The Art of Action - JJ Perry - Episode 8

[Music] how's it going mate thanks for doing this oh my pleasure brother thanks for having me we're going to talk about your illustrious career from the very beginning might have some little surprises for you uh right up to now uh jj perry is a stunt coordinator fight a choreographer been a stuntman for many years you've been through the whole thing right from the the lowly stuntman right up to the top right jj right brother that's right but you know being a stuntman for me was one of the coolest funnest jobs i ever had you know you just show up and do some wild stuff with your friends and go drink beer that night wake up in time go do it again get paid no responsibility just kick ass so just briefly then jj can you tell the audience what your martial arts background is and how you got involved in hollywood and the stunt world sure so i started martial arts back in 1975 uh in in um in louisville kentucky and in texas i was living in both places moving back and forth for my grandparents and i started with taekwondo itf tech window and wtf tech windows very well very much immersed in that in back in the 70s in america there wasn't a ton of different styles of martial arts you had chodokon kyokushin judo taekwondo and then they had some stuff that you they called kung fu but i'm not 100 sure it was i felt like it was more like stuff that people saw at the kung fu theater and and were trying to emulate it you know so the taekwondo schools that i went to were were the one in texas my master was also the u.s head coach so i was kind of exposed to a high level of that wtf style very early and uh and getting to see a lot of fighters come national team players come down and also a lot of guys like come up from mexico and so i was exposed to a high level of taekwondo very early in life which was you know very good for me i was lucky did you compete i was very competitive probably from uh 76 up until like 93 was my last competition and in 1986 i joined the army on the elite athlete program uh for taekwondo and uh competed i was stationed in korea for a year and a half and competed there quite a bit it was i was there during the olympics and um yeah i was um you know i got to go to japan and compete i got to compete a little bit in thailand as well because you could take a military hop back then for very cheap um and it was um it was a blessing it was very hard you know like for a kid from a small town in texas to go just jump on a plane and go train somewhere like that you know there's no internet back then so if you wanted to learn something you had to go there and and learn it you know and that's kind of what we did and the elite athlete program for combative sports in the 80s like the boxing team in the army there were two gold medals in the olympics you had ray mercer and i can't remember the name of the other guy who won gold medal but it was very it was very they were putting a lot of money into all combative sports they were trying to get as many competitors from combative sports on a national level in the army or in the navy or in the air force marines uh because i guess they saw the value in having that kind of that kind of person in their service so yeah and then when i was when i was in the army i got stationed in um fort worth california which is central coast it's right below um it's right below san jose and i was competing up and down that coast and you know when i got back from korea everybody looked like they were moving in slow motion in america when i was fighting them so i was wreaking havoc up and down the coast yeah and uh that's where i met a lot of guys when i was coming down to la to fight i was meeting guys that were in they were in the movie business you know and they were like dude you got to get down here like money's falling off of trees and you know we shoot blanks we don't shoot real bullets you know you should come down and check it out and i did and that's how i got my um i actually came down and auditioned for a van damme movie called lionheart back that's one of his best yeah remember the guy in the pool oh yeah yeah so it was a bit of a lucky escape then otherwise we would have all seen you in your singlet listen man it's um i'm a beauty bro thing of beauty bring tears to your eyes i remember when i met him like because he was there at that audition and we auditioned at frank duke's school in the valley oh so he was still tight with frank dukes at this point yeah because um it was yeah it was they had a following up but it was at his school on on laurel canyon i think it was or coldwater canyon and i'd driven all night i'd taken a three-day pass i've driven all night from four to ward waited and i slept in my car for a couple hours waiting in line and ripped and and yeah they were like oh that's you're great my friend he's going to put you in the movie you know and so i go back to my base and i was like told my first sergeant i said hey can i have a month off this movie he goes like i ain't gonna do no [Laughter] well that's a shame because personally i think that lionheart is one of his best films i love it absolutely but that was my first taste of the movie business and i already sworn in so i couldn't get out of going to the army at that point i was like oh damn i blew it so there was my next four years i was out there chasing the dream and um and ended up in hollywood ended up here seeking fame and fortune okay well tell me then how long was it before you ended up doing this film so that's like 95 and the funniest thing oh look at that chest shave too yeah so that was like 95 and we shot that in sri lanka now back that up again can you back that up for me yeah so the guy i'm sitting next to you to my left oh i see him yeah that's the house oh the reason his shoulder is covered is because he got his collarbone broken working on a seagal movie um damn it he was with the david keane and ivory williams glimmerman glimmerman he got his collarbone broke on glimmerman and i replaced him and uh but we did the reshoots in la and i was kind of fat and out of shape when we shot in sri lanka but i was all shaved up and tan and buffed when we did this so it was kind of a contrast i get in the ring and i'm a little sloppy when i'm in the city in the stands i'm i'm like a little i'm like a abercrombie fitch model look at that we're seeing some of the wtf here aren't we yeah for sure a little switched out that's that's what we used to call tricking in the 70s yeah there you go that was a good move that's it i just saw dan bernhardt this morning he was doing jiu jitsu over 87 11. he's a good friend now yeah yeah bloodsport three is this yeah i think that's three so what were you thinking when he was jumping up you were thinking this is so he looks so amazing i'm just gonna wait here and get kicked back yeah you know it's like um i didn't choreograph it i just said hey what do you want me to do and they said you're gonna get flying side kicked in the face and i was like cool that's my school i used to have that school in inglewood okay and there's lauren avadon that's right king of the kickboxers yeah a dear friend you know a dear friend that's you know scott that's one of the great things about being in this business you know like even though we're doing a bunch of scripted fake stuff but you make a lot of dear friends and it's a lot of fun you know it's almost more fun to do it in the movies because you're getting paid a ton of dough and you're doing it with your friends and you might get hurt but you're not going to get knocked out or shot you know it's like so it's a lot of fun and you make lifelong friends which