Speaker 1: Now really, really, now really hello, and welcome to really
Speaker 1: know Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind
Speaker 1: you there.
Speaker 2: Is absolutely no danger in subscribing, but danger abounds as
Speaker 2: This episode could be titled Mission Insanity, as it's all
Speaker 2: about how Tom Cruise performs his own deathifying stunts and
Speaker 2: why he would do that, How does he train for
Speaker 2: a stunt that's never been done before, and will he
Speaker 2: continue to try and outdo himself now that he's in
Speaker 2: his sixties. Today we've got the person with the answers,
Speaker 2: Wade Eastwood, the action director and stunt coordinator for the
Speaker 2: Mission Impossible franchise. He's the person that develops the mind
Speaker 2: blowing stunts and oversees the training required. He also happens
Speaker 2: to be a pilot, skydiver, rescue scuba diver, a black
Speaker 2: belt martial artist, a boxer, a fencer, a yacht skipper, equestrian,
Speaker 2: advanced weapons artist, and race car driver with an international
Speaker 2: string of wins. When Tom Cruise puts his life on
Speaker 2: the line, he does it under the supervision of Wade Eastwood.
Speaker 2: And now here's two guys who have never done any
Speaker 2: of those things and never will Jason and Peter.
Speaker 3: Our episode today is about Tom Kruse and the secret
Speaker 3: behind the stunts, because the stunts are just every movie
Speaker 3: he insane thing. So we wanted to know what's behind
Speaker 3: the stunts. We got the guy right who does the
Speaker 3: stunts with Tom, who sets him up, does them, and
Speaker 3: can tell him does his own stunts?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: And can you tell.
Speaker 3: Us the secret because there is a secret behind But
Speaker 3: this is fascinating, going to love this. You know, before
Speaker 3: they had talkies, they had silent films, and the Tom
Speaker 3: Cruise of that day was Buster.
Speaker 4: Keet, Buster Keaton.
Speaker 3: And you look at Buster Keaton and I know, for
Speaker 3: younger folks, if you don't know.
Speaker 4: Us, please go on YouTube. But Keaton, you won't believe.
Speaker 4: You won't believe it.
Speaker 3: And by the way, a lot of the stunts we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about with the stuntman, Buster Keaton did first,
Speaker 3: or some semblance or some semblance of it. So Buster Keaton.
Speaker 3: Some of the things he did. He hung from heights
Speaker 3: that were insane, waterfalls, ran on top of moving trains.
Speaker 3: But the big one was he stood in front of.
Speaker 4: A house, the flat of a house like the flat house.
Speaker 3: Which then fell over and he was saved by being
Speaker 3: in the right position to be in the open to
Speaker 3: be in the open window windows, small window, but this
Speaker 3: was a four thousand pound house. Two women fainted just feeling.
Speaker 6: It because you're not seeing it. If you're listening to Thissson,
Speaker 6: you've never seen it. You got to understand you have
Speaker 6: to be in the exact right spot. So when this
Speaker 6: thing falls down towards you, it miraculously passes you through
Speaker 6: the little hole for the window.
Speaker 4: If you're off by an inch, could have really killed him.
Speaker 3: Keaton the trick that I said to Stunt that I
Speaker 3: said that Cruise did later jumped from a thirty five
Speaker 3: foot rooftop to another thirty five foot rooftop right, okay,
Speaker 3: missed and hung on right. Tom Cruise missed and broke
Speaker 3: his eyes, and he broke his ankle on on the same.
Speaker 6: I believe, on that thing on the take. When he
Speaker 6: broke his ankle. He then climbed under the roof and
Speaker 6: continued to run on.
Speaker 3: The broken And what also happened, Keaton filmed underwater and
Speaker 3: made sure he could see his face because he wanted
Speaker 3: to make sure he could see his face. Tom Cruise
Speaker 3: has done the same thing they had the developed thing.
Speaker 6: Buster Keaton didn't run around the buzz Buzz Khalifa whatever
Speaker 6: that building.
Speaker 3: No, but and that's what we're going to talk about too,
Speaker 3: jumping out of a twenty seven hundred but Hi, Bill.
Speaker 4: Have you seen It's probably one of the funniest things
Speaker 4: I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Have you seen.
Speaker 6: The video Cruise takes James Gordon?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean there's nothing better.
Speaker 3: Well, you get a scare.
Speaker 6: I gotta tell you, I bow at the at the
Speaker 6: Temple of James Gordon. You couldn't have gotten me out
Speaker 6: of that plane for lover of money. There's no way
Speaker 6: I'm going and you go. I know Tom Cruise knows
Speaker 6: what he's doing. I know I'm attached to him. I
Speaker 6: know he doesn't want to die in this moment. That's
Speaker 6: probably the safest circumstances in which I could make that jump.
Speaker 6: I'm not going out.
Speaker 3: Then. Do you know how much bigger this podcast would
Speaker 3: be if you could throw you out, if we could
Speaker 3: throw you out of stuff, I mean stuff, Laura. And
Speaker 3: then you got Tom Cruise jumping from berj Khalifa, which
Speaker 3: we talked about twenty seven hundred and sixteen feet and
Speaker 3: six inches onto the side of a flying plane from
Speaker 3: thirty thousan hanging from side of a plane. He also
Speaker 3: jumped from thirty thousand feet. He was the first to
Speaker 3: do that kind of stunt.
Speaker 5: So we want to talk to this our stuff and
Speaker 5: the underwater thing too, where he trained himself to hold
Speaker 5: his breath for six and a half minutes. So let's
Speaker 5: meet our stuff man, right, not that I'm tired of
Speaker 5: talking to you, but Waide has a history.
