CHARLIE PICERNI LA INTERVIEW

Charlie Picerni is without shadow of a doubt one of the best stuntmen/coordinators and 2nd unit directors the business has ever seen.

It was such a thrill to spend some time with him on zoom, as he's not LA based these days, to chat about his thoughts on the business and how it's changed over the years. We touch on a whole bunch of topics and it's a fun listen. Enjoy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:11

Hello, and welcome back to our look at the world of action and stunts on film and television. It is very much a return that I've been away in Los Angeles taking in the Taurus World Stunt Awards and conducting as many interviews as possible. One of which you are about to hear between me and a huge name in the world of action, Charlie Pacerni. Having worked on so many memorable shows over the years, including Starsky and Hutch as Paul Michael Glazers, double and stunt coordinator, Streets of San Francisco, Matt Houston as stuntman and director, Magnum, Remington Steel and The Fall Guy, and on the big screen, you'll have seen his work in Roadhouse, Lethal Weapon 2, Ghosts, The Last Boy Scout, Basic Instinct, Die Hard, and Die Hard 2, Heat, Mars Attacks, and Bad Boys for Life, to name but a few. It was a dream come true to spend some time with Charlie and his wife Nancy, who also pops up in this chat. And I started by asking him if he thought recognition was more positive and easily accessible than ever before.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I I think yes, it's been very positive and uh a lot of recognition for people that really deserved it, getting the lifetime achievement awards. I mean, I got that and I was very happy to get it. Um yeah, I think I think it helped quite a bit for leading up to the Academy Awards. And people recognize it. People, most people in the business recognize it for sure. But it's gotten around and uh yeah, it's helped a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Um, I was lucky enough to be there on Saturday. And uh uh what was also interesting, uh Arnold uh uh Schwarzenegger turned up because he was they they've created a new icon award. Um Billy Lucas came on stage, and evidently from what he was saying, we were very aware that it was Arnold who was receiving it. Um and then he said, So we're gonna present it to Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we all started applauding, and then he walked on stage. The weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life. The whole room went, it was an audible gasp. Um you've made it in the business when people suddenly the the air in the room changes when you walk in. Um that's pretty impressive, I must say. But uh I suppose uh that touches another point, which again was discussed on the night with various uh individuals, is that there was a time, and you will know this from your time working on on uh many major television and film projects, that the actors, um, when asked about action or when asked about stunts, never really delivered any information about, well, you know, I just do this bit. The real bit is actually done by by Charlie and the team, or it's really done by so and so. And my double the name is actually the the guy that does this. Nowadays that's that's that's quite common now. You know, there has been a major change in that. I mean, that's got to be positive, surely. But do do you see that happening for the best now?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Very much for the best. Yeah, the act that people today do recognize the stunts more that they it's a big part of the motion picture business, and and the actors realize that and they say it. I mean, years ago, I remember way back when I doubled Bert Reynolds on a show back in New York. I had to do a jump from a ledge that was 33 feet off a ledge in a big uh mansion up in upstate New York. The Reynolds estate. I remember that. He's being chased by bad guys, and he jumps on this ledge and he jumps to a tree. Well, the tree was about 11 feet out on an angle and was 33 feet down, no pads, no nothing. And I was with my good friend Glenn Wilder, who said, You want to pull the tree and we cable it in? I said, No, I can make it, which I did. But the idea was to jump and catch the tree and catch this light, a small little limb with my crotch hitting the top of the tree, and then hang off the little and drop down about 15 feet. Well, what happened? There's a mistake. I hit it, I reached it, got it. The branch broke and threw me back, and I fell right down to the leaves and dirt. Thank God it was like concrete. And I threw my head forward and I cracked three ribs. Oh wow. But it was, you know, the the point of the matter is that when Johnny uh Bert was very popular then. Bert was a great guy, I loved him. But like was saying, they would think they thought differently then. He was on Johnny Carson, they were mentioning the stunt, they showed the stunt, but Bert never mentioned me.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

But I don't care, I don't care about that. It doesn't bother me at all. As long as I do my job and it comes out good, it's okay. But that's the difference in those actors and and today. I think stunt men from the time of stunts, not not now, like I say, now the actors are thinking more, but from the time of stunts, the stunt people were always in the background. They weren't supposed to be seen, they were supposed to double the actors, and that was their job. But now the stunt people, I think it goes both ways. I think they should be recognized, and the actors are doing a great job doing that. But I think stunt people get carried away and they want too much glory, right? Too much of the pie. And I don't think that's right. You know, do your job and you know and and do it well, and that's it. Don't think that the action is going to carry a movie because it's not. What carries a movie is a story, is the acting and the directing. So that's the important thing. Stunt people have to know their position and where they're at. And they have a lot to do with making movies, especially today. There's a lot of well, not so much now, but a few years back, a couple of years, was a lot of action movies, big action stuff. Now I don't know what's gonna happen to the business, it's kind of falling behind a little bit as far as action goes.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

The um uh Bert Rells movie you were talking about is called Shamus. Uh and uh uh that's a just having a look at that for a moment. I mean, it's it's a remarkable moment. I mean, it really is. Uh and a blink and you'll miss it moment in the chase. But as you say, um everybody believed that that was Bert for like 35 years. Like nobody said a thing. Um, and only for the for the for the grace of um Blu-ray and the quality that you were able to slow that down and physically see your face just for a moment.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

For a moment. Yeah, I remember going to the premiere.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Just for a second, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

The premiere, there's a little black kid next to me, and he's watching it and the sun came up, and he said, Man, that boy is dead. And I said, No, I'm right here.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

It was me.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

It was really a while. I mean, I mean, there was a big surprise for me because I'm I'm lucky I didn't hear you know, fall on my head and fall too far backward.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

You were lucky to get away with with uh crack, what was it, crack verd?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I remember falling, uh, and and I I I was lucky really, and I blacked out for a couple of seconds, and I remember looking up, and Dinah Shore was there with Bert at the time and Glenn Wilder, who I loved, stunt coordinator, and I said, Did we get this shot? I was out of the air was just out of me. So I spent three days in the hospital. I got up and I finished the movie. I did the rest of whatever stunts I had to do, and uh it was just one of those things that I got lucky, and I got lucky probably a couple other times in the business, like other guys do, you know. They make that one little mistake where you drop your guard, and uh that's it.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

That's it, yeah. Um, the other thing you touched on there was in in relation to uh um how stunt men have changed in their approach to the work itself. And as as you were talking about um um the stunt people maybe not being able to say anything in relation to a classic example of that is Harvey Parry, of course, the great uh stunt man who doubled Harold Lloyd for many, many, many, many years.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

He was fan. I knew Harry uh Harvey very well.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

Oh, did you know him? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Oh, yeah, he was great. I'll tell you one quick story about Harvey. I know anytime you mention a guy, I got a story about him.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Okay, that's fine by me.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Harvey Perry story. We're doing Kojak, and Dick Donner was directing New York Street of Universal. He's got the camera inside a bar, camera shooting out towards the street through a big, big, giant plate glass window. I gotta take this car around the corner and come straight into the window and go through it towards the camera. And there was a big bar in there, about a 20-foot bar. So Dick wanted a drunk, a drunk guy at the bar, and before the car came through the window, the drunk guy staggers across the lens. Harvey Perry, because he played a great drunk.