has been one of the big blessings from you this business but how come you're just bowling up down the dojang with your um and tracksuit trousers because it's my school i can do what i want tell us about this jj this is mortal kombat the tv show is it that's right that's right that's me doing an old idf forum called gayback i did the first two movies you know i was very lucky to get to to on the first movie to double johnny cage and then we did the second movie which we shot in england at leavesden where where uh we just shot fast and furious nine and it was cool to go back there after all these years and see it no and also in thailand and in uh jordan hang on it made you go limp yeah he did yeah i know he took my strength just like my mother-in-law [Laughter] it's actually my mother-in-law in that costume stealing my spirit stealing your soul swallowing your soul flawless victory yeah you're in the first two more combats then sub-zero in in any of them or no so i i double johnny cage in the first one it was very cool like we did the reshoots and then when they did the second one i was scorpion and then cyrax and i doubled i doubled a bunch you know i was in a lot of the costumes so we but we shot in three countries and like i said we shot it in uh the first part of it was in in london in uh it leaves them where and that's exactly where we just shot fast and furious nine that's kind of when you know i was a young stuntman you know chasing the dollar enjoying myself it was it was a lot of fun back then you know like didn't make a ton of money but we were going to cool places with a lot of friends came to london got to meet ray park buster reeves nikki berwick um you know there was a lot of rock stars on that and uh got to work with keith hitter bayashi keith cook an old an old friend of mine and uh and that's the first movie he's coaching he's an incredible kicker one of the very best bro so the first time i saw him was at the battle of atlanta in 1984 and i didn't used to do the forums i used to go fight but i saw him do with his staff he's in the ring and he rips the staff around he does a hong kong choice but you know a sun by lu a 360. and i've never seen that before nobody had it with roger tongue we were like how do you do that i was like you're sideways in the air you turned and you had a stick in your hand because i'm kind of a redneck and i was like god damn that was a sick ass move you just pulled there but um and but like being able to work with him and train with him and was a real blessing and he's a real good big bro he always was funny thing about mortal kombat 2 before i just before i let you go there real quick is that was tony jaws first movie i was going to ask you about this and because i was talking to tony about this and i reminded him that you told me that they called him hollywood he was standing under a tree branch when we were all met him they had a that was saying stunting saying is the big stunt coordinator down in thailand dear friend another you know lucky to work with fella and uh sang was like hey you guys got to check this kid out he brought him up from bangkok he brought like six or seven of those stunt guys up but he was standing under a tree and the branch must have been 10 feet in the air and you know that that that that wicker ball game they play this it's called super update it's like it's like volleyball with their feet he just lifts the knee and then 540 is his kick and smacks this branch 10 feet high and i didn't know what to say you know i thought i'm looking for the crane where's the wire how did that just happen and he's just nice you know he's a kid nice kid smiling giggling you know so so we just named him hollywood after that and let him kick the [ __ ] out of all of us yeah he's phenomenal he's got like um he's slightly small but when you you feel him it's like he's made he's dense he's made out of different atoms that guy i feel like guys like you and him when god was making tigers he goes oh [ __ ] i'm supposed to make men that day and then he turned you two guys out guys like you out there you know you got a lot of guys that are just genetically and physically on a different wavelength you know they can just hang time and accurate and powerful with either foot or either hand you fall in that category too my brother [Music] so it's um it's a long story so we get there on a location scout we're gonna do this thing where we're driving in a jeep and i'm handcuffed and then i kick the steering wheel or sean william scott's character kicks the steering wheel the car the jeep goes off the cliff dives we go down this mountain row roll roll tumble tumble tumble over a waterfall and then the jeep land comes through and lands between us now in saying that that's what it sounded like we were going to do on the plane as soon as we get there i realized you know like looking at the mountain that we're going to go down and seeing how it was all set up i was like wow and we shot that for like four days straight like 13 times down that mountain every day and it was it was all in times every day yeah yeah and marco's aurora was another double it was ton of white reed and i were the two one x's and then marco zaroar and um paul eliopoulos a tremendous stuntman paul and tunnel y amazing bros and mark marco as well uh they were the four of us each did it like 13 times and then you know going getting smacked up doing insert shots of us running and jumping off a mini [ __ ] and smacking and punching off the trees and you know there wasn't a lot of prep done to that mountain it's pretty much lava rock yeah and trees so he just got padded up as best he could and just uh just went for it yeah better hail mary and just asked tuna why being at 26260 pounds please don't land on me bro you know and you say hail mary and you say go for it you know just go for it it is impressive it's an amazing stunt and you can absolutely feel the pain watching that funny story like the next morning after we did the initial tumble tumble which was one of our biggest days the very first day it was a saturday when we did it sunday morning i get a call from tunnel who's i used to play football for university of hawaii the rock's cousin just a super genetic freak of nature big samoan cool hardest nails cat calls me at 8 am and he goes hey brother you want to go for a run and get pancakes and i literally thought my spleen was out of my body couldn't move and i told him yeah i just came back from a run bro i think i'll sleep a little longer it was not a scratch i think he went out and partied that night and then got up early and ran the next day so what was worse jj day two or day three day three day three is always worse isn't it i'm talking from like a martial arts standpoint you know you know you know how it is like day one your pride gets in the after day one day day two the beginning of day two your pride gets in the way and says no i'm gonna do it i'm gonna make myself i don't care but by day three genetics and impact take over and no matter how much pride gets in the way it's like oh god that hurts oh god that hurts waking up on day three is not fun no no no a lot of tylenol and hope you're not leaking and if you have any stitches hopefully you don't pop and don't leak on you you know oh check it out dude here's a picture another prop that i brought who's that dude that's you isn't it yeah when i was like 14. so is that what i want in one day we fight juniors and then we fight men's at night wow my our master my master was relentless you know he was like don't care don't care if you knock out don't carry your hand broken you fighting yes sir i was talking to lauren avadon