David Leitch spent years eating, drinking, and breathing stunts. The one-time stunt double for stars like Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme, Leitch stepped behind the camera to co-direct 2014's John Wick and has since helmed such blockbusters as Atomic Blonde (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018) and Bullet Train (2022), the latter of which reunited him with Pitt. The standard he sets for the stunts in his movies continues to raise the bar for what is possible in the action space.
"People would be surprised at the amount of rehearsal and time and math that goes into the big stunts," Leitch explains. "There's such a technical nature to modern action filmmaking — the physics, the wire rigging, the cranes that are involved for car stunts, the amount of rigging inside the cars, and the prep work or the camera rigs that we develop to make you feel like you're actually driving during that stunt. And I think people really like to understand how they make it happen."
"There's an art to it," says Leitch's creative producer, Kelly McCormick. "There's a skill to it, and there's a craft to it that's as complicated and nuanced as any other department anywhere on a film set."
Leitch and McCormick are the husband-and-wife team behind the production and action design company 87North Productions. Their latest movie is The Fall Guy, a love letter to stuntpeople starring Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. The action comedy features some of the director's most ambitious action sequences yet, so it helps that the duo has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the history of stunts.
"True Lies has an incredible transfer from the bus to the helicopter," Leitch rattles off. "That stunt is amazing,"
"Or the bungee jump in GoldenEye," McCormick adds.
"Or any of the Mission: Impossible movies," Leitch says, "and Tom Cruise doing them, specifically. I love how that franchise honors the stunts and keeps them alive in an authentic way. They are doing it right for the stunt community."
Here, the filmmaking duo shares with A.frame five of their favorite stunts.
Directed by: Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton
Kelly McCormick: We have to start with the falling house in Steamboat Bill, Jr. It's just genius.
David Leitch: Every stunt is inspired by a gag, and that's a classic. Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin are the masters of practical physical stunts.
Directed by: Hal Needham
David Leitch: The big car jump in Hooper is this classic for stuntmen and stuntwomen. That is the ultimate movie for stuntpeople, because it is about a stuntman. There's a big practical car jump that they did — this crazy one shot before anyone was doing oners — where this car's going through an abandoned factory and the buildings are falling, and they do this ramp-to-ramp jump that's just incredible.
Directed by: Jackie Chan
David Leitch: Jackie Chan took it to the next level. Now, everyone has taken Jackie's work and gone, "How do I do the chase scene in Police Story better?" It's all a derivative of Jackie's stuff, in a good way. In the bus chase scene, there are vehicle stunts happening that are real — and oh my God, there's physical action that only he can do! And some of it is in the spirit of classic Buster Keaton.
There are just some great practical, physical stunts, like when the bus stops and the guys fall out the window and they land so hard. They are some of the hardest hits I've seen people take. I think for stunt performers, there's a lot of respect that goes there. That one hurt. I don't know if I would have showed up and done that one if I had to. Jackie's movies are full of that, so putting one of those on this list is important.
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Kelly McCormick: David was a part of the window leap in The Bourne Ultimatum, and obviously, a whole cast of other stuntmen made it happen. It was so kinetic and parkour-specific, which is a sub stunt-genre in a lot of ways. It's visceral and immediate and essential for the history books for a lot of reasons. And the way it was shot, the cameraman must have also been doing the stunts, right? That’s pretty incredible too.
Directed by: David Leitch
Kelly McCormick: I'll also call out David's oner with Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde. First, it's a female. David always wanted to do a oner, and which actor could do it? Charlize could. She's incredibly talented at learning choreography, performing it, selling it, taking the punches, and putting the work in. And it's so visceral, and iconic, and intense, and real. Personally, I think it's in the history books, and seeing an actress do it all is a moment for sure.
David Leitch: It's not one stunt; it's the logistics that went into that. I know, because we experienced them firsthand. The amount of time that Charlize had to train to be ready for it, the amount of choreography and rehearsals that the stunt team did, the amount of technology the FX department was using to build the rigs we needed to keep this stitched sequence, this oner, alive is really compelling. I'm super proud.