SPEAKER_05 9:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

I got my little friend with me, Victor Paul, who's my passenger, and I come around the corner, I just hit it perfect, and I hit the bar and it crashed right through the window perfectly. The bar went up in the air. Harvey's still at the bar. He's hanging on, went up in the air about 10 feet, dropped down, got up, and just staggered off like nothing happened. He was amazing. Wow. And this is when he was 75 years old.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

At the time?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

At the time.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

He was amazing. He was a gymnast. He was one of the you know, from the old school.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

You know, uh, he was just uh he always amazed. Guys like that that I grew up with, and I was only a young kid, I was young then twenty my late 20s, 30s. I really respected them, and I learned a lot from them, a lot. Some of them were just jerks, but guys like Harvey was a good guy.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Yeah, no, absolutely. He was um uh uh he had a he had an agreement with Harold Lloyd, they knew each other terribly well, and he had an agreement with him. Um, and Harold said, Look, when I die, you tell anybody, right? I don't care anymore. It's fine, it's just just carry on. And so when uh um when Harold did pass away, and when the question was asked, and Harvey said, Yeah, I uh you know, safety last, I did the and nobody believed him, you know, which was too okay. I see that, and I can see that from both sides, you know, it seems like a double-edged sword.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

And silent movers with Keystone cops, it's the stuff that they did.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

I mean, a lot of times they cranked the camera, but still there were times they didn't, and they they did they were fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

He also did some terrific uh a lot of the cars were soft tops back then, of course, uh, but he did uh many a car turnover with just a lap belt, you know, and an open top.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

I've done that before.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

How does that work when you don't have a uh when you don't have a roll cage for safety?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Uh well in those days, again, you gotta remember that we hit it when we turned cars over just a ramp, it was just a one turnover. So it didn't matter too much. Doing that in today's jumps, you know, I did a jump like a hundred feet and when another rolled another 95 feet, but doing that, a lap belt wouldn't work too well. You know, you you're gonna go up, I was up like 25 feet and hit. So you gotta have a full cage, you gotta have a five-point harness. But in those days, when we used the lap belt, we grab it and hold on tight. It was only one turn of hitting a ramp, a wood ramp, and going right over.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

And it wouldn't be multiple rolls or high pound, you know, how I hit. So it worked then. It worked. But I've seen where it didn't work where guys hit the ramp and grabbed the belt before the car went over. And I've seen the car come down on four wheels and crash into an effects guy one time on a spelling show and just powered him into a water wagon. And I told them to get out, get that wagon out, that truck out, but they didn't listen, and the guy got it was paralyzed for life because the car didn't the guy dropped down too fast. He thought the car was going over because you run, you got that feeling, and all of a sudden you grab the strap and you hold it on, and the car goes back down again.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Right at itself, yeah. It's it's uh the the element of of um there's the title stunt man, there's the stunt coordinator, but also uh particularly nowadays, but this as you've just mentioned, is running right the way through the in your entire career and certainly uh many of everybody else's, is that there is this element of health and safety that has to be maintained. You have to be able to see that 10 feet ahead the whole time so you can adjust what you think is likely to happen. Worst case scenario, what do I do? Or do put put yourself in the position of the stunt man or or the performer and say, right, this is what we have to do. It I mean, it's prevalent now, but how long was it before that was really being taken into consideration on set?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Uh when I was starting, it was taken into consideration pretty good then, too, as it is now, only more so now because uh stunts became more tough and guys are competing with each other now and stuff like that. But uh yeah, I think I think we've always thought that way. And you got to keep your guard up. If you don't keep your guard up, let it down, you're gonna get that left hook. And uh this is what people have to understand. The easy stunts is what you get hurt on. The tough ones, most likely you won't get hurt because you prepare it.

SPEAKER_04 13:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

You got safety guys, you got all that stuff. Years ago, uh we had that, but not like now. Now you got safety guys that know everything, they know fire, they know harnessing, they know how to rig a car. So it's got more professional, you know. But years ago, they they thought that way, they looked out for each other. And I worked with some of the old timers like uh Carrie Lofton. Carrie Lofton is uh one of the best drivers in the business. And then then and now, in my estimation, the best stunt man ever, then and now, was way before me, was a guy named Davy Sharp.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Davy Sharp, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

He was unbelievable. And I met Davy, he was 60 years old. I was only 28 or whatever. And uh I I matter of fact, I shared a room with him on uh upstate uh uh California, uh San Francisco on a thing called the Boston Strangler.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

And I met uh uh uh Davey and he did a bat a standing backflip backwards. The guy was amazing. So he was, in my estimation, the best stunt guy. And Carrie Lofton you couldn't compare. You I mean, he drove sports cars, he drove everything. I mean, I'm I consider myself a pretty good driver. I still have really good timing, and I could do a lot of stuff with the car. But Carrie was amazing, he was just amazing. I worked on against all odds with him, and I watched these guys. Growing up, I watched them. And I watched the bad ones and I watched the good ones, and actually follow the good ones. Carrie was a great storyteller, he was a great guy and a great driver. Now he couldn't do much of anything else. But driving. Oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

He was he was um uh tick every box when it came to driving, of course.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Famously, everybody would know his name from Bill Hickman and guys like that.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Friends Connection. You know, I I I watched all of them and um I learned from them. Then I did my own thing naturally, as far as coordinating. I kind of separated separated myself and I I could do any kind of movie. I like real movies. I I like to do real stuff, motivated stuff. That's why I work with actors a lot to get their feeling and what they think. But you can get a lot of out of an actor because they know what they're doing, they know their part. And stunts are motivated, you know, just do a stunt or a fight, just to do a fight. Why are you doing it? What is what is the what is the guy thinking, you know? What kind of style does he have? It's like when I did Die Hard One with Bruce. You know, I terrorists had the martial arts stuff and all that. Bruce was a detective, so I gave him the street stuff, right? And then you you make a you know uh different different style of fighting. But uh, you know, it's it's interesting if you make it interesting. If you make it just Hollywood stuff, then you copy another guy and you do the Hollywood stunts, and sure. And and that's okay. I mean, Hal Needham was great, great for that. He was what I call a Hollywood stunt man, but he was tough, son of a gun. I mean, I work with Hal. He was one tough guy and he was good. And he and he did a lot of stuff that helped stunt people. I mean, he came up with a shot maker, he uh broke the land barrier on the race, he did, he was always motivated for something. He he did uh, you know, he wrote Smoke in Abandoned, Hooper, he directed them, they were hits. Hal was a good stunt man, but more on the Hollywood side. But he still did. I mean, I seen Hal do a 75-foot high fall of Tower Universal with a he had a broken collarbone and he did his high fall. So he was he was pretty tough and pretty good. He he he he made a big step for stunt man. See him and Ronnie Rondell. When I got in, they were all older stunt guys, the rough and tumble guys, getting barroom fights and stuff like that, but they were talented in their own way. Some were gymnasts like Harvey Perry, some weren't. Ronnie was a combination. Ronnie was uh was really uh a gymnast. You know Ronnie Randell, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Yeah, uh high diver as well, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