the other day and he was telling me about the first time he met you and you had a bit of a spa he said you almost knocked him out with an axe kick that was my weak leg bro lauren's a dear friend man and he's a tremendous martial artist you know like like some of the guys that you know like i said the guys that we meet like come across and you know the gary daniels the right guy whites you know it's just amazing you we're all bound by this this we're karate bombs we're martial artists we love it you know and getting to getting to play guns and play fight when we're i'm 53 and i don't ever need to grow up dog i don't ever have to grow up and i i urge everyone listening don't do it it's overrated don't do it how would you my wife is raising two kids one eight year old and one 53 year old and one of them's never going to grow up yeah so undisputed too um that's when i first met you i was hungry to do something special and i know mike was was there to do some good work and i don't know where you were at but you certainly did something special was it a time for you where maybe you wanted to prove you know be a good fight coordinator i'm not sure how much you'd done before then i've been working quite a bit they would hire me as a stunt man i was getting hired all the time as a lead double or a double but i would come in and choreograph my own stuff all the time or choreograph for everybody it was just never getting the credit or getting paid for it and you know i was grateful like totally grateful i've always been i never thought i would ever be doing this work and like you know but that was kind of the way it went back then you know like you just took the job and i was grateful to have it and um a lot of my bros like you know like the chad zahalski dave leach mike gunter marcus young garrett warren they were already coordinators they'd already become coordinators brad martin i mean i could go down the list but they'd already become sun coordinators and security directors and fight coordinators and i was working with them and for them and for everyone and enjoying myself but this came at a time i was doing a movie called um ultraviolet i was prepping it in la mila jovovich movie and uh they were getting ready to leave for china and we i worked on it for like three months prepping like uh we shot we pre-visited and choreographed the fights and and i just we just it just i just wasn't i didn't go to china i just stayed and did the prep part and i'd work with isaac florentine i'd met him years before a dear friend um and a big bro a mentor a sensei etc you know like he is he's been a he was a big he had a lot of influence in in my style of directing and my motivations i learned a lot of things from isaac while i was doing ultraviolet i saw videos mitch gould had videos of you uh from the movie you did with uh andy chang special forces it wasn't andy chang it was uh ug but uh special forces that's right and i saw the video and i was like oh smooth he's badass how tall i thought you were like five two when you saw the videos yeah oh he's gotta be five two no bro he's your size i was like oh [ __ ] it's like oh god and sure enough isaac calls me says hey gg i'm going to do this movie in bulgaria with mike ty white who likes you he's a friend of yours and his kids call deadkins he's amazing you want to come and i was like you know trying to play it cool i was like yeah i'd love to come but inside i was going oh my god it's like a coordinator a choreographer's dream come true to have two hitters like you guys you know like a lot of times scott when when we're in the action business i spend a lot of time shooting around um an actor and actresses in you know you're you're kind of you're starting picture your your lead is is your is how good they are is how good you're going to be and then you have to be clever about how you cover it with guys like you and mike i just put the camera belongs where the where the action becomes the star of what we're doing there's no trick it's just yeah it's it's what we're featuring is the the the technical skill of both of you in which i i was super super proud of undisputed to you i mean it was like one of my first times up to bat getting to direct a little second unit um isaac kind of leaned on me we experimented with that ramping was shooting at 88 and switching it back to 22. when we were in bulgaria i saw that um was his name robbie something he was a boy band guy from england but he had a music video out of him throwing a bunch of american cheerleaders that looked like zombies up in the air but they were ramping it yeah and then me and i showed isaac i said let's do this in fights bro and he was like it'd be great changes great and and we we came up with some really cool stuff resistant and first but as soon as we did it i mean he's never stopped with that style now that's like isaac florency in style now do you i remember hitting sylvia with this kick it actually hurt my foot and it was take two i made you do it i made it the first one was good but i was like i need you to get into a little bit fatter scott i said sylvia are you good and here already kicked him in the neck proper on that backflip sidekick you've already necked a proper and god bless you he's a tremendous martial artist and a great sport and a lovely girl this is the job this is the job sometimes you've just got to take it brother sometimes you're pitching and sometimes you're catching and uh in silvio game bread we had no problem took it like a man and it made a beautiful sound too because and isaac was like oh that was a good hit and i was like what's because he hit him this is typical jj perry stuff mixing a bit of lucha libre in there right jj and then you know what you would do is like you and isaac obviously that backflip kick is a difficult kick and then the next kick is a difficult kick but you guys are like we'll do them both in the same shot and i'm like what i don't know if i could do that push me to be even better but what's cool about this kick is the fact that i accidentally hit his hand right that was an accident yup yup and and i gave him a mouthful of water to spit out too when he hit you he was slippery and i wasn't 100 sure you were gonna get be able to get your foot fat on him so i needed we needed something to spice that up i think that was like take four and at the end of the day you were running at it we were all running out of gas yeah you know you were like you were gonna go no matter what i'll never forget that movie you know that was like i said a perfect storm and that was the first time like i had isaac kind of believed in me and leaned on me and you know like i didn't have a lot of people believing in me back in the day not even i didn't believe in myself a lot you know so getting that opportunity and seeing how it all works and even picking up a camera here there and operating and you know just getting in there getting your hands dirty and being a part of it creatively and and executing it sitting in the editing room i learned a lot on that movie you know isaac was a great teacher and very and very um very open to everything but your choreography jj i i love it and i actually think that it suits me because it's very violent and it's very vicious and when you hit you really hit with massive intent you know it's uh it's vicious but mixed in with the flash and actually you and lanael stovall um i think your choreography suits me the best sorry tim man which is great but it's the viciousness so you know like especially now after ufc has shown up in 1993 now that martial arts martial arts was a big mystery you know until 1993 everybody thought their style