Speaker 1: We would like to dedicate today's episode to our friends,
Speaker 1: mentor and coach Dean Copkov. We miss you, Bud all
Speaker 1: the love in the world. He was such an important
Speaker 1: part of the show, but also an important part of
Speaker 1: our lives and a dear friend who touched so many
Speaker 1: people over the course of his life and career. Dean,
Speaker 1: we love you and you're always with us. Thank you
Speaker 1: for everything and for the person that you will always
Speaker 1: be in our hearts. Hello, Tom, how are you today?
Speaker 1: I'm good? Thank you? How are you? I'm good? I
Speaker 1: am calling you from the eight and seventies or podcasting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you are in London. I take it. I am in London.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Though, here is my favorite fucking person, Darren.
Speaker 1: Can you hear us? My god, I can hear you guys?
Speaker 1: Yet we have the most special guest today on the podcast,
Speaker 1: the one and only Darren McGuire. How are you guys?
Speaker 1: Go to see you man? You too, buddy? How are
Speaker 1: you doing too? I'm great? What about are you in
Speaker 1: the world? What's what's your time zone? Well, I'm in Toronto, okay,
Speaker 1: and I am just lately I've been working with my
Speaker 1: brother Chris on Star Trek Discovery. Amazing, amazing, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: really has been amazing. They have this, They have the
Speaker 1: A R Wall. I don't know if you've ever heard
Speaker 1: of this. It is a piece of technology that was
Speaker 1: originally used on the Mandalorian and if you can imagine,
Speaker 1: I don't know the exact proportions, but like half a
Speaker 1: studio of screens, you know, in a curve in an
Speaker 1: arc so that and then it's on the ceiling too,
Speaker 1: and then it's on the floor too if they want it.
Speaker 1: So you are completely completely surrounded by filmable background, so
Speaker 1: being you know, if you're on an alien planet, it's
Speaker 1: super handy, right because now for you guys, for you know,
Speaker 1: for the performers, if you're supposed to be a creature
Speaker 1: or something to that effect, you can see them and
Speaker 1: have your eyeline. They can even light with it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing a bunch of that lately. It's
Speaker 1: been amazing. That's incredible. Yeah, Well, Darren, we are so
Speaker 1: so so thrilled to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker 1: You've been someone that we have talked about extensively in
Speaker 1: our rewatches and it's just such an honor and a
Speaker 1: privilege to have you here today, and we miss you.
Speaker 1: It's been amazing to see you guys too. I've I've
Speaker 1: missed you. I think about you all the time. I
Speaker 1: tell stories about stuff that we did together all the time.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, how you know, I've been at this for
Speaker 1: a while. I've done a bunch of stuff now, I've
Speaker 1: been working with Giamo del Toro lately. And everything that
Speaker 1: you learn along the way helps you along the way.
Speaker 1: And I just learned so much about staging because you
Speaker 1: guys were so talented and so willing to work hard
Speaker 1: at whatever we were doing. Um, it opened up a
Speaker 1: lot of possibilities for me creatively in terms of, um,
Speaker 1: how we shot it. I know we're going to get
Speaker 1: into all of this, but it was it was really
Speaker 1: you the cast that made it possible, um and kind
Speaker 1: of opened up my horizons creatively. And I look back
Speaker 1: at it and out and I realized how lucky I
Speaker 1: really was, and not that I haven't worked with super
Speaker 1: talented people still since then. I have. It's been amazing,
Speaker 1: But UM, you guys were one in a million. You know,
Speaker 1: you all worked so hard at everything we did, and
Speaker 1: for me as an instructor, like as a teacher. When
Speaker 1: you have somebody like that that you're working with every
Speaker 1: day at work is awesome, you know everything, And I think, look, dude,
Speaker 1: that's really sweet of you to say. But for us,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm speaking out of turn with cat
Speaker 1: here either. You know, we are hard workers, like that's
Speaker 1: something we love to do. We we enjoy what we
Speaker 1: do as you do. But the difference of having an
Speaker 1: instructor who gels who I like, having someone that you're
Speaker 1: excited to come and work with every day. We give
Speaker 1: all of the credit to you because we we were
Speaker 1: trained by you. We did all the work with you
Speaker 1: and with your team, UM, and you inspired us to
Speaker 1: to want to work the way that has now sort
Speaker 1: of become our uh mantra like this is how this
Speaker 1: is how you work. UM. So we have you to
Speaker 1: thank for that, really, and I'll just echo that truly
Speaker 1: and just say, you know it's it's Don and I've
Speaker 1: both gone on to jobs where we've had to do
Speaker 1: stunts and fighting and action sequences and things like this,
Speaker 1: and it's having the foundation and having someone like you
Speaker 1: and and folks like your team that taught us everything
Speaker 1: we know and inspired us and taught us not only
Speaker 1: the mechanics of what we're doing and how to apply
Speaker 1: it to film, but also how to be safe and
Speaker 1: how to keep ourselves and people around us safe and
Speaker 1: you know, moving into other sets. It's really been the
Speaker 1: most amazing resource to have. And and I just I
Speaker 1: think about you every day and I'm inspired by you
Speaker 1: every single day. So it's just it's it's the biggest gift.