High diver. And Ronnie made the transition of the stunt man to an athlete.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

He hit Arams and did what they call brandies and stuff, and he just passed away. And I felt really terrible because I really loved Ronnie. He was a real guy, he was a real man. There was no bullshit about him. We had meetings at Stuntson Limited in the beginning. I'm an original member. Yes. But Ronnie was was a big contribution to the stunt business, making that turnover to the athlete and making stuntman what they are today. You know, he he progressed. Well, how would have stayed the same way, but how was again still great. Yeah, they had two different kinds of qualities.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

I'm uh I'm reading his uh autobiography again at the moment, and there's a a number of occasions in there um Hal's book. Um there's a a number of occasions in there where, as you say, injured um from the day before or the morning uh for the afternoon shoot or whatever it was, him saying, Right, well, I'm gonna do this because if I don't do it, they'll just replace me with somebody else, you know, and he wants to make absolutely certain that he does it. Uh uh, but also the other thing which I think is very important is that he was a great listener. Um, with with a lot of these great that they listen, you know, they take on listening and observation, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Observing everything around you. This is an interesting business if you if you do that. If you just sit back and play cars and do your stunt and talk about it and make it so great, it's uh you know. Look, when I first started, I was standing in, and I knew nothing about stud work. I was a kid growing up in New York, I did every kind of job you could think of from working for bookmakers to loading boxcars in Long Island City to landscaping. I I I did it all. So I got a lot of common sense, which is very important, especially doing stunts. Common sense is very important, and I uh I learned that. And it was it was interesting how I, you know, when I first started, my brother was an actor on a TV show called The Intouchables. That's how I went to California.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

I was married, had a little baby, and I didn't know what it was. He said, What would I I said, what would I do out there? He said, You could do stunts and double me. I said, What is what are stunts? I had no idea what he was talking about. Whereas these other guys, like Joe Wilger, they knew right away from the little.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

So I said, All right, I'll take a shot, like we said, kids in New York, and I went out there thinking I would never stay, I'd go back home again and do what I had to do. So I was making a lot of money working for the tough guys. Anyway, I went out there and I liked it. I got under on the Intouchables the first day and met the whole crew, Robert Stack, who was the highest paid TV actor around then. And I really liked it and I stayed there. And I went back to New York a few times, but I knew what I wanted. I never knew what I wanted. My brother graduated, my father died. I was three years old. My brother graduated high school, went to college in New York, went to the Air Force, became a first lieutenant, went to California, graduated Loola. Different road, different track. I was on the road to no good. My mother got me out and I went out there only because of her. I say I liked it, and uh what I did was I said, I know I'm not gonna stand in all my life like an idiot, but I I watched, I was in the hub of everything lights, grips, camera, actors, wardrobe, props, you name it, special effects. So I just observed. Observation is a key word for person getting in this business. Now it's a little different. We could talk about that. But I learned so much that 13 years later I was directing Robert Stack on a TV show.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

So that's what you get from that. If you want to learn, I had the common sense, which is really important, like I said before, and doing stunts is the most important thing you can get. But I got the knowledge by observation of learning how to make movies. So that was my education, which I didn't get back home like my brother did. So I got an education in filmmaking. I knew how to cut, knew how to do all spend time in the cut. Room. I did all that stuff, so I knew how to direct when I first got my first show to direct. I did 60 TV shows first unit. So and I directed two movies. But anyway, that's what you get out of that. But growing up in the street, like I did, that was an education, common sense. And working in the business, I observed. And also when you travel, and I traveled a lot. 27 years of television, the first 27 years. And after that, I started traveling. Went to Australia, Hungary, Italy, France. That's another education by dealing with different people, different crews, different camera people. And just generally speaking, just different different locations.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

So that's the education I got. And I I really was happy that I did it. I wish I could do it all over again. It was a lot of fun in those days.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

There is um, I mean, uh what you say there is is very true. There's a there's a um uh a pattern appearing through your background because you look at um you look at performers who've come from different backgrounds and they they approach things in very different ways. But as you said yourself, your life on the street, where you where you were living, you know, all of that sort of stuff. You take all of that with you, and uh as an acting tool as well, you you you know, you take from that in order to get a performance from etc. etc. So I I think it's very important that all of that runs together and you you you're able to use that um later on down the line.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

I mean I I look at some biographies I watch, like me, my Nancy and myself, we watch TV. The stuff that's on now is the content they have is not really good, my estimation. Some is all right, but I rewatch all the old shows like Steve McQueen, one that are alive, and stuff like that. And I look at Steve's background, I read his biography and stuff. It was a shame the way he died, he was such a uh good actor, a talented guy, but he used that stuff that he grew up with. He had a tough upbringing, you know, and uh without a mother and father and uh stuff that he had to do. So he he he kind of similar to what I did, he grew learned a lot having a rough life, but he used it in movies and movies.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Um just uh again, touching on something that you said there a moment ago, you said that stunt being uh which we we understand that being a stump person now is is different, but it's different for different reasons. You know, the the the job itself is still has a position, still has uh uh a necessity within within the business. Um, but there are people coming at it from different reasons. Um back in the days when you were coming through and Hal, for instance, and people of that nature, they wanted to do the job because, well, firstly, they didn't know it was a job. You've just said yourself that you know this is a job, I'm really I didn't know whether that was a job, but it's a job. Also, the fact that your addition to that will make the end product better by adding you to it for the fight, for the doubling, for whatever, you're gonna make the character better for those few frames that he's on for that you're you're doubling for.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Thinking all the time. Exactly. When I did Starsky and Hutch, I knew as a kid, because I was in the business, you know, at that time before I got the show, about it was one of my big shows that I got in the beginning. Uh about 15 years I was in, so I already knew what I was supposed to do.

SPEAKER_04 25:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

So right away the concept of the show, Starsky was a funny guy, David was a more serious guy, so I laid the action out like that. And there came to a point where after a few shows that I did, the producer Joe Nr. said to the writer, Don't worry about the action, just put in the sun coordinator put the action. I used to write all the stuff in, all that car stuff, chases, everything.