was the best because they did it and that's what their master told them after 1993 and we saw mma we all understood like whoa whoa it's a salad bar and you better be good at everything you got to go to the ground you got to be on good on your feet and when mma became so popular everybody's watching it it's hard to fake you know the movie stack punch look this is a movie hit yeah it's a hit it's a hit it's a hit but it's only on the overs it's either over me or over you so for a face punch you never see a profile real face much very rarely you see that so i always think if you have an impact from the neck down full blast kicks to the body you can't cheat that that's for real or a big throw you have a big kinetic throw with a big kinetic impact at the bottom that's very visceral and real so i try to limit the punches to the face so it's not this big slugfest of things that aren't really happening instead impact real kinetic impacts uh that you can't cheat in camera there's no cgi that can help you with that there's nothing there's no way to cheat that only real impact and i feel like people that have been watching mma for so long and that's the majority of our target market the market that we are catering to all are huge mma fans and in saying that you know we have to i really rethought the way that i did choreography when i first got into the movie business you know i say okay i'm gonna do a spin kick and a sweep and it's gonna be distance but now i started to think more technical now it's reality plus ten percent or twenty percent or whatever it is the luchi libre of course is is fantasy that's lucha loco libre because i'm from texas so i'm a little partial to that stuff but uh in saying that like moving moving forward now to that john wick style let's take let's let's talk about evolution you had bruce lee first and impressive amazing but shot very standard wide over over now you had this kid called jackie chan show up in this late 70s and in the mid 80s he starts directing and he changes the action movie business forever because not only does his choreography where he's not the hero he doesn't blast through people you're rooting for him because he's getting his ass kicked and he's coming up with clever ways to solve it but it's how he filmed it how he took control of the camera one two three cut overlap one two three cut overlap one two so it became a rhythm and this is a style that you were used to on like special forces which i'm a huge fan of but i didn't want to be redundant i wanted to kind of create a different thing longer takes and let it breathe that was always my thing especially if you could let them but after after jackie chan think about it what was the next craze after jackie chan in america came the ninja craze and then after that after the ninja craze and then you had uh van damme show up then you had seagal show up until the late 90s and then what happened the matrix the matrix brought it all back so that was kind of the evolution first time that we really saw in an american movie hong kong style action done the way it was supposed to be done that was groundbreaking i thought well this is it now they're never going to go back but they've regressed well i'll tell you what they did what happened captained and i was almost sad the first time i saw matrix like all my friends like chad stahaski had a dear friend one of my bros was on the matrix and i remember seeing if the theater and calling him and saying dude that was awesome but i was almost sad i was like man this changes everything it's going to be kung fu we're going to be doing kung fu on wires it's not going to be you know like it's just different now when angbok happened i remember looking at that 1 million dollar budget movie one million dollars in seeing cool shots wide with big impacts and i thought wow that was refreshing it was backstage lee style again really the the camera were very basic because all you had to do was film tony jar and he's hitting people for real so just just film that and i saw aung bach in bulgaria waiting for you to show up from london on undisputed two was the first time i saw unbox and i almost regretted watching it because you know like when you see something you're influenced by it so typically i try not to watch movies action movies while i'm working on a movie because i don't want something to slip in there that i regurgitate or i just oh we're gonna do the old i'm trying not to ever say let's just do the old and the older i get now the more i'm less worried about a move and more concerned about sequences and storytelling within the action but um that's kind of the for me was a big i exhaled when i saw him back i thought okay this is this is great back to the roots that's right that's right [Music] so the wire work did stay around for quite a while and it was like shocking when something like i've got to throw some people under the bus now when when i saw romeo almost die they brought jet li over and you know it's not like it's crouching tiger hidden dragon it's it's set in america and he's playing american football and he's flying around on these wires it was absolutely absurd we had um and dashing and his whole team pong fish tiger who were amazing martial artists and great guys but we had them running almost every show in america for like three years they were doing all the action all the shows so they all started to kind of look the same you know i mean so when when that started to fizzle out a little bit we all kind of exhaled okay cool the next thing that really revolutionized action cinema fight style was the bourne movies right that in my opinion really set us back i don't know what your view on it is but yeah i wasn't a fan of that shaky cam cuddy you know seven cameras rolling two seconds you know two seconds cut two seconds cut like your brain can't process all you'll see is shuffle shelves a book in the neck shuffle shuffle shuffle pen in the arm you know like there's only bullet points for me it's like set it up tell a story tell the story of the fight what's the struggle how is he if he gets in trouble how does he over how do you how do you solve that problem tell the story and then show some big impacts and some visual things and you know like it's also the box that you're in so we're in let me see i can trace the box real quick the box goes like that and it has four corners and four walls it's the shapes and rhythms in in sizes that you play in that box that are gonna make gonna make it cool you know like uh if you look at the old hong kong stuff that the cadence of that is like yup yup yup yup i'm a bigger fan of jazz music change the rhythm so it's not just and you know the born for me was almost um not knocking it great films made a ton of dough brilliant when i watched the action i got confused i got really confused it almost gave me a headache watching it like i was trying to figure out what's he doing david leach and and jeff yamada and john yusevio who were all members of our clique 87-11 chad's the house he all had a hand in that born style of combat which i thought was sick it was super cool it's the way that it was captured to me that was a bit disheveled and and i think that a lot of people really liked it because they didn't understand what was going on you know maybe that's something that they like it was kind of like fight choreography for add but i thought the car chases were great the fights were there was big impacts you just don't see how it happened yeah the car chases that kind of thing works brilliantly anyway do you think part of the reason was you know obviously keanu reeves put a lot of effort into the matrix and he did all