David Leitch – The Fall Guy: “Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, it was obvious” [interview]

Meet director David Leitch and producer Kelly McCormick, who are reinventing The Falling Man as an action comedy.

A cinema remake of The Man Who Fallen ? The funny idea of ​​adapting the series with Lee Majors (111 episodes between 1981 and 1986) has been around in Hollywood for thirteen years. It was necessary to bring together Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt for the project to finally be done, under its original name, The Fall Guy. Small subtlety: instead of playing bounty hunter when his job as a stuntman is not enough, the character of Colt Seavers (Gosling, therefore) is hired on a film with a star for whom he worked a long time ago (Aaron Taylor -Johnson) and who replaced him. Soon, the star disappears and Seavers must deal with the director (Blunt) and her investigation to discover the truth…

Behind the camera for this action comedy tinged with romance, we find David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool 2, Bullet Train…), who himself was a stuntman for a long time in another life. Last November, on the occasion of the broadcast of the trailer for The Fall Guy, First had met the director and producer Kelly McCormick, a duo who form a couple in the city. We're sharing this interview again, now that their action comedy arrives on Canal +.

In 2010, Martin Campbell was to direct this adaptation of The Man Who Fallenthen McG took over, possibly with Dwayne Johnson in the lead role. Ultimately, none of these films saw the light of day. How did you inherit the project thirteen years later?
David Leitch : The producer Guymon Casady had obtained the rights, I don't really know how, and he thought of Kelly and me because I have a long experience as a stuntman. Who better to tell this story? (Laughter.) And as we began to develop the project, we discussed the best person to embody this new version of the character of Colt Seavers. In fact, we only had one actor in mind: Ryan Gosling. He accepted and we were able to work together very early on.

Kelly McCormick : We were very excited by the idea of ​​giving a second life to The Man Who Fallenbecause it was this series that made a whole generation of stuntmen want to get into the profession. There were crazy stunts, things that we don't do in real life anymore. Each episode was a discovery.

But what made you think that the series could be translated into a film and into our time?
K.M. : Once again, the waterfalls. Stunt performers are the hard workers of the film industry. They have very dangerous jobs and they have to keep in Olympic shape to avoid getting injured. And what's more, they have to hide their faces! It's part of the job. I think they are men in the shadows who are fascinating enough for the audience to identify with and project themselves into them.

David, with Chad Stahelski, you helped popularize the figure of the stuntman. How bad The Fall Guy will be a meta reflection on the subject?
D.L. : Hmm… It won’t necessarily be meta, in the sense that we’re just showing a certain reality of the profession. We wanted to rediscover the pleasure of seeing Colt do stunts on a film set. The love of making films, if you will. Stunt performers don't do this job for the glory, they do it for the joy it brings them to bring a story to life.

The Fall Guy: an action comedy like we don't make anymore [critique]

What I wanted to say is that there is necessarily a double level of reading when a stuntman directs a film about a stuntman, and the actor playing the character is himself dubbed by a stuntman for the scenes. 'action.
D.L. : Oh yes, okay! In fact, the idea is to never break the illusion that Ryan is doing his own stunts. Because if we no longer believe in it as a spectator, the film collapses. The Fall Guy is full of real, old-fashioned stunts, not digital special effects. There is obviously a little meta side but we tried not to push it too hard, for the good of the project. Which obviously does not prevent us from glorifying the work of real stuntmen on set.

This is the first time Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have worked together. What did you see in this duo?
K.M. : As David told you, Ryan arrived very early and we felt that Emily Blunt would be perfect to play alongside him. It was confirmed on our first meeting: something happens between them as soon as we put them in the same room, and I think it shows immediately on the screen. To work, the film had to be both a love letter to cinema and a collaborative process – really a group thing – during filming. And to achieve this, you need actors who drive this. Ryan and Emily, it was obvious.

In addition to working as a couple, you remain faithful to your director of photography, Jonathan Sela, with whom you did John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Hobbs & Shaw And Bullet Train. Still, judging by the trailer, The Fall Guy does not particularly resemble these films, more visually flashy…
D.L. : Jonathan Sela is a true craftsman and someone who knows how to adapt. With The Fall Guytried to do something different, more naturalistic, more immersive, especially when we are behind the scenes of the filming with the character of Ryan. We wanted to challenge ourselves. Well, we still come back to our aesthetic obsessions at certain moments (Laughter.)

K.M. : We have the same director of photography, the same costume designer, the same production designer, the same editor… It’s very family-oriented. That means we have a ” brand “ very clear and distinct, but we must not sink into that. For The Fall Guywe wanted to avoid the “neon” effect for certain sections of the film and aim for something warmer. Still with this saturated style very typical of our films, but which leans more towards yellow. That said, the look varies enormously, because we actually have three films within the film: life on the film set, more naturalistic; Ryan's investigation; the feature film directed by the character of Emily, which is a love story with a science fiction background. You will get what you pay for!

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