SPEAKER_04 25:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

That's where I got my first chance to direct. I uh uh three shows uh directly at the end of the season. So it it pays if these young kids would know when I say to them stay near the camera, and I explain to them what I mean, they don't pick up on it. They just want to do stunts and they have a short career as a result, right? You know, a stunt man's career is like a football player. You know, you're gonna you when once you get older, you know, they're not gonna hire you as much as they hire a young guy, no matter how physical you are, how much you stay in.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

So it's but there's also a decision to be made from the performance point of view where after a period of time you're gonna go, look, I can't keep taking this much abuse. If I keep hitting the ground too more, I can't do this much longer. So you have to try and move on to the coordinating side.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Nancy goes like this. Point she was a really good actress, really good actress, but I started doing stunts on a movie I did called True Romance, uh-huh. And she took some hard knocks. She learned without me how to hit air rams, how to jump out of cars and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

She did a lot of stuff, and she got banged up pretty good, and now she says, I'm done.

SPEAKER_04 27:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

But it's true.

SPEAKER_06 27:14

The thing I can tell you just real quick, she did little things is that um people in this business, whether you're an actor or whatever, if you're constantly working all the time to get recognition, then you're usually not very good at what you do, you know, because you need recognizing when you're really good at what you do, you don't need recognition, you have your own personal recognition.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah, a lot of people are they're worried about getting screen credit and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I never thought that way. I mean, I I just I just did my thing, and when I saw it on screen, it was it was good, and I was happy with that.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

You know, I did Die Hard One, I I I did a lot of stuff on that, and I was in New York doing the movie and uh went to the screening, and my name was way down below the caterer. Who cares? But I contributed quite a bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

And and and got a credit, you know. Uh I mean I know that that's not the the reason why you're doing it, but but it was on there. Um, yeah, no, I I see that it's it's very it's interesting that the the comparisons between then and now, there are um, you know, there's there's there's always been set etiquette, you know. You that there's things you do, there's things you don't do.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah, I mean etiquette is you you're exactly right. There are things that there were a lot of stunt people that I don't like in the business. I don't like their personality, I don't care what they stood for, but if they did a stunt and it was a tough stunt, they got uh trapped somewhere, I'd be the first one there to get them out. Yes, of course. You know, uh that's the way I felt.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

That's the funny thing about stunt people is that there's so much, you know, there's jealousy, there's politics, there's backstabbing, there's all that. But when it comes to someone's life, or if there's another department, like the top is against the whole stunt team, the stunt people that don't like each other suddenly come together.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

You know, I I together. I have to defend the directors in one way because they they have a big job and sometimes they get frustrated and they scream and yell, and people take it wrong. Oh, they'll take it out on me. No, I always overlook that, you know. Because I sometimes I know, but sometimes I do that. I get it when I direct, I get frustrated because the guy doesn't listen, and something that that's dangerous turns out wrong, and I get you get you get frustrated. I've seen it in television, I've seen acting directors do it, and you kind of got to give them a little leeway. But I'm maybe in that case I wasn't there.

SPEAKER_06 29:46

No, you weren't there, trust me.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

All right, that's another that's another story. That's another thing that tape later.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

You're you're lucky to be in a situation where you can actually put your director's hat on and see it from a from an alternative perspective, you know.

SPEAKER_05 29:58

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

Yeah. Um, okay, so uh uh looking at at um uh the changing face of action. I mean, uh stuff has uh has happened over the years, uh starting, you know, we we look at Hal and Gary McClaudy uh uh having the the the first air of the uh the first cannon uh on um on McHugh uh to the way in which wire work is now uh such a big part of the of the business, and in certain cases uh can be even more dangerous in certain cases. Uh we we we look back at at uh talking about Alan Olin that we started the uh with and saying, you know, as a gymnast you need to know exactly your your body positioning, you need to know where you are with wires, you need to be even more careful about where you are. How um how has all of this, and you've seen a great deal of it, how has it changed over the years? And has it changed for the better? And is it safer in respect of are are stunts still really stunts these days with with the added safety features attached?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, there are, but you know, with the wire stuff, you can uh do it a lot easier, you know, naturally. I mean, uh uh if if you get the right guys that know how to rig stuff like that, and there are a lot of them now. But uh yeah, I I think uh it's it's easier, it's none as dangerous. You know, I remember years ago the guys were competing against each other, and one guy got killed. You know, Dar Robinson and uh competing in the high falls, and AJ killed himself doing a 300-foot into an airbag that you know wasn't set for it. But but the wires, you know, I like I did die out. I had a guy fall 35 stories with a descender. And then I had him jump off the building with a accelerator.

unknown 31:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

To jump out of a helicopter with no pads, no nothing at 200 feet at night, and it was a tough, tough job. Uh we had to rig it and everything, and uh with the the accelerators are a lot different, as you know, as a descender, more of a free fall. But had both those shows on those things on the show, so the they were pretty safe as long as you know how to rig them. So I would, you know, I would think that uh they're safer now with the wires, I would believe.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

And and certainly with a with a from a stunt coordinator's point of view, and if there's a huge amount of rigging to to create the safety area of this particular gag, it's still got to look dangerous, but the that the safety has to be paramount. But do do you hand do you pick those riggers individually as a coordinator? Or do you say, look, I've worked with these boys before and that this is the team for me?

SPEAKER_00 32:52

I would I pick them because I know most of them. Just like when I was a kid growing up, I knew special effects men who were good paratechnics, who were good mechanical. You you got to get a feel for that. You gotta know because that's very important. You work hand in hand. So, yeah, you you have to know more. You get watch their work and get good information from different guys that you know. You know, that's the whole thing. Like when I was growing up and doing stunts, I stuff I didn't know, I would call Ronnie. Say, Ronnie, what do we do here? Okay, so it's the same thing now. You get you get uh information from people you know that uh that are good. Like David Huggins, who's a effects guy, does I did Fast and Furious with him. He's one of the best around as far as rigging, you know.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

When he did all the stuff for me with uh die hard and die hard too. He rigged a lot of stuff. So there are some good riggers out there, but you gotta be careful and get the right ones.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Absolutely. Yeah, the the they're they're I mean, that's they're key to that safety area, aren't they? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah, exactly. Years ago when I when I started, there were no stuntmen rigging, the fact the effects guys did all the rigging, and there were some good guys. AD Flowers was one of the best effects guys around. He did Torah Torah and it was unbelievable. And I worked on touchboards with him. But uh I guess later on in the 70s, maybe stunt guys started to rig and they started to get known to doing their own rigging, even putting roll cages in and stuff like that. So there are a lot of good riggers around now, and that's the one way to get in as a stunt coordinator is rigging. Because you know, these guys they get in now and uh they're not really they don't they don't really have the knowledge to be a stunt coordinator. But these shows that they do today, you work on there's really not a lot of stunts like when I was doing it.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