Speaker 4: Can can I? Before you go into his history?
Speaker 6: Can I just I'm just going to give the audience
Speaker 6: a little bit of waves back. So an accomplished fixed
Speaker 6: wing and helicopter pilot, a skydiver and a free flyer,
Speaker 6: which we'll talk about, a rescue scuba diver, a black
Speaker 6: belt martial artist, a boxer, a fencer, and advanced weapons
Speaker 6: scales served in the armed forces.
Speaker 4: Holds multiple don't even.
Speaker 6: Know this was a thing, multiple armored car licenses, multiple
Speaker 6: multiple armored.
Speaker 3: Gud That's how I get you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, And you can drive a truck, he can
Speaker 4: drive a bus. He raced his cars. He's one.
Speaker 3: But you know what with all of that, can't eat gluten? Wait,
Speaker 3: how are you man? Good to see you. I'm great.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 3: So First of all, when do you have time to
Speaker 3: do this stuff? When did you accomplish all that before
Speaker 3: you became a stuntman or continued?
Speaker 6: Was it all because I know you did serve in
Speaker 6: the military. Was was a lot of that part of
Speaker 6: your militaries?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 7: No, not at all.
Speaker 8: It was just you know, growing up in South Africa
Speaker 8: as a kid and we had you know, gorgeous weather,
Speaker 8: and I just loved doing outdoor sports and I hated
Speaker 8: not being able to do anything. If it was you know,
Speaker 8: someone could ride a unicycle and I couldn't. I would
Speaker 8: borrow one and ride it until I could master it.
Speaker 8: And I just hated not being able to do anything
Speaker 8: that was fun what I found fun? And yeah, it
Speaker 8: was just I just love doing stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what you said, he loved outdoor sports.
Speaker 6: I'm thinking baseball, Dennis badminton, this is comm I'm not combat.
Speaker 7: Thinking free diving I'm terrible with Let me let me.
Speaker 6: Jump off a clip and go as close to the
Speaker 6: rocks as fast as I can.
Speaker 3: I got to understand that that's not an outdoor sport.
Speaker 3: I like to be this guy. He's fearless.
Speaker 6: Wait a minute, Hang on, are you I would because
Speaker 6: I I've heard people who do what you're doing. I
Speaker 6: bet I know where this is going to go. Do
Speaker 6: you think of yourself as a fearless guy.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 8: I think of myself is calculated and competent. So I
Speaker 8: train at something until I'm competent, and then I do it,
Speaker 8: and then I don't feel scared because I'm competent.
Speaker 7: I'm enjoying it. So I respect everything.
Speaker 8: I respect the heights, I respect sport, I respect the
Speaker 8: training process, and that's what I enjoy. I enjoy the
Speaker 8: training process to get there, and that's part of the fun.
Speaker 6: But wait, at some point, it's something like free flying, which,
Speaker 6: if I understand correctly, we saw it in one of
Speaker 6: the Mission Impossible films, where it's you've got a parachute,
Speaker 6: but you're moving it. It's a smaller shoot. You're moving
Speaker 6: at very fast speed and you're really careening through obstacles,
Speaker 6: rocks and whatnot, very close to the ground, and you're
Speaker 6: you're boogying. So when you say, oh, I work on something,
Speaker 6: I train, I trade for it. But there seems to
Speaker 6: me there's a leap between uh huh, I understand it.
Speaker 6: I do these caliesthetics and now I'm going to jump
Speaker 6: off the cliff.
Speaker 3: No stuff comes up, you go for that.
Speaker 6: So what is that There is a leap of faith
Speaker 6: at some point between.
Speaker 8: The you train on a bigger wing and you train
Speaker 8: further away from the ground, you're not flying so close,
Speaker 8: and then as you get better, you get closer to
Speaker 8: the ground, smaller wing, faster, you know. So it's all
Speaker 8: based on your ability obviously, like any extreme sport, you
Speaker 8: push yourself and you get closer, and sometimes you get
Speaker 8: too close, and you know you you're lucky enough to
Speaker 8: break something small and not something too serious, and you
Speaker 8: learn your level and you take it up a notch
Speaker 8: and and you go on. But it's important, super important
Speaker 8: for me, you know, to have an understanding of a
Speaker 8: lot of the extreme sports and disciplines and things out there.
Speaker 8: So if I'm asking an actor, whether it's Tom Cruise
Speaker 8: or anyone to do something, I have an understanding of
Speaker 8: that sport and what they're doing, so I know how
Speaker 8: far I can push them.
Speaker 3: So let's let's go to Tom Cruise. Okay, you've worked
Speaker 3: with him for a long time and you create the stunts.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe how long before the stunt happens. You
Speaker 3: create them, sometimes a year and a half before two years.
Speaker 3: You design them, you do the meal plan, you do
Speaker 3: everything surrounding it to make sure that that the sun
Speaker 3: goes okay when there's a meal plan, he doesn't. Right,
Speaker 3: You've got you've got to put people in keto diets.
Speaker 3: You've you've changed the behaviors of the people because they
Speaker 3: need to do certain And now I'm out.
Speaker 4: Up until the mail plan.
Speaker 3: So as a stunt coordinator, you're coming up with the
Speaker 3: stunt with the guys who are doing the movie. Correct,
Speaker 3: you're creating this thing.
Speaker 7: So it's very much, you know, sort of a joint
Speaker 7: effort on that.
Speaker 3: So when you do that, it's all He always pushes
Speaker 3: and you always push to the next level. Do you
Speaker 3: ever go, uh, this is not gonna we can't do this,
Speaker 3: it's too dangerous.