Speaker 1: You opened our horizons in so many ways. Thank you, Cat,
Speaker 1: that's amazing of you to say so. And got it'd
Speaker 1: be great to get the band back together, right like,
Speaker 1: Oh man, I I still I still text every now
Speaker 1: and then with Matt Hastings, and I still in touch
Speaker 1: with Chris Hatcher. On occasion, I did sex Life form
Speaker 1: us earlier in the year. And yeah, I just think
Speaker 1: about what we had. I think about, um, you know
Speaker 1: there are training room, Um just that space, man, every
Speaker 1: lunch time we were there, so they started telling us
Speaker 1: not to We were on the mini tramps and gise
Speaker 1: different toys and whatever. It was. It was awesome. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was awesome. And again, like when I would you know,
Speaker 1: and as a stunt coordinator, I'm sometimes I'm able to
Speaker 1: engage myself completely with the fight action or the training
Speaker 1: action that we're doing. And sometimes I have to go
Speaker 1: back and forth in meetings and prep and dealing with
Speaker 1: whatever all the other aspects of the job. And so
Speaker 1: when I would come walking into the room and I'd
Speaker 1: see one or more of you in there, and you know,
Speaker 1: when you'd normally be with Dean, and I would want
Speaker 1: were more. It was such a good feeling. Man. It
Speaker 1: was just that it was such a good feeling. And
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, guys, we meet the most
Speaker 1: of it, man, we did, I would agree, before we
Speaker 1: dive into everything. Probably, why didn't you tell us a little?
Speaker 1: I mean, we know most of this, but ondn't you
Speaker 1: tell the audience a little about you? How you got
Speaker 1: into this, how you got attached to the show? Like,
Speaker 1: give us a little a little Darren lowdown? Alright, alright, Um, Well,
Speaker 1: I grew up in northern Ontario, in Sudbury, in a
Speaker 1: mining town about I guess it's about four and a
Speaker 1: half hours north of Toronto. And my father, uh, my
Speaker 1: grandfather was a boxer, and so my father learned about
Speaker 1: boxing as a really young kid, and then later in
Speaker 1: the early sixties, his cousin, my dad's cousin started taking
Speaker 1: a style of karate called shoto kan uh, and he
Speaker 1: showed my dad a few moves, being you know, my
Speaker 1: maguire was Irish, right, so the cousins like to fight
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, And so my my dad's
Speaker 1: my dad's cousin had some new moves, you know, and
Speaker 1: my dad was impressed, and so that's what started his interest,
Speaker 1: and so he got involved in it in the early
Speaker 1: sixties and the early seventies are the late sixties and
Speaker 1: the early seventies is really when he got zoned in.