You know, we know it's it's changed, hasn't it? There's a definite change.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Definite. I mean, you go in now and you do nothing. You go in and you do a car. Oh, we got a car chase. You go in, you're doing 10 miles an hour, and another car is going in between.

unknown 35:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I did stuff like Lethal Weapon and the shows that I did, they were car chases. I mean, I I was driving cars against traffic, and they were coming at me at 40 miles an hour, and I'm going in and out of cars. I mean, that's dangerous. One little mishap you hit head on, even at 10 miles an hour, you're gonna be in trouble. But that's uh you gotta you know gotta know what you're doing. And a lot of these stunt guys today, they get they get to be coordinators by politicking, by knowing people.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

But thank god they don't get these big shows because they'll hurt somebody and they it's been happened before.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Because it it looked like uh a lot of those shows in the the 80s, particularly uh ones that I would see growing up and adore from week to week, like the A-Team and Magnum and uh Night Rider and stuff of this nature. Um that there would be you know a a great amount of of work put into an action sequence, whereas now maybe it's the the case that they're trying to curtail certain areas of budget to enable more on the actors as opposed to those long winding sequences of cars going in and out of each other on on road. Maybe that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

That is. I mean, they they yeah, they uh you know they don't do a lot of that anymore. The thing is, uh they just changed everything with the stunts. Like I say, you go in and it's maybe because insurance purposes or people that are running it, but there's no more no more big uh sequences like that. They just uh they do other stuff. I don't know. And the AI, what if the AI AI comes in more heavier? That's gonna really kill them.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Well, this is true.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Major, major disappointment for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Are you are you seeing those changes already, or are you seeing uh people prepping for that? I mean, we we've started already with face recognition, you know, the dots and bits and pieces, and then uh how far will it go uh to to where the stunt performer is actually a very, very small part of that particular action scene?

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yeah, I mean, what's happening now is not even that, it's not there yet, but I think it will be there. What's what happened now is a few years ago when they had the strikes and a lot of the unions, a lot of the shows went to Europe because it's not in Hollywood anymore. This the movie business in Atlanta, New York, and Hollywood are dead. There's no more stunts around to speak of to supply enough of the people that are in the stunts. And uh they shoot Europe, it's easier. The the unions are no problem. They shoot in Canada, so Hollywood is gone. And I and like I say, AI comes in, and I think that'll kill it completely. I mean, when I say completely, it's not enough work for the people that are in the business now.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

It was just you know, because it it was always the case that uh and certainly from a UK point of view, um somebody wanted to join the British stunt register out there, and they would, you know, two and a half, three years working to try and get the qualifications, which were six different disciplines at instructor level, to be allowed to get on, but only to consider to be getting on before they then had to try and find some work. And there could be uh a very long time between getting on, being accepted onto the register and finding work simply because the Americans have hustles. We don't have hustles in the UK, but a similar sort of thing where you've got to network yourself, you know, by contacting coordinators and bits and pieces. Um, but then to get a situation where something else comes in completely, in this instance, like AI, and removing that part of the of the whole situation seems seems really, really complicated.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

It is, yeah, very complicated. What do you think, Nancy?

SPEAKER_06 39:04

What do I think? Oh, I know more about this for 20 years, I knew. So if you think of it theoretically, the AI is improving to the point where it looks real. So, what do they need actors for? What do they need stunt people for? What do they need a set designer for? What do they need wardrobe hairman? I mean, the whole crew. They don't need you, they just need computer people. That's it. So, you know, that that's part of it, you know, is that I don't see a future in the way it was, you know what I mean, for live performers, you know, with the invention of AI, and it's they're getting better and better at it. You know, the AI is improving to the point where you that's what I said.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

We haven't seen the worst of it yet. It's gonna come strong.

SPEAKER_06 39:50

And and it makes uh it makes me feel sad because it, you know, and I feel fortunate that at my age I got to work through, you know, uh since the 80s, I've been working. I worked a lot, I mostly did stunts, and uh, you know, so I got to experience that, but I've watched it morphing over the past 10 years, and I think that AI is definitely if it continues going in the direction it's going, will completely take over all entertainment. But I wonder though, will the public be interested in it if they know it's not real? Well, think about think about if you know you're watching just a computer, like these these are not even real people. I know, like for me, I'm not interested, but will the next generation think it's awesome, or would they go, I don't want to watch a computer?

SPEAKER_03 40:48

That there will there will probably be a niche market where somebody, you know, there'll be some people that will be quite excited by it. But generally, uh, I mean, it's taken it's taken the audience a very long time to get around to the fact that there is really somebody doing that.

SPEAKER_05 41:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Looking at it from the stunt business point of view, there is somebody doing that, you know, and and then to change that and go back the way the other way is very, very, very difficult to do.

SPEAKER_06 41:14

It'll be interesting to see which direction the masses go by. Because, like you said, if it's just a small niche of people that think it's awesome, well, that's not going to bring in the money.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

It's not enough, is it? No, of course, no.

SPEAKER_06 41:28

Oh, and you know what's interesting? I I read a report on this a couple of months ago, which is funny because we find ourselves doing this.

SPEAKER_05 41:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

We don't we watch mostly like we stream, we watch mostly all old TV shows and old films. There's a few current new stuff that is interesting, but all the new stuff coming out, it's just I we just don't have an interest in it. And we thought, well, maybe we're just too old. But what I'm running into is, you know, I meet young people all the time, whether on the phone, and I ask them, I go, how old are you? Like, oh, I'm 34. And they're watching Old Westerns, and they've become like so popular now on like Amazon Prime and Stars and all these apps. Yeah, like they're regurgitating, like you know, a wanted dead or alive with Steve McQueen is like suddenly became like a big deal. And you have the rifleman. Well, right now we're watching the rifleman, but it's like huge. And then it was funny. I said, you know what? We should probably buy the DVDs of these old classics because who knows if you'll even be able to stream anything one day, you know.

SPEAKER_05 42:40

For true, you know what I mean? The old show.

SPEAKER_06 42:42

So they go on there and they're sold out. You can't even, there's like a waiting list to get like to to buy a TV series like Laramie or the old westerns, you know. And I thought that's interesting. Young people are turning towards old shows.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

I I think that that's that's also a case in in the relationship between the viewer and and the and the the makers of the of the the shows, because in certain cases, some of these shows, although very good, if you're if you're there from the very start and you're completely in in uh taken in by it, but some of them are so unbelievably complicated plot-wise. Yeah, you know, and and you think to yourself, maybe I could have told that story in you know, I could have been 20 minutes less down the line, and you'd still have got from point A to point B. We'd still understand what was going on.

