Before he became the filmmaker behind the likes of John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, David Leitch was one of the most renowned stuntmen in the business
And now his career has gone full circle, as one of his former clients is now the lead star of his latest movie. Leitch told Zavvi:
“The first time I met Brad [Pitt] was on the set of Fight Club. I was brought in to train the actors in basic fighting skills for some of those basement battles, and I became his stunt double.
“We hit it off, and soon I kept getting called back to work with him again and again.
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“Since we’ve gone our separate ways and to different places in our careers, it’s great for him to come in and support a movie I’m directing. It’s gone full circle, it’s almost like fate.”
Pitt stars in Leitch’s latest film Bullet Train as Ladybug, an ironically named hitman who is followed by bad luck everywhere he goes.
On a seemingly simple job turned down by another assassin, he’s been given the orders to obtain a briefcase on a bullet train running from Tokyo to Kyoto.
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The problem? Several other assassins are on board with the same mission, and have seemingly been given orders to kill anybody who gets in their way.
These include British hitman duo Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his Thomas The Tank Engine-obsessed partner Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry), and The Prince (Joey King), a cold-blooded sociopath who uses mental manipulation where the others use violence.
Making an action-driven film set almost entirely within the close-knit confines of a high-speed train, filmed at Sony’s Hollywood lot with just two carriage sets that had to be continuously redesigned throughout shooting, is a tough task.
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Extra care would have to be taken to pull off the fight choreography, as the actors would have to do more of their own stunts due to how difficult it would be to hide stunt performers in the narrow carriageways.
There’s no wonder Leitch was initially hesitant to make the film: “Kelly McCormick, my producing partner, read the screenplay first and said it was perfect for me – but it was all set inside a train.
“It was the thing I found most daunting: how can I keep the tension high while staying in one setting and keep it interesting for an audience? And on top of that, how can it possibly be cinematic? But through that challenge, that’s where you get creative.
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“One of the things I fought really hard for were the character introductions you see throughout the film. Maybe my favourite scene in the movie is the introduction of The Wolf (the Mexican hitman played by rapper Bad Bunny), a four-minute piece of nonverbal storytelling that tracks his life up until the moment he meets Brad on the train.
“When a film is set entirely in one location, you want to give audiences some moments that stand apart from that, which make them ask “where is this going?””
When it came to getting the actors on board, Leitch stated that the fight sequences were effectively “reverse engineered” to play to their strengths as performers, something crucial if they had to be actively participating in each extravagantly staged fight. For star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, no stranger to the action genre, one of the benefits to working with Leitch was how he gave them the freedom to find their own specific fighting style.
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“When you’re working with David Leitch, you’re in the hands of the best”, he told Zavvi. “Not every character in this film is a slick martial artist, they’re very sloppy and scrappy in their fighting styles, and he was very supportive and encouraging in trying to help us find a style that would work for an action scene, but is really fun and refreshing to watch from an audience perspective.
“It has this beautiful slapstick tone that’s somewhere between Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton, these guys who are relatable in certain ways who have been thrown into completely unimaginable situations. I mean, our characters are sociopaths of course, so they’re not too relatable, but they do have love for each other – they’re lovable sociopaths!”
The chemistry between Tangerine and Lemon feels organic, something reflected in real life; Taylor-Johnson and Henry have remained close friends since the shoot, and repeatedly burst into fits of giggles during our interview. It was a no-brainer that Henry would be cast opposite him when he was initially brought in for a chemistry test.
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“David had set up this makeshift train car, with two rows of seats and a table, making us sit across from each other ready to rehearse the script”, Henry told Zavvi. “And I just burst out laughing immediately, we threw the scripts away and started improvising in character.
“It’s very rare that you get the opportunity to have a partnership with somebody on a movie that you actually like, which carries on after the director says cut. We wanted to make sure the viewers felt like there was a true chemistry between us, and for them to care about our characters as much as they cared about each other – and despite how difficult Aaron is, we made it work!
“And then there was doing the action sequences – I mean, I wasn’t going to turn down slapping Brad Pitt, was I? I think every actor wants to push themselves, and if you’re doing it with David Leitch, you definitely want to fight.
