Action romance is a tricky genre to master — it requires the right balance of heart and spectacle. But when done well, à la “True Lies” or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” it will live on forever in the rewatch rotation.
Stunt coordinator-turned-director David Leitch has launched cars straight into the air and staged fight scenes that have had theaters erupting in thunderous cheers. His latest challenge, however, will be making the audience’s heart melt with “The Fall Guy,” in theaters now. Smartly, he cast Ryan Gosling, the living embodiment of a junior high schooler’s diary entry, to play the hero.
Adapted from the 1980s series, the Universal film follows down-at-his-heels action choreographer Colt Seavers (Gosling), who must unravel a treacherous mystery while on the set of the next big blockbuster. The movie happens to be directed by his ex-girlfriend, played by Emily Blunt.
So what took Leitch, known for such thrillers as “Atomic Blonde” and “Bullet Train,” so long to dive into romance?
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“Falling in love is the hardest stunt,” he says. “We wanted the love story to be the beating heart of this movie,” continues Leitch, sitting inside the stunt facility of 87North, the production company he co-founded with his wife and producer, Kelly McCormick.
What does a David Leitch romance look like? Big swings. Embraces are framed by pyrotechnics, heated exposition is leveled up by literally setting main characters on fire — and it’s all set to a love song by arena rock maestros Kiss.
Leitch was so adamant about using the band’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” that he wrote it into the script. Dismayed, McCormick says she gave it to him straight: “‘I think you should cut Kiss out.’ [Executive producer Peter Cramer] was like, ‘I think you should cut Kiss out.’ Ryan Gosling was like, ‘I don’t see Kiss in this thing.’ Emily Blunt was like, ‘Kiss? Really? That’s our love song?’”
The director’s gonzo instincts prevailed: The anthem made the final cut. “It crystallized the tone of the movie for me, which was equal parts camp and cool,” says Leitch.
McCormick concedes the choice is on brand for the director. “He’s a maximalist,” she says. “So more is more for him, and you never know if you’re going to laugh or cry around any corner.”
Amid the exploding spaceship set-pieces and neon-drenched fight scenes, the filmmakers stayed “laser-focused” on the narrative. “It was the thing we weren’t as familiar with,” says Leitch. “It would only really work if that thing felt authentic.” Enter Gosling and Blunt, actors with enough onscreen chemistry to power a small town. Even in the quieter moments, the duo are unstoppable. In one scene, a flummoxed Gosling winds up face-to-face with Blunt, who’s pressuring him for answers. All Gosling can eke out is a small grunt/sigh that will basically knock the air right out of your lungs. Fans can thank Blunt for championing to keep that interaction in the script. “Well, that scene was on the chopping block in the script for a long [time],” says Leitch.
“It was a really tough needle to thread,” McCormick remembers. “Their chemistry is so insane that it’s like, how do you keep them apart?” Structurally, the connection felt too soon in the script. But once Blunt and Gosling were together, they uncovered a “messy and natural” spark that kept crowds rooting for the duo to reconnect.
“The greatest visual effects and special effects that we have is the chemistry between Ryan and Emily,” says screenwriter Drew Pearce. “The first moment she walked on set and walked in front of that camera, like, ping — it happened. It is the rarest of moments. They are movie stars, and they bring that movie-star thing down the lens.”
“The Fall Guy” didn’t start out as a love story. Earlier drafts of the script had a darker, noir thriller centered around a down-and-out hero drowning his pain in tequila and painkillers. But that wasn’t how Gosling wanted to paint the stunt community. In early conversations with Leitch, the actor analyzed the mentality behind someone who risks their life for art and entertainment. Gosling was haunted by watching countless stunt workers take hit after hit, always resurfacing with a thumbs up. “That’s a cultural thing in the stunt community,” says Leitch. “That’s not just made up for this movie. It is absolutely a hundred percent the truth.“
That unseen trauma (both physical and mental) underscores the character’s paradox; stunt workers are essential to cinematic magic, yet they are rarely recognized outside the lens of production. Both McCormick and Leitch are passionately trying to change this mentality by actively advocating within the Academy to institute a new stunt award.
“You can’t make a movie about someone who, as a character, is kind of unrecognized and being taken advantage of and not call out being unrecognized,” Leitch says. McCormick agrees, “His job is not to be seen. That suspension of disbelief, the mystery and the movie magic that’s the magic of stunt performers.”
Although both creators agree that keeping that illusion alive is essential, “where we feel like we’re not being recognized is the fact that the stunt department are designers,” Leitch says. “That is an artistic thing that we want to be recognized.”
For years, McCormick and Leitch along with many other artists in the industry — including Gregg Smrz and the longtime leader of the charge, Jack Gill — have been campaigning for the Academy to create a stunt-specific honor, recruiting members and bolstering their numbers (there are currently over 100 stunt people in the production and technology branch).
On top of that, the filmmakers vied for the first-ever credit of a “stunt designer.” “That coordinator [title] really makes it sound like it’s a very technical job and it’s so much past that,” says McCormick. After the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America approval, veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director Chris O’Hara will receive the inaugural credit on “The Fall Guy.”
Emily Blunt’s character would also need a rewrite. “We switched the female lead from being a makeup artist to a first-time director,” McCormick says. “That’s really where I think it became a love story… The stakes were higher for her, she had her dreams on her shoulders. And this guy, the last thing she ever wanted to shake that world, shows up and she’s front and center, a really big part of the story.”
Even the action sequences would be crafted to mimic the passionate journey of two lovers on the cusp of an electric reconnection. “You’re using the language of stunts, when we’re doing it right, to tell the love story,” says Pearce. “When [Gosling’s] being dragged around Sydney and he can’t get to the karaoke bar, which is where he has the chance to reconnect with the love of his life, that is both metaphor and plot point, and hopefully, you feel it emotionally.”
And, of course, it definitely helped that two of the people helping guide the narrative of the action romance just so happened to be married. So how does the real-life relationship between Leitch and McCormick match the onset fireworks of Colt and Jody? Does life imitate art?
“I definitely think Kelly was such an important voice in the development of the Jody character that it can’t help but become organically a story that’s infused by their relationship and the support of each other they have as filmmakers,” says Pearce. “Technically, of course, the analog would be that Kelly’s character is the one played by Hannah [Waddingham] because that is the producer character in the movie. But happily enough, Kelly, in real life, is the Jody here to David’s Colt.”
When asked if his directing style mimicked Blunt’s character — maintaining a tranquil aura while the world, seemingly, unravels around you — Leitch saw some similarities. “That is what it feels like to be the director,” he says. “But I don’t know, I feel pretty calm. I’m always surrounded with a great producer.”
Additional reporting from Todd Gilchrist.