Speaker 8: Well, it's just if the movie demands it, If the
Speaker 8: if the characters sort of curve through the storyline demands
Speaker 8: that there's a cool piece.
Speaker 7: Of action, we'll go.
Speaker 8: There's always a way to do everything for real to
Speaker 8: a degree. I mean, you know, we don't do so
Speaker 8: the green screen, we don't fake it. But there's always
Speaker 8: a way to do something. It's just how you do it.
Speaker 6: So you literally, I'm just gonna I want to double back.
Speaker 6: You said you never say no. You never say no.
Speaker 6: There's nothing where you go. Uh huh, We're not doing that.
Speaker 4: You know. You never say no. You never say no.
Speaker 4: There's nothing where you go, uh huh, We're not doing that.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 8: I high weigh up the risk, and I assess the risk,
Speaker 8: and then if it's too dangerous, we don't say no.
Speaker 7: I don't say no.
Speaker 8: I think, how can I eliminate some of that major risk?
Speaker 8: But it's obviously still going to be dangerous. You're still
Speaker 8: jumping off a mountain or crashing a motorbiate, whatever you're doing.
Speaker 8: But I eliminate that risk as much as I can.
Speaker 8: Can I get the person further away from the mountain
Speaker 8: so if they have a tanglement, they're not going to
Speaker 8: slam into the face.
Speaker 7: Can I do this? Can I do that?
Speaker 8: And I slowly take the sort of the red risk
Speaker 8: if you like, away, so we go into the orange
Speaker 8: to green risk curve. The idea is to make the
Speaker 8: stunt look visually terrifying and thrill the audiences, but it
Speaker 8: not be quite as dangerous as it looks, that doesn't
Speaker 8: always isn't always the case, and you know on a movie,
Speaker 8: especially like Mission Impossible, but that's what we're aiming for.
Speaker 6: Then you're not my stunt order. I'm not using you
Speaker 6: well because I do know verify for me. I believe Tom.
Speaker 6: How do stunt coordinator? And he said I want to
Speaker 6: do this and the guy went, no, we can't do that.
Speaker 4: There's no way to do that.
Speaker 6: And he said, well, next thing I need is new
Speaker 6: stunt coordinator.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was I think.
Speaker 8: I think you told that story about a health a
Speaker 8: health and safety guy.
Speaker 3: That was a safety inspector. Well, the big one was
Speaker 3: the motorcycle jump. You're sending Tom cruise off a cliff
Speaker 3: on a motorcycle and I think the parachute had to
Speaker 3: open and he had like the plus minus error was
Speaker 3: like four seconds. I mean you're sitting there when he
Speaker 3: takes off to do that stunt. Are you looking or
Speaker 3: are you looking for openings for stuntman just in case?
Speaker 3: You know what other actors I could be I could
Speaker 3: be helping if he doesn't quite make it.
Speaker 7: I had my agent.
Speaker 8: It was actually you know, we trained so hard for that,
Speaker 8: and I mean We worked tirelessly with the team to
Speaker 8: make sure that Tom was so competent that there was
Speaker 8: no one that could actually ride a motorbicle for Cliff
Speaker 8: and do a base jump better than Tom Cruise. And
Speaker 8: that's sort of the level that Tom trains to, so
Speaker 8: that's probably quite important to highlight it. Yes, it's always dangerous,
Speaker 8: it's always a risk, it's a stunt, but he trains
Speaker 8: to a ridiculous high level, like and he pushes himself,
Speaker 8: and his diet is perfect and his you know, his
Speaker 8: physical himself is perfect. So you know, but I will
Speaker 8: say when that I've done a lot of stunts. I've
Speaker 8: been with Tom about twelve years, done a lot of movies,
Speaker 8: over one hundred features or whatever. But when he actually
Speaker 8: finally we got to the location, I was standing on
Speaker 8: the edge of the ramp and I had the you know,
Speaker 8: the little animometer check in the wind because the crosswind
Speaker 8: was too strong in the morning. And if he went
Speaker 8: off that ramp halfway along the ramp, he had about
Speaker 8: a sixty foot drop down into rocks and cliffs, so
Speaker 8: he would have he would have died or injured himself
Speaker 8: severely before he even got to the edge of the ramp,
Speaker 8: so I was measuring the cross winds up in the
Speaker 8: mountain and it had to be within a certain limit.
Speaker 8: Tom was on a standby at the bottom of the
Speaker 8: valley in the helicopter, and as soon as I gave
Speaker 8: the go ahead, it was basically six minutes, he was
Speaker 8: on the ramp, sitting on the bike. So as soon
Speaker 8: as the cloud looked great and the shot looked great,
Speaker 8: the composition the bowl looks scary and airy, you know,
Speaker 8: and the window was right, I went go. He came
Speaker 8: in the chop of hobver just next to the ramp.
Speaker 8: He stepped out in the hover on the bike, helmet on,
Speaker 8: and then I dropped my hand to que him. Once
Speaker 8: all the cameras were in position. And I have to say,
Speaker 8: in my thirty odd years, as I said, experience and
Speaker 8: doing a lot of stunts with stunt men and women
Speaker 8: and actors, a moment the bike went quiet and he dropped,
Speaker 8: and then you have the silence one one thousand and two,
Speaker 8: one thousand and three, one thousand and his dead silence.
Speaker 8: And I got all my spots on the ground, and
Speaker 8: they know to give me that. And it's like good canopy,
Speaker 8: good canopy, and it was just like I could never
Speaker 8: I could relive it a one hundred times.