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“But as we were shooting during the fire and brimstone of the pandemic, we had to learn without going into a studio, a makeshift one had to be built on the top deck of a parking garage. It was really seeing what could work by stripping each action sequence down to its bare minimum, and figuring out the choreography through that.”
Henry also wanted to push himself in other aspects of the performance too, working with a dialect coach to perfect a British accent (“as a Black American actor, it’s rare to be given the opportunity to play an English character”).
But the biggest challenge every actor had was to make their contract killers lovable, with one notable exception: The Prince, played by Joey King, the biggest sociopath in a train full of them. On the page, she had the most straightforwardly villainous role, but at the first cast script reading, Leitch was impressed by just how much comedy the actress found within the character.
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“The only thing you ever want in life is to play a villain”, she told Zavvi. “But I have a brain that’s just like a little boy’s, where it tries to make jokes out of everything it sees – and I think I was able to find some tucked away humour in there that wasn’t quite as obvious on the page.
“My character is an extreme villain, but as she’s so terrible, I thought I might as well have some fun with her. It’s not interesting if she’s just brutal and menacing the whole time, you want your psychos to have some layers to them!
“My character didn’t have too much stunt work to do, because of her innocent façade – her mind is her true weapon. But watching these guys immerse themselves into these stunts was incredible; it’s amazing that it was such a chill vibe on set with everything going on.
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“After making this, I made (Disney+ action movie) The Princess, and that’s when I got to call David for some tips and advice for the action scenes. I got to train in his production company 87North’s dojo, so I’m definitely prepared to do more fighting if I get the call to work with him again”.
Despite being an action-driven film, Leitch refuses to be pigeonholed by the genre, wanting to be viewed as a filmmaker first and foremost. But following on from Deadpool 2 and Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, Bullet Train only further proves one thing about him: comedy might be the genre closest to heart.
“I definitely have a comedic sensibility, it’s hard to separate it from what I make. Even back in John Wick, there’s a bone dry, sardonic humour to it – I just don’t think that’s something I’ll ever be able to lose.
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“If someone calls me a comedy director, I’ll take it. Jackie Chan is one of my biggest inspirations; he was a stunt man who became an action director, and was the best person at physical comedy to ever walk the Earth. I’m definitely trying to emulate him, and I’m not sorry!”
Despite being a loose adaptation of Japanese novel Maria Beetle, Leitch called Bullet Train his most personal film to date, due to being an “amalgamation” of every film he’s made this far. You have the criminal underworld of John Wick, the dark comedy of Deadpool, the bright neon colours of Atomic Blonde – and by the time we get to the third act, insane vehicular mayhem that feels right at home in the Fast and Furious universe, not least because of how it defies physics.
“As I come from the stunt world, I refrain myself from using too much CGI – I like grounded practical effects, and only go to CGI if I can’t get away with using them. But from doing Hobbs and Shaw, a movie in a series built on defying physics, we leaned into that to make the craziest experience possible.
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“It’s why you have Dwayne pulling on the helicopter at the end. After making that movie, bending the basic rules of physics came naturally to me this time!
“As I didn’t have the restraints of a franchise, me and my collaborators were given incredible freedom to create something truly unique, which ended up referring back to all of my previous films – I would honestly say this is the film that feels most personal to me because of it”.
Although Bullet Train has a nice, clean ending, it does set the stage for the return of Pitt’s Ladybug. Leitch is in the early stages of mapping out plans, but he’s already jumping at the possibility of making one.
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“If the universe wants Ladybug back? Then I’d be back, 1000% – I’m still figuring out what that would be. Sequels are hard; I’ve done them and got lucky, but I know with this crew it would be undeniable. We would have so much fun, so if people want more, we’re ready to go back to the soundstage at Sony and have a blast again…”
So prepare yourself for Pitt’s anti-hero to make a return journey, but until then: all aboard the Bullet Train for the bloodiest ride of the summer.
This article originally appeared in the August 2022 edition of The Lowdown.
