“That man potentially doesn’t go home if something goes wrong.”
New action-comedy The Fall Guy has been billed as a love letter to stunt performers – and so it wouldn’t have been complete without a couple of spectacularly audacious stunts of its own.
This was something that was clearly apparent to director David Leitch, who has a background in stunts himself, and so the filmmaker pulled out all the stops to ensure that one scene in particular would have its place in movie history.
The scene in question was a world record-breaking one – with an ambitious stunt beating the long-standing record for the highest number of “cannon rolls” in a car, which was previously set by Casino Royale back in 2006.
Stunt driver Logan Holladay achieved the mightily impressive feat by managing eight-and-a-half canon rolls, compared to the previous record of seven, and according to star Winston Duke watching this moment underlined his appreciation for what stunt performers do.
“We got the world record for most rolls in a cannon roll, right,” he said. “So the Guinness World Record was previously held by Casino Royale for that scene where the car flips over and over – and we beat them.”
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He continued: “And to watch that happen with a real person in the car, real stunt man in the car… and every single time because you have to do that multiple times, multiple takes, you flip the car, crash the car, the car is useless.
“And he gets out and he goes, thumbs up – you see the importance because that man potentially doesn’t go home if something goes wrong or someone like fudges something.
“And many times they would say, you know, like we’re going for the record, but if we don’t get it, it’s fine. At the end of the day, everyone just has to go home safe. And it was that sensibility that was there every single day.”
The Fall Guy stars Ryan Gosling as stuntman Colt Seavers, who is lured back on to a film set 18 months after suffering a major injury – and soon gets caught up in a sinister plot while trying to win back the affections of director Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).