Speaker 6: It was, well, wait, are you or anybody when he's
Speaker 6: doing the stunt?
Speaker 4: Does he have an earpiece? Is anybody in his ear
Speaker 4: to go? Tom?
Speaker 6: Maybe this, maybe that? Or is he just he's got
Speaker 6: to be in the zone. He's with himself and that's it.
Speaker 7: He's in the zone.
Speaker 8: He's got to meet his exact speed, he's got to
Speaker 8: hold the bike for an exact amount of time that
Speaker 8: we'd rehearsed with you know, cables in a quarry before,
Speaker 8: and so he got the maximum performance and it's not
Speaker 8: the hottest.
Speaker 7: The best thing to describe with.
Speaker 8: Tom and Mission Impossible movies is, you know, it's easy
Speaker 8: to go out and do a YouTube objective style shot,
Speaker 8: go out there and put some you know, drones up there,
Speaker 8: a helicopter and some cameras and get a great stunt.
Speaker 8: But to capture the emotion and the character during the stunt,
Speaker 8: get the cameras in the place to see him and
Speaker 8: Tom to play it, you know, thinking about the light
Speaker 8: playing the character of I've got to land on this
Speaker 8: train and I've got to do this because the rest
Speaker 8: of my team are in trouble and making my face
Speaker 8: read that as an actor hold the bike for that
Speaker 8: little bit too long with the audience like, oh my god,
Speaker 8: oh my god, let go at the right time and
Speaker 8: then count before you hit the ground.
Speaker 6: I read somewhere about in fight scenes, it's just standard
Speaker 6: fight scenes that every guy fight.
Speaker 4: Every character fights differently. So I'm trying to.
Speaker 6: Think of, you know what, like in Mission Impossible, he's Ethan.
Speaker 6: In Reacher, he was Reacher, how would he fight? What's
Speaker 6: how do they fight differently? Isn't it just make a
Speaker 6: really cool fight? How does how does Ethan fight?
Speaker 8: So we can't change Ethan style because we've seen Mission
Speaker 8: Impossible one, two, three, four, five, you know, So all
Speaker 8: we do is we try and evolve as we introduce
Speaker 8: other characters, Like you know, in fall Out, we had
Speaker 8: Liang in the bathroom with Henry Cavill, who were amazing,
Speaker 8: and Henry was a bruiser and we had him as
Speaker 8: a boxer, so that shooted his style. Leang is a
Speaker 8: wushoe champion who works for me a lot and is
Speaker 8: just an incredible the way he moves. So but Tom
Speaker 8: can't suddenly become a wushoe artist or you know, a
Speaker 8: more tail he's because we all know his style. He's got,
Speaker 8: you know, his mixed styles and his elbows and a
Speaker 8: bit of casey, and so we have to try and
Speaker 8: evolve that style, but stay within the Ethan character. Whereas
Speaker 8: when he's a reacher or he's something else, we can
Speaker 8: have a bit more free reign with that.
Speaker 6: Right, you know, I've also read and maybe we can
Speaker 6: confirm it. But Tom has been you know, he's gotten
Speaker 6: actors to push themselves, right, And I'm thinking about there's
Speaker 6: this great story about de Niro and Charles Groden when
Speaker 6: they were doing Midnight Run and they had to they
Speaker 6: had to ride down the rapids. They were in the
Speaker 6: in the water they had to fall into. They jump
Speaker 6: into the rapids and they have to ride it through
Speaker 6: and Groden looks at it and goes, I'm not gonna
Speaker 6: do that. I'm not doing that. There's no way I'm
Speaker 6: doing that. And and and you know you gotta do
Speaker 6: it to us. It's come on, it's nothing to I'm
Speaker 6: gonna go first, you go right after me. There's nothing
Speaker 6: to it. It's you can do it. It's great. And
Speaker 6: de Niro goes in, rides the rapids, comes out at
Speaker 6: the end of the shot, and the first thing he says.
Speaker 4: Is, I don't I don't think Charlie.
Speaker 3: Should do this.
Speaker 4: I don't think should do this? Does I mean does
Speaker 4: does Tom?
Speaker 6: I know Tom a scintilla and I and I am
Speaker 6: so impressed with him when he goes and pushes another
Speaker 6: actor like, uh uh was it Rebecca Ferguson who's in
Speaker 6: the car with him, Hayleette?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm so sorry. So does she have to be.
Speaker 6: Co worse into believing that Tom can take her on
Speaker 6: this ride without hurting her?
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, it's it's it's conditioning.
Speaker 8: So like with all the casts, and that's where Tom
Speaker 8: and I are work on it together. So it's actually,
Speaker 8: you know, on the physical sides of my wife's part.
Speaker 7: Of the program.
Speaker 8: She does all the all the nutrition and the training
Speaker 8: and the food and you know, so she gets there
Speaker 8: sort of gets all the actors in shape so that
Speaker 8: I can try and break them, you know.
Speaker 7: I see, that's that's whatever.
Speaker 4: She's a good team.
Speaker 7: Tom and I try and break him.