Speaker 1: And I was born around that time, and my dad
Speaker 1: started teaching us. I mean, you know, we had we
Speaker 1: had our karate gs or karate uniforms when we were
Speaker 1: still just a little baby. But you know, I was
Speaker 1: still seeing my g you know, I was just a
Speaker 1: little kid, and yeah, and he taught us. He taught
Speaker 1: us the basics, very much like what I taught you
Speaker 1: guys when I first when we first started working together,
Speaker 1: the basic punches, the basic blocks of building the arsenal
Speaker 1: then and that just continued through our lives, myself and
Speaker 1: my brothers, my four brothers. It was just a family
Speaker 1: treaty and you know. It definitely made the sibling rivalries
Speaker 1: more fun. Um, I'm sure you know. And my dad
Speaker 1: had oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. And my dad had rules.
Speaker 1: You know, we weren't allowed to fight with weapons inside
Speaker 1: the house. You know, stuff would get broken. Yeah, whether
Speaker 1: it was vosses or bones, one of them. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: It was a hole holes in the ceiling from the
Speaker 1: niw Chuck who you know are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I remember so many incidents. One time I was chasing
Speaker 1: my brother Chris, who you worked with, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: and I had the sword and all he had was
Speaker 1: the fire poker, and so we were fighting and he
Speaker 1: was and I was chasing him, poking him in the
Speaker 1: butt with it, and the hook on the fire poker
Speaker 1: hooked onto the corner of the wall and pulled the
Speaker 1: whole corner of the wall out. And we had just
Speaker 1: finished building this house so quickly before my dad got home.
Speaker 1: We had the drywall out and we're like plastering it
Speaker 1: and standing it and using this air dryer to dry
Speaker 1: it off. You know. Oh yeah, yeah, it was it
Speaker 1: was like that. It was you know, that that we
Speaker 1: were a little crazy, you know, and then that just yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I competition started to be more of an
Speaker 1: aspect of all of our lives. And we competed heavily
Speaker 1: in martial arts, um you know, right into my mid twenties,
Speaker 1: and it went from regional to sort of provincial to
Speaker 1: international kind of thing. And I knew, I mean, since
Speaker 1: I was fifteen years old, I knew that I wanted
Speaker 1: to work in film. I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 1: somehow bring my martial arts obsession into into film. And
Speaker 1: so my last sort of big international competition was a
Speaker 1: World Championship that was in Lester in England, and we
Speaker 1: were training in Toronto, and I got a contacted from
Speaker 1: somebody that was doing sort of low budget chop sake films,
Speaker 1: and uh I I played hookey from training with the
Speaker 1: with the World Championship team, I played hockey for four
Speaker 1: days to shoot a couple of fight scenes with Billy
Speaker 1: Blanks in a movie. And that's really how it started.
Speaker 1: And then it was just stunts, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: and the stunts got more intense. It was still I
Speaker 1: was still a fight specialist and acrobatic specialist, but you know,
Speaker 1: I got lit on fire and thrown downstairs and hit
Speaker 1: by cars and stuff along the way, and um, in
Speaker 1: the stunts right not that wasn't That's not how you
Speaker 1: make your way in Hollywood. For anyone listening, you don't
Speaker 1: have to go through any of that. I don't think
Speaker 1: it is just stunts, totally stunts. And it was a
Speaker 1: gradual thing, you know. I mean, initially the jobs that
Speaker 1: I got were completely fight based, and then as I
Speaker 1: got my education with really excellent stunt coordinators Marco Bianco,
Speaker 1: John stead Rick forsythe and these these people all contributed
Speaker 1: to teaching me about the craft of stunts and not
Speaker 1: just how to fall down a flight of stairs properly
Speaker 1: or how to do a high fall into boxes properly.
Speaker 1: To um, I was going to bring it up at
Speaker 1: some point, it's got to come up. Oh yeah, baby,
Speaker 1: we've spoken about We've spoken about it on the podcast already.
Speaker 1: Funk it. We're gonna do it now. We've spoken about
Speaker 1: it on the podcast already. And how furious I was
Speaker 1: that that day They were just like, nah, there's no
Speaker 1: way you're not going to do it, And I was like,
Speaker 1: We've done it. We did it off a cherry picker.
