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Inside The Fall Guy's Wildest Stunt: That Downtown Sydney Chase With Ryan Gosling (EXCLUSIVE)
Find out how one of the longest action sequences in The Fall Guy really shot in the streets of Sydney.
If you like action, then prepare yourself for the abundance of complex, high-octane, set piece stunt sequences coming at you this weekend in Universal Picture's The Fall Guy. Director David Leitch and his 87North team of stunt performers and coordinators have woven into the narrative every kind of iteration of classic stunts, gags, fights, car chases, explosions, and more into the 2 hour and 6 minute runtime of The Fall Guy, and we thank them for it.
One of the most impressive set pieces to watch unfold over a large section of the second act is Colt Seaver's (Ryan Gosling) multi-part chase sequence, which takes him across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and through the streets of central city Sydney, all while he's inside a garbage truck that serves as a speeding wrecking ball. But most definitely, everything you see in the sequence happens practically in the wilds of the city, after much preparation, planning, and engineering.
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NBC Insider sat down with Leitch, Gosling, Emily Blunt, and Stephanie Hsu to get their perspectives on the epic sequence that includes all of them in unexpected ways.
Planning The Fall Guy's Takeover of Sydney, Australia
Per The Fall Guy production notes, it took 50 stunt drivers to pull off this multi-segmented sequence through the center of Sydney, which finds Colt trying to rescue Alma (Hsu), the assistant of movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whose disappearance fuels much of the film's mystery.
Leitch said because they wanted to do everything practical while including Gosling as much as possible in the shots, there was intense prep to make the sequence happen.
"The stunt team and the locations department did an incredible job, and the City of Sydney in giving us access to all of these things," the director told NBC Insider. "It's a long process getting the permits for the bridge, which they hadn't shot in over a decade. And then all those streets. It's months and months. Probably from beginning to end, the prep design, and getting the logistics of that footprint to do the scene was about four months of just a lot of people pushing a lot of paper to make that happen. And that's locations and stunts working with their engineers and the buildings in the clearances.
"It's not as easy as people think," he continued. "It's insane. And that's on top of special effects building the rigs and stunts rehearsing, and then choreographing all of it and creating safeties. There's a lot that goes into a sequence like that, when it's not done on a blue screen."
Ryan Gosling's Gauzy Memories of the Sydney Harbour Bridge Shoot
From truck cab driving to garbage bin battles, that's actually Gosling integrated into every section of the sequence. For the Sydney Harbour Bridge portion, where he's basically surfing on a piece of metal across the span, Gosling recalled, "This was ingeniously scheduled because it was at like 5:30 in the morning, so I was still asleep. I just kind of walked in and then they drug me across the bridge. Then I went back to the trailer and fell asleep. And I thought, 'That was a strange dream. Or was it a nightmare?'
"[The sequence] took place all over Sydney, and we were shooting so much that I didn't get to really see Sydney," Gosling continued. "So sometimes when I was out on the weekend, I'd be like, 'I think I've been here?' I would kind of lay down and pretend I was in a garbage truck and be like, 'Oh, yeah, we shot here,'" he joked. "They should give a garbage truck tour of the city."
Emily Blunt's "Against All Odds" Karaoke Battle with Ryan Gosling
During the majority of the street chase section, Leitch cross cuts between Colt getting pummeled while Jody Moreno (Blunt) sings her karaoke heart out to Phil Collins' "Against All Odds," thinking Seavers has stood her up.
Blunt admitted there were other options that she had to belt out that day: "We actually sang a few other songs, but we settled on Phil because why wouldn't you?"
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Number one on Gosling's request list for Blunt to sing was anything from the catalog of classic rock singer Meatloaf. "He was pushing Meatloaf on me," an exasperated Blunt shared. "He loves Meatloaf. He just wouldn't stop. It was Meatloaf song after Meatloaf song."
Why did she decline? "I couldn't hit the Meatloaf high note," she admitted. "I was nervous. He's like a rock opera genius."
But ultimately Collins' classic took up the majority of her singing time. "I had to sing all day. I think Phil's had his day in court with me," she joked. "I feel like maybe I'll do Meatloaf next. Now, I might come around to Meatloaf."
Stephanie Hsu Takes Her Martial Arts Skills to The Fall Guy
Even Alma gets her licks in when she gets physical against her burly kidnapper in the truck cab. Because it's a tight space to shoot, Hsu trained to do the sequence herself, in camera. Having come off back-to-back physical projects with Everything, Everywhere All at Once and an award-winning episode of Peacock's Poker Face, Hsu said she was primed for her moment.
"Action is hard," Hsu reiterated with emphasis. "For Everything, Everywhere, I trained with Wushu master Li Jing (Mulan). One of her protégé's, Sonny, was also training on The Fall Guy so a lot of the same vocabulary that she gave me, he was able to reinforce as we were training for this fight sequence. Which is like old knowledge that I feel like I keep getting gifted and hold onto."
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Even though Alma gets a nice bit of screen time for her beat down, Hsu revealed her favorite part of the fight didn't make the final cut. "There's one piece of action fight choreography where Alma uses her leg to kick onto a steering wheel," she detailed. "For some reason I had so much fun doing that one inconsequential move. And I specifically liked it because the bottom of her boots are orange. And so I was like, 'Oh, that's such a cool flash of like pa-tah!'" she acted out with her boot. Alas, a Dr. Martens-meets-Louboutin moment forever lost.
The Fall Guy is exclusively in theaters Friday, May 3. Click here to pick up tickets!