Speaker 8: So it's all about really conditioning because they've they would
Speaker 8: have come out of a dramatic role or a different
Speaker 8: type of movie, a smaller action movie or a movie
Speaker 8: that didn't demand them doing so much. But you know,
Speaker 8: Tom wants to shoot everything subjectively so we can stay
Speaker 8: with the character and not cheat to a wide shod
Speaker 8: or and over shoulder of a double doing it, which
Speaker 8: takes you out of the character, you know, you know, briefly,
Speaker 8: especially if you're in a highly emotionally connected scene. So
Speaker 8: not with everything. But like with Haiti, for example, she
Speaker 8: hadn't driven. So that starts with Hailey coming in and
Speaker 8: getting on the meal planned, getting on the fitness plan,
Speaker 8: and then I start my program of fight training and
Speaker 8: my program of you know, drift training, car drifting and
Speaker 8: bikes and things, and you know, it's all very overwhelming
Speaker 8: for some in the beginning because you know what we
Speaker 8: have to aim for the level and they start at
Speaker 8: the bottom and like I can't, you know, Summer, I
Speaker 8: just I can't do this. But again with casting, with
Speaker 8: Tom and Mchue, you know, they don't cast actors that
Speaker 8: are going to not want to give one hundred percent
Speaker 8: and be involved because they know what mission requires. So
Speaker 8: they come with a very positive attitude. And like Haley
Speaker 8: didn't care in the car because Haley was became a
Speaker 8: drifter herself like she was drifting the M five seven
Speaker 8: hundred horsepower six to fifty horse power. She went from
Speaker 8: not driving. I think I first got her she I said, hey,
Speaker 8: I got her in a car in an M two
Speaker 8: competition in England and I said, when was the last
Speaker 8: time you drove? Because you were a license you went, oh,
Speaker 8: I think I drove to the shop four years ago.
Speaker 8: And because she lives in the city and you know
Speaker 8: she doesn't and I'm like, yeah, this is this is
Speaker 8: going to go well. So we started off very slow
Speaker 8: and by the end of it, you know, she's drifting
Speaker 8: me at seventy eighty mile an hour sideways in a
Speaker 8: six hundred all Spark car through on a track and
Speaker 8: matching all the drifts together and you know, coming up
Speaker 8: and stopping on the mark next to you know, fake camera,
Speaker 8: and so it's a really it's a really great journey
Speaker 8: for me to see them evolved, because although they're great
Speaker 8: actors and they they have that part of their life
Speaker 8: and their their their work, they've got a craft to
Speaker 8: see them get the reward from learning how to fight
Speaker 8: and move their body in a physical manner they haven't
Speaker 8: moved it before, or drive a car at super breakneck speed,
Speaker 8: sideways that they've never dreamed of doing. They get this
Speaker 8: rush that is infectious, and it's just so great.
Speaker 7: It's it's so rewarding.
Speaker 4: Wait, do you know the name Dara Robinson? Where are
Speaker 4: you familiar with?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So that story always freaked me out because I you know,
Speaker 6: as a fan, I watched many of the spectacular stunts
Speaker 6: that Dar did. And for people who don't know, Dar
Speaker 6: Robinson and died while making a film doing what many
Speaker 6: would consider a relatively simple stunt where he had to
Speaker 6: lay a motorcycle down. And my understanding is he had
Speaker 6: prepped it beautifully. They were doing it, I think, up
Speaker 6: on Mulholland Drive here in California, and he just added
Speaker 6: in the actual shooting of it. He added a little
Speaker 6: filigree where he decided he would roll two or three
Speaker 6: times and didn't realize that he was. He got off
Speaker 6: the edge of the road onto the side of the hill,
Speaker 6: started to roll down the hill and was impaled on
Speaker 6: a fallen tree and died from the impaalment. Was that
Speaker 6: just did he just make a mistake? Did his luck
Speaker 6: run out? Did he do something he wasn't prepared to do?
Speaker 6: I mean did he let his guard down. What my
Speaker 6: feeling is he would have been much like you, a
Speaker 6: guy who super prepared and super vigilant and crosses the
Speaker 6: t's and dots the eyes and then something kind of
Speaker 6: stupid gets him.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's always a small stunts.
Speaker 8: You know, it's not the it's not the big as
Speaker 8: a stunt man or you know, performer out there, it's
Speaker 8: not the big stunts because the big stunts are normally
Speaker 8: so prepared and so you know, rehearsed.
Speaker 7: It's a small ones.
Speaker 8: You go over just a fight, and you go over
Speaker 8: a table and you happen to land on the breakaway chair,
Speaker 8: but the breakaway piece is sticking upright, and this god
Speaker 8: cuts into you and you break a couple of ribs,
Speaker 8: or gets stitches or puncture a lung or and you
Speaker 8: never saw it coming.
Speaker 7: So Prepper is absolute key.
Speaker 8: So like on Mission Impossible five Rognation with a big
Speaker 8: bike crash the high side, and on the Morocco we
Speaker 8: did that, and it was often I'd look down and
Speaker 8: I always tell my guys, if you know, if you
Speaker 8: look twice, you know, if in doubt, take it out.
Speaker 7: So I look down this road sign.
Speaker 8: It was a mile way down there, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 8: you know what if he gets off the bike late,
Speaker 8: you know something, let's I kept looking at it, Let's
Speaker 8: take it out.
Speaker 7: Well, he would have gone.
Speaker 8: He would have gone through it about two meters of
Speaker 8: metal road sign the prepper is key. If there's a
Speaker 8: gutter that's low, and I think I should raise that
Speaker 8: because he could catch an edge and get into a
Speaker 8: roll and break right level it.
Speaker 7: Raise it. I don't.
Speaker 8: I take any risk out that I can, And then
Speaker 8: you leave it up to the ability of the performer, you.
Speaker 3: Know, do you guys, do you do what the FA does?