that training you know six months training whatever it was and obviously they pulled that off brilliantly and then it became okay actors can now do what the old days action stars were doing we're going to train our actors to do this but really they didn't really realize it's it's terribly hard work isn't it i mean you've got to train six months training is what keanu reeves did right so the camera was a way to to hide the shortcomings of the of the performer it's exactly correct and you know like it's also easy way to hide the stunt double like when the camera is moving all over the place um yes um that was a thing like so i'm gonna say this um how many years have you been doing martial arts scott oh it's good for you now so i started when i was 10 and i'm 44. so you can't just show up and work out for six months and be a master you can show up for six months and be proficient you need to be as a as a person who manages the training of a lot of actors for different movies you have to be aware of that like when we're doing the movie warrior with tom hardy and joel edgerton or or haywire or or or or john wick you know you you have to be realistic like even on the john wick movies you want to learn like six throws and seven transitions jiu-jitsu transitions but like really good at those throws and use those in variations like it's not you know what i mean you have to be you have to be specific and be very clever how you do it um i think that the training of actors is important because they're getting paid a ton of money and we're trying to show them how to be better i mean the best way to fake being a badass is by just being a badass right he is a legitimate stud cool guy great with guns we took him we take him out to that range we took him out that range he could he could compete in three gun i don't know if he could officially compete in a judo contest it wouldn't surprise me if he could he could probably compete in some jiu-jitsu tournaments but he's a gem of a human he works really hard you know he's he was a real pleasure it's not easy it's painful it is the first couple weeks suck in the dieting training but you know like we we do it we approach the training very similar to the way that i any of us approach fighting you know you got a tournament you know you're gonna fight in two and a half months so there's the making weight there's the cardio to get in shape there's the sparring the same idea the same principles are applied like we they're doing two a days two training two sessions a day and they're getting nutrition we're getting we've put them up with the nutritionist then there's also body shaping involved so they've got a sculpt a body sculpture that works with them to get them as ripped as they can be and all that has to be done in a way you know for a 52 or 53 year old actor not to get injured but show up on set on the day they're supposed to get down to be as ready as they can be injury free and ripped and picked paint control right yeah that's right i mean if you missed that by a week they're going to be on the back side of that peak and now you're trying to wake them up with coffee trying to coax them into it you know i was talking to stallone about this i mean you know the old days of the rocky films and everything and what he said to me and found it really interesting is he was talking about doing those fight scenes and putting himself through the ringer and it being so difficult to do but what you've got to take into account is that he's severely malnutritioned he's dieted himself down to a point where he's almost yeah and so you're going to pick up more injuries you're going to get sick what i always tell them i said look what we do is last forever you know what you do now last year it's not my look i'm not going to be buried in the graveyard of shame or honor it's not my face on it the graveyard will have your the tombstone will be yours my friend yeah so embrace the training and be as good as you can or don't and we'll double you and it won't be great you know like just do your best in the name of the father the son and the holy ghost goodbye that was fun to shoot this we had a good time she was scared kelly who was scared i was going to hit her wasn't she oh what a what a what a gorgeous girl oh yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't hit that pretty face of course not very careful and we had little kimmy there to do most of it yeah killed it killed it like tough is a tough as a tough as a canadian coffin nail jesus yeah like i we we we wired her into this concrete pole in a minute where we just puffed her yeah it was a hard hit oh it was nasty it made that sound that was a nice one there well insert shot of impact hand in the shoe cut to the wide shot of the back three quarter jackie chan 101 everybody here we go here it comes bing front three quarter boom wire wrap here goes go that was a hard hit why did we come up with this uh video and and what was the whole service behind it so part of part of my whole process is we come up with you know 20 15 or 20 um like really iconic moves that we love and then i find homes for them you know like that's part of it and find some interesting shoe leather and story points that can kind of connect them and you know like i ideally you're doing stuff that no one's seen before you know hopefully it's new and fresh and when you have a starting pitcher like you and by the way that's the the the very young handsome and talented sam hargrave they're now a big director uh and that's dan stevens as well two two gems of humans and great friends of mine they're very proud of what they've done and who they become now but uh yeah just coming up with like a a whole library of very cool moves or techniques and then finding homes for them and having a starting pitcher like you is easy you just find something find something that's new and challenging that maybe that we've done before but then change it a bit and put it in a different context and then there it is love the suicide kicks love the suicide kids well this is what was great about you is like i think i i did this kick off the wall yep you were like well why don't you do that off a person that's right i was like is that possible and uh that became like a bit of a signature move for me i love it it was you that convinced me that i could do a flash kick running off somebody's chest because i could do the flash kick like you know a gainer but you were like no try and run off his chest and do it for undisputed and i didn't know that i could do these things until you pretty much forced me to do it yeah i mean i didn't know if you could do it either and i was just hoping you wouldn't break your neck so in order to save some money um we're gonna put a stunt man in the spot but uh our producer robert bernanke volunteered to do this gag himself because for fear of being over budget robert you okay he's he's in the zone right now so we shouldn't disturb [Music] good robert are you okay that's what i call taking one for the team doing a fight we're doing a fight scene somebody might get kicked in the face what's gonna happen might get a tooth knocked out might get their nose broke might get a few stitches now i take you out to fast and furious eight or nine or gemini man we're on the streets of columbia or cuba and motorcycles and cars going 100 miles an hour with explosions a little mistake there is a huge mistake and having to manage that like that's one of the things about being a stunt coordinator you know especially if you're doing action movies with vehicles and explosions where you're not on a green screen stage all day you're out there actually doing stuff