THE FALL GUY
OUT 1 MARCH
“THE EARLIEST FILMMAKERS were all stunt performers,” says director David Leitch. “Buster Keaton. Harold Lloyd. Charlie Chaplin. And look at the history of [Oscar-winning movies like] Ben-Hur, Gladiator, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart — it’s hundreds and hundreds of stunt performers.”
Why, then, are stuntpeople still among the least celebrated artists in cinema? Without them, many of the biggest movies in history would be impossible. Avatar without the stunts would be the story of a tree. The Avengers would be a post-credits sequence. Yet for the most part, we don’t know their names. “Stunt performers are, by design, meant to be overlooked and underestimated,” says Leitch. “They’re not meant to have the spotlight.” With his latest film, a movie that makes the stuntman the star, Leitch would like to correct that.
The Fall Guy is a perfect fit for Leitch, a man who knows stunt life first-hand. Before becoming a director, of movies including Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, he was a stuntman for nearly two decades. You’ve seen him flinging himself about in the likes of The Bourne Ultimatum and the Matrix sequels. He knows what it is to be the guy who puts himself in danger and gets none of the glory. So when he was approached to adapt a 40-year-old TV show about people like him, he leapt at the chance.
Running from 1981 to 1986, The Fall Guy followed the exploits of Hollywood stuntman/ bounty hunter Colt Seavers (Lee Majors). It was ridiculous, cheesy, and now looks very rickety. But it had a sense of adventure and Hollywood magic that appealed to Leitch. He wasn’t interested in adapting it faithfully, “but it was the kernel of the idea,” he says. “What you get in The Fall Guy is the spirit of people who love making films.” He and Kelly McCormick, his producing partner and wife, saw that they could make an unusual kind of action movie, putting at its centre someone who is used to taking hits, but only when he’s faking it. Plus, it was an opportunity to make an action movie like they did in the good old days, before CGI smoothed off all the dangerous edges.
But first, Leitch needed two things: a script that could perfectly balance comedy and action, and a leading man who was equally at home looking heroic and ridiculous. For each job, there was only one name on the list.