Stunt performer turned director walks away mostly unscathed from fights, flipped cars

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

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 stunt man, and Emily Blunt as the camera operator-turned-director. The film is a tribute to stunt men and the risks they take in spite of their lack of recognition. It's the actors the stunt men 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.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FALL GUY")

RYAN GOSLING: (As Colt Seavers) They're in almost every movie. You just don't know that they're there 'cause 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 Seavers, 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.

GROSS: 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 he worked with on several subsequent films, including "Troy," "Mr. And Mrs. Smith," and "Ocean's Eleven." He doubled for Agent Smith in two "Matrix" sequels. Leitch did stunts for Matt Damon in "The Bourne Ultimatum." He's also been an action coordinator and stunt coordinator. Leitch is credited as being at the forefront of a new generation that's credited with making martial art sequences more realistic. David Leitch, welcome to FRESH AIR. I really enjoyed the new film, and your...

DAVID LEITCH: Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: ...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?

LEITCH: 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. So...

GROSS: Well, back at you. I'm a fan, so (laughter)...

LEITCH: But yeah, it is a little bit like magic. You know, I think we're always re-interpreting 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 reimagined the high fall from the helicopter. And there is a little secrecy, I think, you know, part of it, for years, because it was such a business where it was passed down. It's apprenticeships. It's passed down from family, usually to kids, and it's hard to crack in and find someone to teach you because they didn't want to share the knowledge so much, you know, because again, 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, 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, you know, get you through the day.

GROSS: The first stunt that Ryan Gosling does in the film is jumping from a ledge 12 stories high. And we see him wearing a harness, as stuntman doing 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...

LEITCH: (Laughter).

GROSS: ...In the moments right before you jump? Like, what goes through your mind, and how do you, like, center yourself and prepare yourself?

LEITCH: 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 know, 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 stepping off the ledge, and you have to 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 at the starting line. You really have to focus on the first step, and then your body takes over. And I think - you hear that cue, action, and you go.

GROSS: Which made you more nervous, doing stunts like that yourself or feeling responsible for Ryan Gosling's safety when he did the stunts?

LEITCH: 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 know, you are responsible for their safety. And so, yeah, it's harder to see someone else do it than it is yourself, you know, And especially with my experience of been 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.

GROSS: Apparently, Ryan Gosling is afraid of heights. So there's a scene where he does the 12-story height.

LEITCH: Yes.

GROSS: But also there's a scene with a helicopter, falling from the helicopter. So it's kind of cruel...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: ...To put somebody with fear of heights in stunts like that. Like, how did you both work that out?

LEITCH: Well, to be fair, he didn't necessarily bring it up when we were working on the script together, that he had a crippling fear of heights. And I think...

GROSS: So you didn't know that?

LEITCH: 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 Keir 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. I'm like, oh, we're going to bring Ryan out for rehearsal. And it was that first day, when we brought him off for rehearsal, he sort of confides in me.

LEITCH: He's like, you know, I have a crippling fear of heights, and I'm like...

GROSS: Now you tell me.

LEITCH: Yeah, now? OK. And he's like, I'm sure there's a green screen version of this, right? There's absolute...

GROSS: (Laughter).

LEITCH: 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.

GROSS: One stunt, I think, made it into the Guinness Book of Records. It was a car roll where the car overturned and rolled 8 1/2 times. And...

LEITCH: Yes.

GROSS: ...I think Logan Holladay was the...

LEITCH: Yep.

GROSS: ...Stuntman. So did you know that he would go for 8 1/2 rolls? Was that the plan, or were you shocked when that happened?

LEITCH: Well, we had hoped 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 that was kind of a little bit of, like, a tongue-in-cheek, like - if we 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, OK, go for it.

And so I have a longtime collaborator and - someone who I started in the business with as a stuntman way back in the day, the - Chris O'Hara. He was my stunt coordinator, second-unit director on this film, and he took it upon himself that, 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 right car - that the physics would work, we felt. And we went down the path of R&D-ing (ph) how to beat seven rolls, which was "Casino Royale," you know, several years ago.

And it took a couple takes. You know, Take 1 was a really great crash. And in any other movie, you would say, that was epic. You know, it - 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 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 till 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 8 1/2 rolls. And I - every - you know, the crew went nuts because the stunt team had worked so hard on it, you know? They had spent three months, I'm saying, R&D-ing that and, you know, figuring out the physics of it all.