is you're going to take big big risks but in doing that you know like you risk yourself enough times it's like going to vegas you roll the dice enough times you might roll snake eyes so you have to hedge your bets you know you have to rely on your strengths hire the best people you know how the best people you know and then create opportunities for them to succeed and manage those risks most of this was shot on a motorcycle camera by regis harrington was operating the camera itself weighed 180 pounds with a stabilizing head it's a massive 3d 4k 120 frame rate camera it's massive so for him to manage that motorcycle this in this proximity no it was a motorcycle with a with a camera with a remote head attached to it but regis is such an amazing uh motocross rider and camera operator he knows where to put the camera at all times he just knows he's got a little bitty monitor and he's got this electric bike that goes 0-60 in like a second and a half this kid that's tony carbahl he really rode up on that wall he really just rode up there and almost popped a wheelie we all just flew off our feet we were like oh my god i had a forklift on the other end to go down and grab him and let's bring him back down it's amazing but we were in we're in colombia in cartagena which is a beautiful place really just shredding going going super fast you know and ang lee is a great friend and you know he hadn't really done any car chases or motorcycle chases before so he really kind of just leaned on us and was super excited it was a real blast to do this sequence no stunt double for him so that was stephen soderbergh directing and i'll tell you we uh we rehearsed this in 87 11. it was john jacebio john valera danny hernandez and then gina there was the whole the whole 8711 crew was there for this to prep it and soderbergh we're all huge fans of steven soderbergh but he just doesn't really do action movies so he just kind of shot what we have a previz that's identical to this like he shot it shot for shot i was there helping him he didn't even have monitors like because they don't shoot action so he gave me this this tiny clam shell you know he's like hey can you see it and i'm like oh yeah it looks like a hit small screen hit i don't know it's a lot of fun and then fassbender when he gets that when he gets this thing smacked him in his face right here before he did it go ahead and pause for a second yeah before he did it he goes you know and he's such a smooth cool dude like with the accent you know like he's he's good at everything he does he can sing he can play guitar he can dance like he's an amazing guy and a big fan he comes to me he goes so mate tell me what to do when uh when the bass and i was like listen bro you don't want to look at it coming in other words when she grabs the vase don't look or you're going to see the inside of the face make sure you look straight and then she'll hit you high on the head you don't want to get in the ear either first take what does he do she picks it up he looks and he goes mate i saw the inside of the vase mate and i was like i told you not to look is that the take that they used i don't think so i think they use the one where she caught him on the side because he it was a big reaction it was a way big reaction when he got in the chops and then and then when she kicks him through the door that was that no initially was that him taking yeah it was him no that was him there was a pad i put a neoprene pad sleeve on the top of that table and soft uh said dressing there and that couch had been gutted out to be a little bit lighter but um when she kicks him through the door we were talking about maybe putting a wire on him and i was like gina you think you could keep him through the door and she just looked at me and winked and she goes watch this oh is that the one she just hoofed him dude and you see him trying to catch himself because he got kicked so hard he tries to catch himself on the door is it sugar glass yeah it's candy glass and balsa but he's got really good reactions fast bender i like this uh bit now when he gets made yeah it's this and i wanted to have her put her her foot on his face and shove his head into the wall but then i thought okay choose your battles because if you do that he might not be around to do this push kick through the door he might be you might have his conscience removed now the camera work is going back to what you're talking about it's quite static in that i wondered if it was a stephen soderbergh request but it was as as the previous was it was shot for shot the previous he was so stoked when he saw the previews he we talked about his vision of it he said he was not a fan of of the bourne style and we all agreed that we weren't either um eusebio and valera were were there as well so i mean we all kind of ingested all that they were there on the yeah we ingested that and um and i think what we did turned out really really good but it was a lot of fun man like soderbergh is one of my idols like he's a director he's one of those directors who can he shoots it he can shoot it cut it he lights it like he just he's a well-versed filmmaker good at everything he does like he knows all aspects of the craft is that good that he predicted coronavirus that's how good he is that's correct jesus and what you once said to me it's all about filling the frame with beautiful action that's right you said that and that just makes perfect sense the frame is four corners and four walls and it's what you do in those like if it's not 3d 3d means it's four corners and four walls but in and out as well i'm not a fan of 3d never have been but in regular film it's like that it's not just the filling that frame like put a toe over on this corner put a hand over here but it's also the rhythms and the sound so if you close your eyes when you're when you're watching a fight scene close your eyes and listen because a lot of fights some like even steven soderbergh there was no music over the fight scene with tina carrano listen to that fight turn the volume turn the volume up and close your eyes and there's an interesting rhythm to that which i felt was it shapes and rhythms but it was very it really resonated with me and the same with undisputed two while we were doing undisputed two isaac like i would stand there with isaac i said close your eyes and listen to it and you know like we would we really explored a lot of that in these movies you know like his mike style was very boxer friend it was very boxers it was once you what'd you do for you know and yours was like what'd you think one two three big cake round cake so it's like like i said jazz it's that yes i'm gonna do it again bro how many movies do we see where somebody's punching someone in the face and you're over the shoulder and they're like this and this what this is what you would call being stacked the frame if we filled nothing right middle you've got all the negative faces right yeah it's easy to tell the punch but what you want to do is get the two guys like this yeah now sell the punch yes the movement you fill the frame with beautiful balletic action that's beautiful baby i love it can i ask are you a fan of um hong kong cinema before jackie chan when it was kind of like you know the choo choo but the old other stuff i absolutely used to ditch school all through junior high school and even elementary school go downtown and go to kung fu theater and pay 50 cents and watch those same two movies all day and try to get home before my grandparents so i didn't get whipped for ditching school i did it constantly but i feel that those movies in the 70s post bruce lee pre jackie chan hurt