SPEAKER_06 43:31

Right. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of um there's literally only four shows that I've watched in the past several years that are modern that I thought were interesting. And the funny thing is they're really popular, like Landman, that's one. Um the other one is oh, Murdoch with Kathy Bates. I was shocked.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

Okay, yeah. That's is that a is that a reboot of the old show? Which Kathy is a new character, right?

SPEAKER_06 43:59

And I'm not gonna Give it away because that's the whole thing. You watch the first episode and you'll know where it's going.

SPEAKER_05 44:06

Right.

SPEAKER_06 44:07

But there's a lot of twists and turns. And of course, she's so good. The acting is really good. And it's just about real people. And you know, you believe it. You believe what's really happening. You can relate, you know. Um, the other one is a new one that just came out. I'm completely hooked, and I'm annoyed that I have to wait every week for the next episode. So that's good. It hasn't happened to me in over 10 years. Uh a TV, uh, in fact, it's shot all over Europe. It's called Vanished.

SPEAKER_05 44:35

Oh.

SPEAKER_06 44:35

It's with it's with the girl that was um, she was always on a sitcom. What's her name? I can't can't remember her name, but go. If you look on Amazon Prime, it's one of the first things you'll see. It's called Vanished.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Right.

SPEAKER_06 44:49

And they shoot it all over Europe in France.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Yeah, good location.

SPEAKER_06 44:52

And uh, yeah, beautiful. It's that we love that because we've we filmed in Europe. I lived in Europe for a year when I was young, but we've been all over Europe and such great locations to film in, you know. And so it takes you on that journey. So you get to see the you know, the locations are really, really nice.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

See what Nancy said earlier was people can relate to shows like that. Like I just wrote a script, no, but not just now, but a few years ago, and then hopefully this week I'll know if I'm gonna get financing for it. But it's a script, it's basically a true story. New York, coming of age, young kids, New York characters, a message between a mother and a son. So it's things that are simple and people can relate to. And it's some good dramatic scenes in it, the action is all real. I wrote it, so I knew about it. I'm not a writer, but I knew about what I was writing, and I it came out pretty good, and people are interested.

unknown 45:49

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

And I'll know this week if it's gonna go or not. So I'll I'll direct it if it goes.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Fingers crossed, get everything crossed.

SPEAKER_06 45:55

Um, I think people are I think people are still interested to see real stuff, you know. Oh, absolutely go see a movie with you know, a Marvel movie and all that CGI computer stuff, but I still think like uh John said earlier, some people are interested in that, but that computer stuff.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

All the kids today are on computers and they like that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

I mean, it's it's interesting in certain cases with relation to the the type of movies. If you're looking at a sort of uh a Marvel movie, a fantasy movie, something of that nature, this person, the character has to fly from point A to point B. Well, in certain cases, maybe it's is you know, you're not going to do the wire routine that you did with um with Superman back in the original day, then that you might have to do it in a slightly different way, particularly if there's fights in space or whatever it is. But if there's if there's a way of being able to do that for real, then that's the change of the whole thing. If it can be done, whether it's motion capture or something of that nature, which is which is very uh effective these days at getting that result. And of course, your your as you said yourself, your brother was an actor.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Yeah, he was a good actor. He he worked quite a bit. He worked quite a bit, he was a good actor.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Um were were was there any uh uh early stages of thinking, well, you know, he's he's looked having a a good old time. Maybe maybe that's something that I would like to do. I mean, you obviously you've done a great deal of other bits and pieces, but was that something too did you look up to him for for that?

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah, I did. I as a matter of fact, I did a lot of parts through doing stunt work. I got stunt parts, but then after a while I was doing them well, and I no stunts, I just do a lot of acting parts. They weren't big, big, but they were, you know, sometimes a couple of pages, two or three pages, on all the TV shows, Mannix, and yes, absolutely in all those movies that I did, TV shows. So I did a lot of acting, and I came to that point where but I I always liked the physical part, I always liked the acting.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

It's uh it's I think it's the same in in every country, but certainly if I look at the UK, there are individuals there, yes. The tricky thing was you had to be you had to have an equity card in order to be part of the union and therefore appear on television. You don't have to have that anymore. The rules have changed slightly, but you needed to be able to act. There are stunt people these days uh who are terrific when they're on a horseback, they are wonderful on a bike in a fight, they're sensational. As soon as they open their mouth, you go, oh, this just isn't working. And yet there are half a dozen you could throw a stick at, and they would be fantastic in front of camera, give them any sort of dialogue, it's not an issue. You certainly seem to fall into that category because there are a great many roles where you appear, you know, doing dialogue, uh acting, doing action and dialogue and stuff. And it seems to come very, very naturally. Did was that always the case?

SPEAKER_00 48:58

It was, but I I a lot of that stuff. My brother coached me on it. Okay, he helped me a lot. And uh, the hard part for me was him memorizing the lines, but I I got I got a pretty good Nancy. My brother was he did soap operas and things like that, and he could he can go in the day before and get two pages of three pages of dialogue and remember it all. Wow, you know, it would take me a week photographic memory.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

Yeah, I was gonna say it would take me a long time as well.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Well, there were many she knows how to do that.

SPEAKER_06 49:30

Like myself, there were many, uh, particularly the women, the actresses who started as actors, you know, they did everything right, they did their theater, they put their time in, they went to all the classes and they studied here, studied there. But then they arrive in Hollywood, and very you quickly learn, you know. I I always make the joke that, well, I wasn't willing to join Harvey Weinstein and the gang, you know. So that's very real.

SPEAKER_05 49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:58

So you don't willing to play, or you can't handle or figure out how to work around it. You know what I mean? So, you know, my opinion was that it was like a cult, you know, like you either agree to it or go along with it or just ignore it. I'm not that way, probably because I'm Irish. I can't ignore stuff. So I just want to let it go.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:20

Yeah, you can't let you just hang, you just like let, you know. So I went into doing stunts, and they're that's why the ones you just mentioned are good at acting. I had just even reacting to something. I did a thing, uh, was in about three or four years ago, and I was hired to be um just hanging in wires, playing myself. I had no dialogue. And the director actually was from England, it was a woman, and I just happened to overhear her talk about how she needed to get some little bits of shots she wanted to get, and she wanted somebody vomiting, and I just happened to be standing there and I was behind her and I went, ugh, and she turned and looked at me and she goes, Nancy, you're the one. So I was like, Okay. So I just like the actor in me kicked in and I just got into it and I just went deep and remembered the time I almost died from food poisoning. Oh I was crying, and then the coordinator and everybody came over to me afterwards because I just improved all the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

Right.

SPEAKER_06 51:23

And they were like, wow, you're like a real actress.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

Like a real actress.