Speaker 1: It's so much harder and and the thing is the
Speaker 1: story that I like to tell about that, And I
Speaker 1: know we'll get back into it. But so I remember
Speaker 1: looking at you and you're looking me in the eyes
Speaker 1: and you're saying, I want to do that gag, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, you had already proved your athleticism to
Speaker 1: me up to this point, and I knew you had
Speaker 1: nerve um, and so I thought, okay, well I'm gonna
Speaker 1: present with what what I would present with another stunt performer,
Speaker 1: which was the test where we bring up the mini
Speaker 1: tramp and we had the pad and I laid a
Speaker 1: piece of paper towel on the matt and and said,
Speaker 1: you know, the deal was that you had to dive
Speaker 1: off the mini tramp comes straight down head first into
Speaker 1: the mat, and before you roll to your back, you
Speaker 1: had to snatch the paper towel off the surface of
Speaker 1: the mat to flip onto your back to do what
Speaker 1: we call the face off. And so I thought, this
Speaker 1: will teach him, this will, this will, this will give
Speaker 1: him a little fear of therapy. And he does it
Speaker 1: correctly the first time he tries it, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: of course he does what what? And remember dumb, I
Speaker 1: was like, no, dude, do it again, you know, And
Speaker 1: I look over at Dean and Dean's looking at me
Speaker 1: because I thought, this is how I'm going to get
Speaker 1: out of this, because I knew Disney Safety wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: like it one bit, right, so of course not, and
Speaker 1: so they then he did it again, and then he
Speaker 1: did it again three in a row, and now you're
Speaker 1: just showing off. Now you're starting to get in to
Speaker 1: the pike, and you were like, you know, So then
Speaker 1: I thought, all right, says a Dean. And I talked
Speaker 1: about it. Um We're like, he's like, what do you
Speaker 1: think about? And I'm like, it was where he is
Speaker 1: in space, and I'm trying to think in my head too. Dom.
Speaker 1: As soon as I saw you do that, I started thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: so then now I have to build a case for
Speaker 1: Disney Safety so that they can see why I would
Speaker 1: think you would be safe for a stunt performer to
Speaker 1: do that, and how I would test the stunt performer, right,
Speaker 1: and so obviously the testing process is risky, Dom, as
Speaker 1: you recalled, and I was worried about it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you just got it. And so then we went to high,
Speaker 1: a little higher, a little higher, a little higher, and
Speaker 1: you weren't hesitating, And so I remember the last conversation
Speaker 1: with Disney Safety and he said, he said, look, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna talk about it over here. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: and I said, and I made it clear, I said,
Speaker 1: I trust it him a hundred percent to do this.
Speaker 1: And it really was the last minute, It really was.
Speaker 1: And I listen and it's exactly and I have the footage,
Speaker 1: so I know that it's that I've done it. And
Speaker 1: it's funny. Do you remember for training because we got
Speaker 1: it to the height of the bridge and there was
Speaker 1: only one patch in the studio that was physically high
Speaker 1: enough to bring us to that place, and we had
Speaker 1: to bring the whole rig and everything to there. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting thing. We talked about trust a
Speaker 1: lot on this podcast, a lot about trust, mostly in
Speaker 1: relation to performing, like you have to trust your other performer,
Speaker 1: and it's exactly the same thing with stunts, if not
Speaker 1: more so with stunts. And I remember I watched that
Speaker 1: video all the time. You know, I'm showing people like
Speaker 1: I jumped with It's not a big deal or whatever,
Speaker 1: just you know, blow my trumpet and there's not very
Speaker 1: many people in the world that I would trust to
Speaker 1: hold the back of my trousers while I'm stood over
Speaker 1: three levels high of cardboard boxes, looking straight down at
Speaker 1: thirty ft and looking at your eyes, looking straight up.
Speaker 1: There's not many people I would trust to say you
Speaker 1: can do this. And you and Dean were those two
Speaker 1: people in my life and always will be you, always
Speaker 1: will be that person in my life. And you told
Speaker 1: me that I could jump off the Empire State and
Speaker 1: survive it. I mean, please don't say that, but if
Speaker 1: you told me I could, I think I think I'd
Speaker 1: hop off. You know, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: That's just it, as you know, for folks that are
Speaker 1: you know, this kind of schedule we were on and
Speaker 1: the sort of things that we wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to do to play these characters. You made it. Not
Speaker 1: only did you make it possible, but you made it safe.