martial arts because it was not real snake style you know it was it was something made up for camera and all of a sudden you go to tournaments there was guys doing [ __ ] snake style you know it was like it was fake so i feel like that generation or that that period missing four martial arts for me when you see jackie chan uh from that from after that period when he started coming like young hyena and uh and drunken master the first one then when he gets to project a you see this evolution of how he starts to change the rhythm isn't it police stories where it changed in my mind he started editing more i also i think like if you watch project a part one you see big nasty wrecks like he was really influenced by buster keaton and as we all are you know the original stuntman the original sun actor and um and and watching him in those movies for me where the stunt man and the action becomes the star of it i was such a huge fan i saw um armor of god in korea when i was stationed there and when he fights the girls and the girl jumps down and he round kicks her suicides and then he punched the girl in the flip and the suicide land bro i i stood up in the theater and was like oh my god and all the koreans around hey sit down it was it was it was it was a moment for me where i i was totally drawn into the real impacts and it was very it influenced a big influence on me yeah i just came and i helped with this part like alan poppleton had that show and i only helped with this opening business right here and um we shot that in thailand which was a lot of fun that was actually on a green screen stage it wasn't even in we weren't even exterior or interior but uh yeah it was kind of a it was kind of a tool fest like just smacking fools right there abraham look did he throw himself into that really hard or was statham giving him a helping hand well you know i have a way of getting people wound up pretty proper because i could tell brahim was a little nervous to mess with statement the first time and i just said don't make eye contact don't show your teeth don't wear any cologne he bites don't stare and you know he's like oh i said hey listen little bro you gotta like even when he takes that hit he gets nailed and does a three-quarter under the table i was like hey man you're gonna have to take one for the team here baby you gotta go big and state them you know like and he did he killed it jason statham we're just we're the same age so i and so i understand him like we probably listen to the same music as kids instead jason was also on the british national team for diving so when you compete on any sport on a very high level like that you know where it's you have one chance to show like like fighting is different like gymnastics and diving and that's like you got everything has to happen in this one try it's a tremendous amount of pressure so he is used to dealing with extreme pressure it's not foreign to him and he's got a tremendous sense of focus and he has a you can't fool him like a lot of actors like oh yeah i do he's gonna do a front three quarter you do this it's gonna be great they'll be like oh awesome jason's he's not having it like he he trains in our shop at 87-11 he does does muay thai he does jiu jitsu he does judo we're taking him to the gun range on on friday and shooting with him he's well versed and he's got and he's not gonna he's gonna make everyone work as hard as they can including himself to make it perfect and i really admire that about him that's one of the reasons that i i i keep wanting to work with him because he keeps a very high standard for himself and for everyone else i mean when i worked with him on expendables too yeah i could see that he was uh very particular about wanting it to be good as it could be and i remember him doing about i don't know 20 takes of yep just one way no he'll go until he gets it right and you know like listen corey you and i i also did two movies with corey yoon as well cory yoon was one of his action mentors because he did the uh the uh transporter series and korean directed it or did the action on or something actually yes so he got used to that style because corey you don't make you do it you'll make you do it till you get it right but uh that's where he got that kind of style where he's he's not just looking at what he's doing he's looking at what all of the other people are doing in the frame and that's that's a he's got a filmmaker's mindset for that like you know like a lot of people when you're watching when you're on set you're watching the monitors as a director it's easy just to focus what's happening in the foreground especially when you're looking at a monitor about the same size as an ipad but then when you think about that my movie might be played on a screen in a movie theater you have to be very careful what's happening in the background you could have some guy in the background picking his nose or you know like oh all over the place so jason will see what the guy in the very very he'll know what that guy's even thinking is what's that guy thinking right you know it's like he knows when somebody like you can't [ __ ] him and i'm a big fan of that that attention to detail and that's one of the things that you know makes him great makes him jason statham yeah the staff that's right he's he's a chelsea fan he's the one who gave me that chelsea jersey i don't like him anymore then [Applause] josh brolin is as hard as a mason jar full of rusty nails i love that guy i love his voice i think he's a great actor and he's a great bro this was a real warner spike lee said no tricks and i was like come on man let's do a white cut or do something there's no tricks it was a real one or the way that the old the original old boy was and you know i know people bagged on it a bit but i was quite proud of this one man i thought the guys on that did a great job to do it for real what a job by him brother we rehearsed that for like four weeks every weekend i was on a statham film there called home front so i was doing both movies so we rehearsed this on the weekends because i was shooting home from monday through friday look at this camera move this is on a techno crane that's mounted on the back of a truck that goes it's pickling in and out but the truck has to drive at a certain point when he's going down the stairs you'll see in a minute when he starts going down the stairs the truck starts to drive out so they can get more reach on the it's it's a very technical shot the things you don't see are probably as technical or more technical as what you're seeing right now i think we had like 18 people there and then we made it look like we had 36 people so the guys on the top uh top floor as soon as he goes down the stairs they ran ran downstairs changed their clothes and went to the third floor as soon as he gets done with these guys they run and go down to the bottom floor and change clothes because it was it wasn't a big budget movie so we had to be very clever how he did it and he's taking a few hits in this brolin as well he got smacked for a minute ago when that guy when he threw the guy off the fence the guy kicked him in the face on accident here this one right there right in the giant it made a sound i was downstairs on a microphone and i could hear that hit right there bob and he didn't uh it didn't miss a step that's tough is a mason jar full of rusty nails he's a damn cowboy hard as nails kid i think we had to get ice for that was greg rementer we had to get ice for greg ramenter's foot i think after that oh the shank in the back yep so how many takes did you do seven i think the seventh was the one we kept and i'd call cut