SPEAKER_06 51:29

Yeah, and I just thought, yeah, I've done monologues in plays that were 18 and a half pages long to I to just doing a quick bit crying, like is suddenly an amazing thing. You know what I mean? So, yes, there's a lot of us that are, I guess you could say, failed actresses uh who had an opportunity. Had I not known Charlie, I probably wouldn't have had that opportunity or even thought of it, you know. So I thought I was just gonna do stunts for the city.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

I directed a play that Nancy was in that she actually we both produced and I directed it. Right. She knew the dialogue for every part. If an actor blew his line, she wouldn't know how to pick it up.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

Right.

SPEAKER_06 52:13

I did a British play one time with uh uh elderly British actor, he was actually from England, and when we it was called The Sound of Murder, and I was like a trophy wife and um to him, and um he has the big moment where he has he has a huge like 10-page monologue, right? And in rehearsals, I was like, okay, I'm gonna memorize everything that he has to say, and he kept forgetting his lines, and I would feed them to him.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 52:47

I would just like I would literally just go, Oh, and the next thing you'll be saying is this, and look at me like and he would always hug me think I know, yeah. So, yeah, there's a lot of us anyway, and I and and men too that tried to get into acting, and for whatever reason they didn't make it, you know. Uh, and then they they were athletes. I was an athlete. If you're an athletic person, um, and you happen to meet people and you see that opportunity, it's not a big stretch for you, you know, if you're an athletic person. So, but um yeah, but Charlie is also, he would have been a great actor because he's too emotional, he's very emotional.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

But aren't all Italians well uh again, that this is something that you draw on, isn't it? Because you know, from from an emotional point of view, and being able to get inside the character and be able to understand it enough for you to go, I know exactly how to deliver this line, I know exactly what the director's looking for, and that's exactly what you did, you know. So, I mean that that stands the test of time, certainly.

SPEAKER_06 53:51

Yeah, and most stunt, most most stunt performers and coordinators have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

I've seen some stunt guys get in front of a camera because the director knew him, and they'd come to do the dialogue, and they get in front of the camera, they were it was free.

SPEAKER_03 54:09

Rap it in the headlights, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

I just was I just made it as simple as I could and just did what I felt, and and and it came out pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 54:17

Also, on a on a slightly different uh uh tact, but um you're a good looking fella, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

And in that in that period of time. When I was younger and I went for these past interviews, I never lost an interview. No, every one, every stuff guy that went with me, I'd I'd blown away.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Every every photograph I've seen of you, either in in a directory or uh internet based, has you with the chiseled look, right? And and the hair, which does not move. That hair was something else.

SPEAKER_06 54:49

I think he's gonna outlive everybody's he's got amazing genetics in his family.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

A lot of hair.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

It's in the genes. Uh, there's no bald people in your family, evidently, from from what you're telling me here.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

On my mother's side, there was a few.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

My father's side, no, they all had hair.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

No, I was gonna say my father's father.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

I remember when I was a little kid, he was a big tall guy, he had a big head of white hair, but he had all very powerful indeed.

SPEAKER_03 55:16

Um okay, so just tying up then. Oh, I'm gonna do I'm gonna do something that I did with the other three guys when I spoke to those uh uh at Stunts Unlimited the other day. And it's a thing, uh something three moments from your career, right? You have to think of three moments from your career that have have got to a stage where you go, I couldn't have done that any better if I tried it. It's either a performance thing from a gag, uh, and and you've got uh a number of hats, so we can do it from a performance point of view, a stunt coordinator's point of view, or a second unit director's point of view, or even a director's point of view, where you've you've you've gone there, you've done the job, and you've gone, I reckon that's as good as it could have been. I couldn't do any better. Uh maybe somebody else might have done better, but I couldn't do that any better to the best of my ability. That's as good as it gets. What um uh what there's so many of them that are.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

I I know this is the thing.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

I mean, it's you've got so much to choose from, but are there moments where you think they you've ticked the box?

SPEAKER_00 56:18

Yeah, there are. There are a lot of moments, that's the thing. And then to pick out three of them, I I would I would always go to the first opportunity I had because I I kind of you know did my career in the gradients being a stunt man, I wanted to be the one of the best and being a coordinator, then I want to do second unit, then I want to direct, and I and I went all the way up the hill. I would say because I got that first break, and all the guy, every stunt guy in Hollywood went for the interview for diehard, and I got it.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

And the way that turned out was really, really uh an interesting thing because I had a great communication with John McTiernan, you know, and he he listened to everything I I told him. We worked it all out. He wanted to do some stuff, CGI. I said, No, we could do a practical, okay, but it worked out perfect and diehard too, uh, because Rennie Harlan wasn't like John, he couldn't keep the pace of the movie up, so I had to do second unit. I put together a you know a great snowmobile chase and uh all the action. I did 70 days of first and second unit, which was a big part of the movie.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

So I was happy with that. And you know, a lot of the lethal weapon shows that I did the car chase on uh on Lethal Weapon 2, I believe it was. I was driving a pickup truck against traffic.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

Oh, that's amazing. I love that chase.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

I mean, I went to the end of the freeway, and there was just one cable, and it was a drop 80 feet down. I threw a 180 right there, and I did it a few times. But the interesting thing about that was that, like I said before, I had like 25 stunt guys coming at me. Yeah, back of the stunt guys was 75 extras. And I get up on the wrong side of the freeway, trailer truck comes on. In those days, we had to pull the box around with the cable.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Pickup truck pulled the box, and uh as it comes up up, I come up the ramp, and I had to get around the box. So that as I cut into the cable, which is being dragged, the guy in the pickup truck, Johnny Myers, he releases a cable and I get around it. From that point on, another cut, I'm going against traffic, and then I get off the freeway and I do this spin around by the uh the drop. Well, there was a guy named Matt, I forget his last name. He's a great effects guy, more of a mechanical guy, like I said before. And he used to ride a lot in Baja, you know, racing.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

Yeah, on the motorbike.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

There was one shot I had to take the pickup truck. It was a 250 Ford pickup. Uh uh. And uh it was it was a pretty good running truck. And there was one shot where the cat the director wanted cameras on the truck. So I said, Can I ride? With Matt said, can I ride? I said, Yeah, come with me. So I got in position and I saw the stunt guys going and I head for them. And I'm going in out of traffic, and all of a sudden my brakes just went down. So I had no brakes at all. I said, Matt, and I'm glad he was with me because he he verified it. There were no brakes and I had a freewheel because these guys don't know, they're coming at me, so I had to just keep going with no brakes and just get in and out of them. So I used my emergency brake to kind of slow down at the end, but I got through it. But it was unfortunate that that happened after I did that slide around the bridge. I mean, if that happened at the bridge and I'm going 60 miles an hour, then I'm feathering the brake to get my speed up, I'm not gonna make it. Because if you lose your brakes, you're dead. And then it was just fortunate that that didn't happen. So that's one of the things where you know you get lucky in uh in what you do. But to answer your question again, I think those three things kind of stand out the leaf the weapon chase, the diehard two, because I had no preparation. I just Joel Silver said, Go out and shoot the second unit. You want to be a director, go and shoot it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:08