GROSS: Can you explain in Layman's language how you roll over a car, make it flip and keep rolling over?

LEITCH: 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 in the - where the passenger seat is, and there's a pole that gets shoved into the...

GROSS: And explain what a cannon is.

LEITCH: 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. That'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 rolls. It's like a catapult, OK?

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.

GROSS: So the car doesn't survive, but the driver has to.

LEITCH: Yeah, and...

GROSS: How does the driver stay alive?

LEITCH: 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 yeah. And there's just a legacy of that stunt and information on how it's done that gets passed down generation to generation.

GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. 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.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN AUERBACH SONG, "HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with David Leitch, a former stuntman who now directs and produces films. He directed the new film "The Fall Guy," an action rom-com staring Ryan Gosling as a stuntman and Emily Blunt as the director he's in love with.

You mentioned you've been in unintentional car crashes while doing stunts. Can you tell us about one of them?

LEITCH: I was doubling Brad Pitt on "The Mexican," and I had 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 'cause it was - I had just done "Fight Club," and I was, you know, 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, like, you build a career that way.

So I fly down to Mexico. We're shooting in this really small town, Real 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, 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 streetlight. 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. 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 'cause I'm so excited. Like, I'm doubling Brad Pitt. This is amazing. Like, I'm - my career is on the rise. This is going to be awesome. 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 stunk 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-bone the other El Camino (laughter). 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.

GROSS: Were you hurt?

LEITCH: So - no, I wasn't. I'd scrubbed off enough speed where I was fine.

GROSS: And they let you keep working on the film?

LEITCH: My pride was - for a couple days until they decided, you know, maybe you should go home (laughter).

GROSS: Really? So how did you keep working with Brad Pitt after that disastrous beginning?

LEITCH: He 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?

GROSS: 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 the typical kind of pain (laughter) that a stunt man experiences when they're not, like, injured exactly, but it's just like the standard pain of doing that stunt.

LEITCH: 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 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, you know, 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're not going to break anything, but you're going to get a lot of bumps and bruises and twisted ankles and crooked necks. And - 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 of 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.

GROSS: 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 stunt man?

LEITCH: You hate it. But, you know, 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, you know, 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 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 you know 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, when I ask him to this day, David, which one did you use, and he's like, oh, take two.

GROSS: So that's 10 takes that were not necessary. Yeah.

LEITCH: (Laughter) Yeah, like, what were you looking for? And 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 - the stunt performer only gets more cautious and tries to protect themselves even more. I mean, it's just instinct at that point.

GROSS: 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 stunt man. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID FELDMAN'S "SOCCER BALL")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with David Leitch, a stuntman who now produces and directs films. His new film "The Fall Guy" is part action film, part rom-com about a stuntman played by Ryan Gosling and the director he's in love with, played by Emily Blunt. In order to win her back, save the film they're working on and save his life, Gosling's character has to perform life-threatening stunts in his real life. David Leitch has been Brad Pitt's stunt double in several films, starting with "Fight Club," Matt Damon's in "The Bourne Ultimatum" and Agent Smith's in two "Matrix" sequels.

You were part of a new generation of stunt performers when you started working. And one of the things that you're credited for - 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.

LEITCH: Yeah.

GROSS: 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?

LEITCH: 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 said 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, 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 ourself, 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.

GROSS: 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, 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, you know?

LEITCH: Yeah.

GROSS: 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.

LEITCH: (Laughter) Well, you know, it was definitely part of the old-school mentality. It's like 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, you know, again, contort their body to hide their face.

GROSS: As a former stuntman and current director, do you worry at all that all the computer special effects, you know, CGI, are going 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.

LEITCH: I know that that's where the world is heading, and I think that that's OK. You know, for me, as someone who enjoys action films, I feel the difference in the stakes 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 - I hope, and especially, you know, for action film lovers - but actually, just really good storytelling. Like, if the visual effects and the CGI can't deliver the reality of really feeling the stakes behind it all, then, you know, it's always going to fall flat.

GROSS: I would like you to give us a list of injuries that you sustained over the years as a stunt performer.