Speaker 3: Like there was a death on Deadpool too, there was
Speaker 3: a stunt guy dt. Do you then do all the
Speaker 3: stunt coordinators everybody get all the intel, all the information
Speaker 3: so they can figure out what went wrong. The industry
Speaker 3: tries to figure out what went wrong so it doesn't
Speaker 3: happen again. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 8: I actually, you know, investigate a lot of accidents on set,
Speaker 8: you know, stunt accidents privately, and it's it's they generally
Speaker 8: are they all avoidable. It's it's either bad prep or
Speaker 8: someone being complacent and they're rehearsed a lot and not
Speaker 8: doing that job. It's you know that's generally what happened,
Speaker 8: like plane crashes a lot of the weather or whyres
Speaker 8: just don't find bad weather or hit wise.
Speaker 3: So can you comment before you go to on the
Speaker 3: russ thing, because for a person who is a novice
Speaker 3: in that world, you know the alec baldmin think on
Speaker 3: the movie set. You yes, he's shooting the gun at
Speaker 3: somebody and he's pointing at the director. Is there a
Speaker 3: comment on that? How does that happen?
Speaker 8: You know, it's it's a stranger on that because first
Speaker 8: of all, having a live firing range close to a
Speaker 8: set is kind of unusual. But if you do that,
Speaker 8: it has to be very you know, sanitized completely on
Speaker 8: its own. There should be no cross contamination of a
Speaker 8: live firing weapon be able to come into a set.
Speaker 8: But you know, it's the job to me and in
Speaker 8: my experience in thirty odd years, the armor is in
Speaker 8: charge of weapons, so the armorer makes sure that the
Speaker 8: weapon is clear. They bring the weapon onto set. They
Speaker 8: say to the first ad on set, bringing a weapon
Speaker 8: onto set. The first that he calls for the weapon
Speaker 8: bringing the weapon onto set, the weapon is open to
Speaker 8: revolver to the side or you know, cocked and they
Speaker 8: show the weapon clear, show the ad and show the
Speaker 8: actors the weapon is clear. They look and they see
Speaker 8: the barrel is clear or chamber is clear. We're loading blanks.
Speaker 8: They show the blanks, They put the blanks in load.
Speaker 8: We have a blank firing weapon on set. Hand it
Speaker 8: over to the actor. Now the actor is in his mind.
Speaker 8: He's concentrating on the performance. And he's an actor. It's
Speaker 8: not his job. That's everyone else's job to concentrate on
Speaker 8: that stuff. That's why you pay armorers and ads and
Speaker 8: other people. He now trusts that that in his hand
Speaker 8: is being prepped one hundred percent. Very few actors will
Speaker 8: even look over. They just wait for the weapon to
Speaker 8: be past them. Someone like Tom will, you know, literally
Speaker 8: watch it from table to hand.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 8: But so anyway, that's my in my opinion. I don't
Speaker 8: know any more than that. I don't know any details
Speaker 8: on it, but that is the process, or somewhere in
Speaker 8: that process it broke down between the responsibility the armor
Speaker 8: and the first idea. It was something went a mess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as we're wrapping here, I got to ask,
Speaker 3: you are you're taking Tom into space?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 3: The next thing? We had heard rumors that to do
Speaker 3: the ultimate stunt. It's going to be somewhere somewhere above
Speaker 3: the earth, and you're smirking? Is that true?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 3: You can't portray you'll be fired. What's the answer?
Speaker 7: Exactly?
Speaker 3: No, I blink twice.
Speaker 7: Yes, you won't want the crucive bix.
Speaker 3: Wait, thank you, I.
Speaker 6: Said, good luck out there, and my friend stay safe.
Speaker 6: Please you do spectacular things.
Speaker 3: You thrill a thanks man, continued success. You're apparently the man,
Speaker 3: so congratulations, and be careful in space. In space, be
Speaker 3: careful mission in space. Remember you can't breathe in space,
Speaker 3: and no one can hear you. Scrept so much.
Speaker 7: Guys, thank you?
Speaker 4: All right? You know, can I just say something? I
Speaker 4: hope I'm wrong. Somebody's going to get hurt somewhere along
Speaker 4: the way and by the way, and I don't want
Speaker 4: to hear that phrase. There's that phrase that drives me
Speaker 4: crazy every time I hear it. Died doing what he loved. Really,
Speaker 4: I think that's how people want to die doing anything
Speaker 4: I love. Can I just say that right now, because
Speaker 4: if I if I'm.
Speaker 6: Loving it, I want to stay alive to keep doing it.
Speaker 6: I want to die taking out the garbage. Oh, I
Speaker 6: didn't make it, it.
Speaker 3: Would be so sad too, because mine would be taken
Speaker 3: a nap.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love you, you turn me around. I love
Speaker 4: a good nat I got to do it.
Speaker 3: I love That's that's how I want to.
Speaker 4: Go, you bet.
Speaker 6: I also want to say, just because it's stunt meant
Speaker 6: it's been so many years since I've seen him that
Speaker 6: I have forgotten his last name. But my stuntman, Brian
Speaker 6: was a rodeo guy who covered me for all the
Speaker 6: roll gold stuff and did a lot of stunts for
Speaker 6: me and got hurt from me several times. Wade was
Speaker 6: talking about, you know, like a breakaway chair and you
Speaker 6: gonna pay. I was supposed to do a thing where
Speaker 6: I get catapulted out a breakaway window and land in
Speaker 6: a breakaway horse trough and I.
Speaker 4: Said, I could do that. That looks like fun. I
Speaker 4: could put the pads on me. I could do that.
Speaker 6: And they said, well, let Brian do it once and
Speaker 6: someone had kicked the catapult just a smidgeon with their toe.
Speaker 6: So but you know, a little thing changes the angle
Speaker 6: in a big way at the end point, and he
Speaker 6: came down instead of in the trough, on the trough,
Speaker 6: and yeah, it's breakaway, but I think he broke his
Speaker 6: Sternham on the way in. He jumped off the landing
Speaker 6: at a mall onto a pole and wanted to get
Speaker 6: you were supposed to you.
