or statuettes. It doesn't mean much to us. But it's nice to be recognized by your peers. It's the time