LEITCH: Well, 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 bar, and the car drives away, and then I would do a back flip and land down. And I went to do my back flip, and I under rotated, and I put my hand down and I broke my wrist in four places. I had two concussions, and I have knocked out my front tooth. So that's pretty much comprehensive list of my injuries.

GROSS: Have you seen a lot of, like the early Westerns, like 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 you know, just tumbling down a hill, falling off a horse, sword fights in a lot of, you know, MGM kind of movies?

LEITCH: Yeah.

GROSS: 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?

LEITCH: 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 gag and make it my own? And you know, it's a magic - 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 you know, take that, expand on it and make it my own. You look at the old Westerns, like, that's what "Indiana Jones" is, right? You know, the dragging, you know, dragging under the stagecoach, which was Yakima Canutt, who did that first stagecoach gag. Then it's, you know, Spielberg repurposed it in, you know, "Indiana Jones."

And so I love going back, seeing what was done, finding ways to reinterpret it, you know, and, you know, Jackie was the master of doing that too, Jackie Chan. You know, he really studied Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, and he applied it for all his films from, you know, the mid-late '80s till today. You know, he's doing reinterpretations of a lot of their physical gags, and a lot of times besting them.

GROSS: 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 stunt man played by Ryan Gosling. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SIDESTEPPER'S "ME VOY ANDANDO")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with David Leitch, a former stuntman who now directs and produces films. He directed the new film, "The Fall Guy," an action-rom-com starring Ryan Gosling as a stuntman and Emily Blunt as the director he's in love with. When you were just getting started, and you weren't even getting started yet, you were hoping to get started...

LEITCH: Yeah.

GROSS: You had graduated college, I think you taught elementary school for a year, then went to LA and with some friends who were also aspiring stuntmen. You lived together in a house that was nicknamed Stunt House, and became kind of famous in the world of stunmen and some directors because you had your backyard outfitted to practice stuns on. What did you have in the backyard?

LEITCH: So, we had rented this house. And actually it was a - I think the family was living in Florida, or the landlord was living in Florida. And I was - I actually moved into this house. There was a friend of mine, Tim Rigby, I think, who actually had the lease. My friend was Brad Martin at the time and another friend of mine, Brad Simonson, who's now a visual effects producer. 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 into the pads. You always want to get to your back.

So your trampoline allows you to train that skill and that instinct at constant repetition, like you - 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, and your body gets used to, you fall off of something, you get to your back. That's why trampoline is so crucial to the stuntman's training. So we had this in the backyard, and we just decided, you know, why don't we dig it into the backyard. It'd 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 we 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 stuntpeople.

GROSS: When you moved from the house, did the landlord notice that there was a big ditch for the trampoline?

LEITCH: 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'd 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 *****

LEITCH: *** 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 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 back yard.

GROSS: Oh, that's so great.

LEITCH: Yeah.

GROSS: 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, like, your body really can't take that.

LEITCH: 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 to move into the things that weren't my specialty. I think, like, I would have had to move into vehicles. There's some great drivers that are in their 60s and 70s that can still maneuver a car. You 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't. I'm so grateful I was able to transition out of it 'cause you don't want to be doing that at a certain age.

GROSS: Yeah. So my last question to you - what is the first action film that you remember seeing? And do you have a favorite?

LEITCH: 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. He's a loose cannon. Like, 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. Another one that was really impactful for me, obviously, in my martial arts world is I watched "Kung Fu Theatre" as a kid on Channel 18. And I remember there were a couple of my friends in high school. We would watch it on Saturday night, and it would come on at midnight. And we would, like - someone would come over. We'd walk over to somebody's house, and we would all watch it together until, like, 2 in the morning and drive our parents nuts.

GROSS: So "Kung Fu Theater" was a TV series that showed a different kung fu movie every month...

LEITCH: Yeah, they would.

GROSS: ...Or martial arts movie.

LEITCH: Yeah, they would show these classic, like, Shaw Brothers movies or, like, you know, dubbed movies from Hong Kong. And it was on the local sort of station, you know, and was called "Kung Fu Theatre." 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 built - put a heavy bag up in my garage, and my parents were like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm going to teach myself kung fu. I love it.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us. It's really been fun and very informative. Thank you.

LEITCH: Thank you.

GROSS: 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.

(SOUNDBITE OF DON STEINBERG'S "THEME FROM MADDIX") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.