Speaker 4: Well, I was never going to do that, but he was.
Speaker 6: He did it with such force to make sure he
Speaker 6: got to the pole that actually broke his teeth.
Speaker 4: His face hit the pole. I mean he took some hits.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a special breed to be a something,
Speaker 3: which is why Ron Toman came on my radio show
Speaker 3: and when he did the Hellboy Yeah, and we played
Speaker 3: the two minute trailer and I said, how much of
Speaker 3: that is you? And he said none? I said why?
Speaker 3: He said, why would I be running, jumping doing anything
Speaker 3: I got? I said none. He said, I'm not in it.
Speaker 6: I actually said to Ron, good god man, I know
Speaker 6: how old you are. Look how you beefed up for
Speaker 6: Hellboy went, but you were schmuck prosthetic. I'm wearing a
Speaker 6: prosthetic chest. By the way, did you see my favorite
Speaker 6: my face?
Speaker 4: Do you know what we learned? What's the secret behind
Speaker 4: Tom Cruise of stunts?
Speaker 3: You want to say it together?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Tom Cruise, that's got to be that man, David
Speaker 4: Google High. What did we learn today, sir? What's going on?
Speaker 10: Well, I guess we learned why David Harbor actually got
Speaker 10: the hell Boy job.
Speaker 9: Well, this has been a fascinating episode with all the
Speaker 9: stuntman talking, all the crazy stuns in the preparation that
Speaker 9: we've been talking about. But my question was who was
Speaker 9: the first stunt woman ever.
Speaker 3: To do.
Speaker 4: That's a really good question.
Speaker 9: We were talking about Buster Keaton and all that. In
Speaker 9: the early days of Hollywood. Even back then, they were
Speaker 9: doing something called wigging, where you would help a man
Speaker 9: do it and they would get a woman put on
Speaker 9: a wig and appear to be the female actor. But
Speaker 9: there is a woman. Her name. Her birth name was
Speaker 9: Rose August Wenger, but she later changed her name to
Speaker 9: Helen Gibson. Helen Gibson went from working at a cigar
Speaker 9: factory in Cleveland, Ohio, to Hollywood where she became an extra,
Speaker 9: you know, would play an unspeaking role.
Speaker 7: She looks so like.
Speaker 9: The star of a very very popular show called The
Speaker 9: Hazards of Helen. Then she became the stunt woman for
Speaker 9: the star and in fact she did it so well.
Speaker 9: When the actual star of Hazards of Helen left the series.
Speaker 9: Helen Gibson actually replaced her and became the star went
Speaker 9: on to have a very long career in the silent era.
Speaker 4: Wait, Hazards of Helen was a was a TV.
Speaker 7: Show, It was a serial.
Speaker 4: It was a series of film serial.
Speaker 9: In the theaters. Absolutely now here. But let me just
Speaker 9: describe one of the.
Speaker 6: More don't touch my bell, don't touch the bell.
Speaker 3: I do the bell? It go ahead, David, I'm.
Speaker 9: Sorry, all right, if you're done with the bell fighting.
Speaker 4: Well, we had an infringement of brights.
Speaker 9: But okay, true, there's there's always seems to be a
Speaker 9: touching thing. So here's one of the stuns. And again
Speaker 9: I don't think that they probably did the types of
Speaker 9: planning and execution and tying that to that end.
Speaker 4: Well, they only had slide rules back then, so you know.
Speaker 3: Exactly and silent. So it broke something you already heard
Speaker 3: it yet.
Speaker 9: So she was standing on two galloping horses. Okay, so
Speaker 9: picture that, and then she had to grab onto a
Speaker 9: rope dangling from a bridge and swing on from that
Speaker 9: rope onto a moving train all in one shot.
Speaker 4: Wow did she hang it?
Speaker 9: She did make it. She lived to a ripe old
Speaker 9: age in her eighties, so she she did very well
Speaker 9: for us.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 9: But yes, that was Helen Gibson recognized as the.
Speaker 4: First ladies and gentlemen. Helen Gibson.
Speaker 3: That's pretty. But think of think of that for a second.
Speaker 3: What that involves the horses to your own horses that's
Speaker 3: already gonna die. Grab that and then get an didn't
Speaker 3: get onto that train? Yeah? Done, no problem?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, wow. Has anyone worked it out?
Speaker 3: No, there's no working anybody checked the rope. Don't worry
Speaker 3: but home.
Speaker 4: Wait, let me get on my meal program. How do
Speaker 4: you meal program?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I love it.
Speaker 6: By the way, I love the me on a meal
Speaker 6: program in preparation of jumping the most the waves, wife
Speaker 6: does the whole You know what food?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 6: Good is the meal program for me? When I have
Speaker 6: to go out the plane. It gives me something to
Speaker 6: throw up. Otherwise it'd be drying.
Speaker 3: You're not good with stunt. You wouldn't be a good stunt.
Speaker 4: I have done stunts. I've done a fair amount up.
Speaker 3: What do you mean Yeah, yeah, yep, Because stunts to
Speaker 3: you is you're gonna be running up steps. What did
Speaker 3: you do? Stumach?
Speaker 6: Okay, movie I directed, Don't Bet Your Fingers. I did
Speaker 6: a stunt involving almost sixty eight stunt drivers where I
Speaker 6: had to cross the eight lanes of Hollywood Belong. Well,
Speaker 6: they're spinning out all around me. Now, I'm I'm telling you.