Speaker 1: And you you gave us that trust and that confidence
Speaker 1: not only in ourselves to the training, but in you
Speaker 1: and your team and Dean and everyone else to to
Speaker 1: be able to do things that I've not been on
Speaker 1: the show since It's let me do as much then
Speaker 1: being able to walk into their shows with that confidence
Speaker 1: of going yeah, I can you show me what to
Speaker 1: do and you make it safe, I can do it.
Speaker 1: It's invaluable. Well it was, you know. And I have
Speaker 1: to say though, as we keep passing credit back and forth,
Speaker 1: it really is like that. Guys, like like we were
Speaker 1: able to create that momentum and push the boundaries the
Speaker 1: way we did because it was a combination of my
Speaker 1: experience as a teacher and I could see different things
Speaker 1: in all of you, you know, like like with with you, Dom,
Speaker 1: you are a natural. Uh, you're a natural athlete. Not
Speaker 1: just the physical ability, jumping ability, strength to wait, there's
Speaker 1: all those sort of things that go in the toolbox.
Speaker 1: But when I say a natural, I mean that that
Speaker 1: your natural instinct is usually the right one movement wise
Speaker 1: or momentum wise. It's just it's just how you put
Speaker 1: in movement wise. There We've been out drinking together and
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm going to make sure that I say,
Speaker 1: his instincts are good when it comes to movement, but
Speaker 1: not necessarily like choices nothing, but it's all part of it, dum.
Speaker 1: That confidence comes from from getting the right take on
Speaker 1: stuff right. And I remember my first exposure to you, Cat,
Speaker 1: I was like watching you and I could see, I
Speaker 1: could see a dance background, I could see a discipline
Speaker 1: in your movement, and but really what I noticed is
Speaker 1: your attention to detail. It's such a thing. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting too, because I know that Clary's Clary is an artist,
Speaker 1: if I recall correctly, and artists and artists pay very
Speaker 1: close attention to detail. And I found that it was
Speaker 1: interesting that your approach to the training and you had
Speaker 1: a tendency to pick out the details, and so I
Speaker 1: could grab onto that and I could get into cahoots
Speaker 1: on what to do with your character physically. It was
Speaker 1: just such a thing. I just I just, oh, that's
Speaker 1: very easy, because she already approaches it in a way
Speaker 1: that I imagine that Clary would. Of course, there's all
Speaker 1: of the natural aptitude that I find in you, but
Speaker 1: it's it was your details and your and your You
Speaker 1: worked hard at it, you really did. You were in
Speaker 1: there with Dean all the time, YouTube all of you
Speaker 1: as much as I possibly. It's that attention to detail
Speaker 1: that always inspired me and everything that you did. Whenever
Speaker 1: we talk about the fights, it's that character story within
Speaker 1: the fight that's it's almost a separate plot line that's
Speaker 1: driving everything and the way you've blended different pieces and
Speaker 1: attributes of different martial arts to create each supernatural characters
Speaker 1: fighting style. It added so much to the show and
Speaker 1: so much depth to the stories that we were telling
Speaker 1: that people picked up on, and it it created the
Speaker 1: world in another another facet that wasn't any of the
Speaker 1: sets or the costumes or the dialogue or anything. It
Speaker 1: filled out the world in such a rich way. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It's so interesting how it happened to
Speaker 1: I did a pilot with Hubert and it was Ransylvania
Speaker 1: was a CBS thing and Hubert was the Wolfman. It
Speaker 1: was super cool, and anyway I was. I was hoping
Speaker 1: to get onto this other thing afterwards, and it didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and I was a little sulky, and so I went
Speaker 1: up north camping and I was up there for a
Speaker 1: few days. And when the places that I go generally
Speaker 1: there's no cell signal, there's no cell phones, there's no
Speaker 1: it kind of like I definitely go off the grid,
Speaker 1: as you guys remember. And when I came back out,
Speaker 1: there was a email waiting for me from Matt Hastings,