if it was falling apart i'd call cut away there's kenny waymack taking a beating with the stick how many times right away from beginning to end and why did they cut it then yeah so they cut i wish you had the long version it's on youtube yeah but the long version was my favorite part like the top shot because there's a long top shot there oh sorry yeah yeah that was super cool like it was because it was there was no cut it was a four minute and 28 second warner i think it was what it ended up being do you know why there was a cut put in there uh i i don't know i didn't ask i mean i was disappointed i was in i was doing john wick one in new york when they screamed this in new york and i went and watched it as soon as i saw it i was like oh man and spike and uh and josh were like yeah man we're really bummed out i guess the studio made him do it so just to talk about the style of john wick i mean for me knowing you and seeing some of the stuff that 87 11 had been doing i kept seeing shades of john wick going all the way back to like the safe really that's where that style was invented like we so when i got finished doing warrior i had all these like lucha libre moves and mma moves that i never used and all the guys were doing jiu jitsu and um and judo you know chad is an amazing martial artist he had dave leach was you know everybody was there john yusevio john john valera that whole team was compiling ideas now while i was doing a warrior in pittsburgh i was also going to a gun range there because i was in the army so i was already really good with the rifle but i started playing around with the pistol a lot more and i kept thinking to myself like with the jiu jitsu stuff how can we how can we make the jiu jitsu not as like use each limb not as a submission but use it as a lever to transition to a move where we can pull the pistol and work the pistol a bit and you know from safe and i don't know if you have the safe videos uh the one from safe with statham we came up with a lot of the john wick style stuff back in 2009 it was 2010 or 11 we did it i saw it in 2010 i think yep that's right yeah and uh unfortunately we didn't do it on safe uh but we all put that in our back pocket and uh wick was the first one when when i when i heard they were going to direct the film and i knew that they were i knew that it was a style it was going to be used because mma was so prominent and jiu jitsu is so prominent now and then gun work has listen i think hollywood misinformed gun work to the whole world now if you look at all the old movies like charlie's angels they back up to a corner and they hold the gun like this and the bad guy's behind him like you know i gotta be careful and you know why they do it because they want the camera to see their face and they can see the threat and see the gun but in real life when you're really when you're really doing it the muzzle of the gun has to be facing the threat like this sliding down the banister on you [Laughter] listen i love john woo i still watch killer and i still watch hard-boiled religiously yeah but i don't know how those chinese guys get a thousand bullets in those magazines that's great one of the good things about john wick yep i helped out with the uh the the club fight in john wick they call i was finishing up expendables three and chad called me say hey can you come to uh new york and help us out with this club scene and i went down there and and um i made some some i helped him out a little bit with the pistol work and and you know the choreography was tight and we did a really good thing there and then after john wick one when chad got john wick two he said well what do you think how can we make wick two better than week one i was like well i don't know like from from from a management standpoint i think we have to make reeves better i mean we're gonna rely heavily on so we train him harder take him to let's let's improve his gun work 10 fold so we took him out to a gun range a tactical gun range karen butler's range where we've been going to since 2015 since we took reeves out there the guy's a 14 time world three gun champions if you look him up terran tactical or taran butler it's amazing like he's like the michael jordan of shooting and you wouldn't imagine it you wouldn't know it when you look at him he's a big big fella but he moves really fast and he shoots like like it's almost like he can he can see the shots three you can see his shots four shots ahead and uh he really helped us that range was a very cool interactive range where we could lend it to choreography like you set up a range where he shoots 17 targets and does a reload and shoots two more which is like choreography have him run that three times now you change the route change the course exactly like choreography three takes cut next moves next one so he became so proficient in in target acquisition and reloading and chamber checking and correcting malfunctions with rifle shotgun and pistol shotgun reloading was impressive man we we shot that sequence in the tunnels of carcala which was in rome and it was like it was like in november in rome in these tunnels these ancient tunnels it used to be baths and it was cold and his hands were cold and you know like just keeping them warm and keeping it's really not easy to reload you know it's very difficult and it's i was really proud of that movie i was super proud of that movie it's very it's very difficult to come up with a new style uh john woo did it michael mann did it with heat but you know the starling john wick which i was seeing you guys 8 7 11 putting together way before that yeah and you know i was surprised that it hadn't been seen sooner but listen that place that the laboratory 8711 is this this laboratory of of test improve and some of the best martial artists trickers free runners gymnasts movement people we get them in there and we just come up with ideas constantly and you know like johnny savio john valera uh danny hernandez justin you jeremy marines danny graham mini sheriff jackson spidel i mean i can go on and on you know there's some mega hitters that come out here like sam hargrave started there yeah lornell stovall started there with my little brothers and uh phil silvera he was working out there too you know there's that place has seen every face that's prominent you know like when um brad allen would be in town back in the day he used to roll through damien walters used to roll through like you know like that was a really it was you've been through there too you know you know it's like really the a mecca of um of action hey listen jj thanks for giving us your time mate so much knowledge so much know-how one of the best guys to to do it and um just personally mate i want to say thank you because you you gave me uh a real chance with undisputed two what we did there and you've done a lot for me mate i really appreciate it i'm one of you i'm your biggest fan homes i'm always dude i'm the biggest cheerleader i'm the biggest scott atkins cheerleader i always you know try to get you serbia trying to get you on everything pretty soon pretty soon but don't say that because you'll have no excuse when you're directing i'll have my own and i got you but be careful be careful what you wish for dog oh yeah i might get a foot in the face i love you bro thanks thanks jj thanks for doing this buddy [Music] you

Channel: Scott Adkins

Views: 72,661

Rating: 4.969553 out of 5

Keywords: JJ loco perry, Undisputed, Boyka, Haywire, Gena Carano, Michael Fassbender, oldboy, josh brolin, jason statham, the rock

Id: wWZ5kxwZvbU

Length: 60min 20sec (3620 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020