So you were giving you were given much more responsibility on that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

Much. There were no no no preparation. No, he says, Go out and shoot it. And I in that year there was no snow around, and we had to go chasing the snow.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:19

Oh, you had to bring it right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

It just so happened that we were shooting in Denver, I think, at the time, and the production manager, Steve Perry, says, Where if we shoot this thing? So I said, Well, I did a car chase up in the I mean the snowmobile chase up in the Brecker Ridge on a movie I did called Christmas Vacation. I said, Let's go up there and see if there's snow there. We went up and there was a lot of snow. Shot part of the sequence up there. We had the crew up the next night, and I was directing. So it was a challenge, it was a big challenge. And then we went from there to St. Summarie, Michigan, and just chasing snow around Seattle. And I put together a sequence that was pretty good. And I was happy with that. And uh from that point, Joel won, you know, he gave me a movie to direct. And I uh and I think those things like again, Jer working with John McTierna was a really uh a great experience because it was such great communication. And I remember the first time I wanted to to meet him for the interview, I talked about the the action. I didn't talk about stunts, because I knew what I was gonna do. And um John, I think he was intrigued with that, that I was more interested in the action and when it was gonna when he wanted the action to start going and the momentum of it and all that. So I I always always felt story was a big part of it, and he knew that and they he picked me. But like we went to start locations, and I was on the top of a uh plaza building in uh Century City, 35 stories up on the roof, and the whole crew was there, and there's a point where Bruce Rose grabs a fire hose, and there was a fire hose up on top of the roof, and John says, Okay, here's where Bruce grabs the fire hose, and he jumps off the building. If you remember that, and the explosion said, when he grabs the fire hose after that, we'll cut to the stage and do it on stage. So I said, John, and I got all excited because I knew what I was going to do right away. Right, we could do it right here. And I jumped up on the ledge, and we're 35 stories up, and I grabbed those little chain link fence on my left. I grabbed, I said, John, we could shoot right here. And he just panicked and he said, No, get off figure. Anyway, we did it like like he said, like I said, and it was a spectacular shot. You know, I had a stunt guy jump off with the explosion, and I cut to the stage, and it all worked out, and that's you know, part of how I learned previous to that on my years of television how to direct and how to block things out, whether it be stunts or actors. So those three sequences, I mean, there were many more that I did. Like I put together in in Nice in France with Van Damme. The car chase I did there was spectacular. Oh, yes, and double team and and uh maximum risk, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

One thing I would also say is um the uh uh fabulous fight work in uh Roadhouse. Roadhouse really, really impressive stuff. I mean, uh as always, um the editor is your friend when when when delivering those punches and making sure, but it's the reaction shots. You've got some terrific reactions from the guys there and the way it was shot and the type of fights. Did you see the other the the the Roadhouse remake with uh Jake Gyllenhall? Did you did you like the composer?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

Not to be partial, but I it wasn't the same, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

No, no, it wasn't it was a very different film, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Yeah, very different, different film. Yeah, Patrick was so great, too. He Patrick was very coordinated being a dancer, dancer, yeah. He had good moves, but I had to watch him because he had too much form, right? And when you go into fighting stance, he'd always have his wrist like that, and I'd have to straighten it out. But he was it was very coordinated, and I trained him. I had a guy train him, Benny Urquis helped me train him. But uh yeah, that was a big sequence. A lot of fight stuff, which was good. Sam Elliott was great. Sam I I I gave him a style that he really picked up on it. And he being a good actor, he sold it. Yeah, so Rounds was a good you know, that was a good sequence. And I and I got a lot of stunt guys on that big barroom fight. And when I did, I got groups of stunt guys and I put them in positions, and I said, work something out here, and I'll come back and check it out. And I go and check it out and you know, adjust a couple of little things to my feeling of what I wanted, but they got the feel of what I wanted and the vision I wanted, and uh and I, you know, talking to them is important, and um it turned out pretty good when we called action when it came through, and then we cut into it. And Marshall T was a good martial arts guy, so that fight at the end with Patrick worked because I didn't have to use doubles. I used my son to to do the double on the motorcycle thing, and uh Randy, I forget his name, but he did he double patch, we just knocked the guy off the motorcycle, and then we did the fight with Marshall and Patrick all the way, and I directed that whole sequence with no just myself. So that was that was a uh I had a lot of good experience, especially with Joel. So because with Joel, what he did with me was he would and he was Joel was a uh I I I had a lot of fun with him. A lot of people didn't like him, but I had fun with him and I thought it was great. But he knew how to package a movie. He knew how to get Mel Gibson to put him in a lethal weapon, he knew how to get Bruce and Moon, whatever it was, that TV show and put him in my heart. He knew how to package people. Yeah, and I was good at that, and he would give me a lot of chances to do things.'Cause he knew I could do it. Like for instance, uh what he uh what the hell was it? Okay, I think I'm gonna show now. But he would hire directors sometimes really good ones like Tony Scott and Dick Donner who did their thing. But other times Rennie Harl and Marco Brambe, the guys that did like uh Demolition Man and stuff like that. If they weren't really experienced enough to do movies like that, but he knew something went wrong, I would be able to have it. So he had to use me for that, which was great. Because I got a lot of experience doing that, you know. So it was it was fun, and uh and I learned quite a bit. I did like nine or ten movies with him. And even Hust and Hawk. I did Hust and Hawk, which was a mediocre movie, but doing that, the director was a nice guy, but he a lot of secrets he couldn't handle. Joel would say, go and block out that scene, do this, do that, and I'd get the actors and block out the whole scene.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

I learned a lot from doing that, from doing TV to anamorphic stuff. He learned quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

He gave me the chance to do it. But again, to answer your question, those three stand out in my mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

Well, I I think that's um uh that's a fair, I mean, uh as you said yourself, so much to choose from. But um but but those three sticking in your mind. That's that's uh that's very impressive. And um and I want to thank you very much for for the time you've given me today and for Nancy's contributions. Uh let's not forget Nancy's contributions. Thank you both uh for your for your time. Um it's an absolute thrill to speak to you, Charlie. Uh thank you very much indeed for thank you so much. I will indeed, absolutely, yeah. Look out for that. Well, there we go. That uh was a cracking time I had with uh with Charlie and with Nancy. Uh huge thanks to them both for their time. Um I hope you enjoyed that. There is more to come from my time in Los Angeles uh with interviews with the guys from Stunts Unlimited, and of course, a look at the Taurus World Stunt Awards uh from LA. Uh so don't forget to subscribe to the channel and the YouTube channel because on Friday you'll be able to see the interview with Charlie, and there's lots of great clips and pictures and all sorts of stuff going on. So don't forget to do that, and until next time, it's bye for now.