Speaker 1: who I had never met or heard of, and it
Speaker 1: was basically just him saying that he had heard some
Speaker 1: good things about me from another producer that I had
Speaker 1: worked under, and wondered if I would be willing to
Speaker 1: show up for an interview. And he didn't even say
Speaker 1: what the show was. There was just the address where
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go. Literally was like the next
Speaker 1: day when I checked out the address, I realized what
Speaker 1: the show was because you guys had done the first
Speaker 1: season and and then I realized what it was, and
Speaker 1: I quickly watched. I think I got through two or
Speaker 1: three episodes of the first season to get a sense
Speaker 1: of what it was. And then there I was the
Speaker 1: next day, you know, doing my interview, and I already
Speaker 1: had some ideas about things that I thought I could
Speaker 1: contribute to based on what I had watched in the
Speaker 1: first couple episodes and got a bit of a sense
Speaker 1: of of all of your movement. Already. I had no
Speaker 1: idea how amazing you guys were going to be, But
Speaker 1: in my view, I was like, Okay, I don't know
Speaker 1: how much they've been taught. They didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: what you guys had learned to get you through that
Speaker 1: first season, and I thought, Okay, we could take this further,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and they were so they were so
Speaker 1: open to suggestions and worked really well with me in
Speaker 1: terms of some of the stuff that I thought you
Speaker 1: guys needed in order to make it safer and also
Speaker 1: to open up the possibilities for our fights. Like, um,
Speaker 1: the staff which was originally was just a whip for
Speaker 1: Emerald's character, and I had an issue with that. I thought,
Speaker 1: now we need to make a staff out of that,
Speaker 1: and again Matt Hastings agreed, and everybody really worked hard
Speaker 1: to produce something that that was going to be practical
Speaker 1: and that we could expand you know, all the new
Speaker 1: weapons that we got to squeeze in there as the
Speaker 1: time when um, yeah, I really had a plan. I
Speaker 1: really did, and I hadn't had an imagination like I
Speaker 1: was imagining what was possible, though I didn't know that
Speaker 1: you would all work so hard. So I ended up
Speaker 1: being able to do stuff that was beyond on my
Speaker 1: wildest dreams creatively for sure, as too man, we got
Speaker 1: to I mean, correct me if I'm wrong with There
Speaker 1: are like a couple of things that we did that
Speaker 1: hadn't been done by the actors on TV before, right, Hu,
Speaker 1: guys man, Even just being able to say that as
Speaker 1: fucking cool as ship, you know what I mean? Do
Speaker 1: you remember some of those things we did? Man, you're
Speaker 1: doing gainers towards each other on wires, ft off the floor, traveling,
Speaker 1: each of you landing right in front of each other,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it was like there was some
Speaker 1: of those things that like, not just in terms of
Speaker 1: wire gigs that we did, but like, dom, do you
Speaker 1: remember when we ran your face through the glass on
Speaker 1: the bar right? Remember crash, crash vividly? Remember yeah, yeah, body,
Speaker 1: And I remember David Makan or Mike McMurray, that was
Speaker 1: the DP at the time. He just looked at I
Speaker 1: think it was making just looked at me like are
Speaker 1: we really going to do this? And you had to
Speaker 1: keep your head in the right position that properly and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get hurt, and you did it every time
Speaker 1: exactly right. And God like no good teaching, good teaching,
Speaker 1: good teaching. You can, like a student can funk up
Speaker 1: good teaching, but you're always going to suck up bad teaching,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So like as some of
Speaker 1: the teaching is good, then the opportunity for it to
Speaker 1: be good is is there in present. I wish someone
Speaker 1: had said that to me when I was a kid, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I always think about too, because so
Speaker 1: many things happened on a set and things changed last minute.