Speaker 6: I felt door handles brush my leg. I mean it
Speaker 6: was it was day. It was definitely Dan.
Speaker 3: The stunt was about walking.
Speaker 4: The stunt was walking and not David. I've done wire work.
Speaker 6: I got up in the air on wires how far
Speaker 6: one hundred feet?
Speaker 3: What movie?
Speaker 6: It was for a World Gold commercial. It had to
Speaker 6: look like I was doing it. I did a layout
Speaker 6: to dunk to dunk the basket and they put a
Speaker 6: camera one hundred feet up. They put me on wires
Speaker 6: and I would an acrobat would do this tumbling run
Speaker 6: and then he would do like the back layout, and
Speaker 6: then it was me shooting up to the camera, throwing
Speaker 6: myself backwards, flipping over and coming back down.
Speaker 4: You have one belt under, you have a harness.
Speaker 6: It was a hip point, so I could do the
Speaker 6: flip and so it's it's the way. No, you'd see
Speaker 6: the wires. They had to take the wires out, and
Speaker 6: I let me tell you something. I got used to
Speaker 6: the height pretty quickly. I got that the flipping when
Speaker 6: you start to go over backwards, it's you go, this
Speaker 6: is us.
Speaker 4: Wrong, and you grabbed the wires.
Speaker 6: That's what happened is I'd grabbed the wires and we
Speaker 6: did five takes and they finally said, Jason, you can't
Speaker 6: grab the wires.
Speaker 4: I mean, you got to get through this.
Speaker 6: And the only way I did it is I psyched
Speaker 6: myself out and I went, Okay, there are no wires.
Speaker 6: I'm going to jump up, I'm gonna throw this flip
Speaker 6: and I'm gonna get back down, and I pretended it
Speaker 6: was all me and I did it and we did.
Speaker 4: One flip and they, you know, the crew went and
Speaker 4: that's yeah.
Speaker 3: Never, I don't think I've ever been more proud of you.
Speaker 4: Thank you you. Sands Food realized kind of a risk.
Speaker 9: Yes, So the only question I have I was speaking
Speaker 9: of stunts and Jason's career. Did Michael Richards ever hit
Speaker 9: you with the door.
Speaker 4: Hit me with the door?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 6: The only time I ever got hurt, honestly in the show,
Speaker 6: and you can see it happened because it's in the episode.
Speaker 6: There's an episode where George is wearing it to pay,
Speaker 6: and Elaine hates it, and so Julia ripped it off
Speaker 6: my head and then she goes to throw it out
Speaker 6: the window. And what she does is she raises the
Speaker 6: Venetian blinds to throw it out.
Speaker 4: And then what was supposed to be is I was supposed.
Speaker 6: To reach through the window as if I was trying
Speaker 6: to grab it, and then she would let the blinds
Speaker 6: drop on my back. And she went a little too soon,
Speaker 6: and my head went right into that hardwood bottom slat
Speaker 6: that gives the blinds weight, and I broke it with
Speaker 6: my head and I had a welt.
Speaker 4: That's the only time I got hurt. No, Michael.
Speaker 6: Inadvertently hit Julia with a bag of golf clubs one
Speaker 6: time on a stunt. Michael was very good at what
Speaker 6: he did, but he messed up very rarely and almost
Speaker 6: never with anybody else's Jeopardy But.
Speaker 3: David anything else, any corrections.
Speaker 6: A daring, daring, daring show. I dare say, we we
Speaker 6: out there. This was our riskiest show ever.
Speaker 3: All Right, see you all, lady Dabs for seeing you,
Speaker 3: Thank you Wade, thank you producer Lar. And next to
Speaker 3: your next episode, I guess no, let's.
Speaker 4: Tell us something amazing.
Speaker 2: Really, as another episode of Really No Really comes to
Speaker 2: a close. I know you're wondering what are the most
Speaker 2: dangerous stunts ever attempted in film? That list in just
Speaker 2: a moment, but first let's thank our guest, Wade Eastwood.
Speaker 2: You can follow Wade on Instagram where he is at
Speaker 2: Waite Eastwood. Our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok YouTube,
Speaker 2: and threads at Really No Really podcast, And of course
Speaker 2: you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online
Speaker 2: at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some
Speaker 2: amazing fact or story that boggles your mind, share it
Speaker 2: with us and if we use it, we will send
Speaker 2: you a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's
Speaker 2: the thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube,
Speaker 2: hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're
Speaker 2: updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we
Speaker 2: do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Now,
Speaker 2: what are some of those most dangerous film stunts ever? Well,
Speaker 2: some of the top ones are Ironman three, The Air
Speaker 2: Force one, Freefall, when Ironman rescues thirteen presidential Cabinet members
Speaker 2: out of the sky Red bull skoyt having team did
Speaker 2: a week of jumps to pull off the crazy sequence
Speaker 2: Terminator Too the helicopter chase. In this Car and Copter chase,
Speaker 2: the helicopter flies through an overpass filmed on an actual
Speaker 2: highway in Los Angeles. The pilot refused the stunt, so
Speaker 2: director James Cameron joined a stuntman and they flew it
Speaker 2: three times to get the trick on film. And finally,
Speaker 2: Tom cruise with the window Runner scene in Mission Impossible
Speaker 2: Ghost Protocol with CRUs running around the outside of the
Speaker 2: tallest building in the world. The sequence involves a forty
Speaker 2: foot free fall from seventeen hundred feet up. All this
Speaker 2: and the Oscars still don't have a category for Best Stunt.
Speaker 2: Really Really, Really No Really is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: and Blase Entertainment.
Speaker 8: Fur