Speaker 1: And one of the fight scenes that has become one
Speaker 1: of my favorites was you and I on the roof
Speaker 1: Doom when you were the owl, right before you dropped
Speaker 1: me off and I land on the car. We had
Speaker 1: a two or three minute fight scene planned out there,
Speaker 1: and the way the shooting day went, we just didn't
Speaker 1: have time for it. So the fact that we were
Speaker 1: able to rearrange that fight, make it work and shoot
Speaker 1: it between your team, Darren and you know, Drew and
Speaker 1: Glenn on handheld cameras and me and dum and we
Speaker 1: just did the whole damn thing, basically rewrote the whole fight.
Speaker 1: It was nuts. There are so many instances. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you could. And that's what can be done with people
Speaker 1: who can pay attention to the details. See the other
Speaker 1: thing too. It's like it was our training right. I
Speaker 1: remember seeing your strengths when we first did and I
Speaker 1: showed up with my karate pants on. Remember in the
Speaker 1: training room, we're doing the punches, we were doing the
Speaker 1: kicks and building our arsenal. And as time went, like
Speaker 1: I remember both of you wanting to get the spinheel kick.
Speaker 1: You wanted it, and it's something that is difficult, and
Speaker 1: it requires a dancers control over any like centrifical forces,
Speaker 1: spinning footwork, a proper foot position when you make contact
Speaker 1: with the target. It's not easy, but if you can
Speaker 1: get it, then it's a dent for all the martial
Speaker 1: artists watching, we all know what it takes to learn
Speaker 1: that and that it can't be faked. And and I
Speaker 1: remember having when in our first days training together, having
Speaker 1: the arsenal that I had to work with then, And
Speaker 1: then as time went, our training goals are achieved. Now
Speaker 1: the arsenal gets bigger and the bag of weapons gets
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger, so that now whether I'm choreographing or Hubert,
Speaker 1: it was getting easier and easier now, right, like I
Speaker 1: could take a like have a creative concept in my head,
Speaker 1: like and I was even able to do some of
Speaker 1: this early, like don do you remember and the fight
Speaker 1: on the ship, remember, and you were under the crane
Speaker 1: and we didn't even know each other that well yet.
Speaker 1: And when I went for the tech survey to look
Speaker 1: at the location and plan out where we were going
Speaker 1: to shoot everything. And I saw that space underneath the
Speaker 1: crane where the entire sword fight would have to be
Speaker 1: done in a deep crouch, and it was something that
Speaker 1: I just thought would be amazing visually. And I just
Speaker 1: thought that as a filmmaker, the way the light might
Speaker 1: reflect off the ceiling and the dramatic positions that it
Speaker 1: would put you in. Of course, you could crack your
Speaker 1: head on all the steel stuff sticking down along the top. Two. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the risk for sure. Remember, dude, that was
Speaker 1: the risk. But your character took out three people, three
Speaker 1: soldiers in that fight, and it's one and I was
Speaker 1: very proud of that. I remember I remember really really seeing, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm in a venue now where I can I can
Speaker 1: take those things that are in my head and and
Speaker 1: with everybody's outing it into something different and it looked different.
Speaker 1: This is what I remember from that scene. We were
Speaker 1: filming episode one, and when it was the middle of
Speaker 1: the day, it was super hot, and we're all in
Speaker 1: those horrible jackets, were on this giant copper container and
Speaker 1: I'm starting my chat having a cigaret out of quit
Speaker 1: smoking now. By the way, well mostly, um, congratulations, mostly,
Speaker 1: But I'm starting my chair and I'm having and I
Speaker 1: look over and I see Darren plotting this fight scene
Speaker 1: out in his head under this thing. And again, we
Speaker 1: didn't know each other that well yet, but I've got
Speaker 1: you like crouch, strength, all this stuff, and I just
Speaker 1: I was watching you and AWE, just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to get on. I I love this guy.
Speaker 1: This is awesome because this excitement, this this passion you
Speaker 1: really feel almost like childlike jubilism that comes from doing
Speaker 1: what you do, and that's how we feel about what
Speaker 1: we do. So to have that like immediately it's like
Speaker 1: giving me butterflies just talking about it, Like to have
Speaker 1: that connection there, it's just like, all man, this is
Speaker 1: this is gonna be good stuff. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1: It really felt like that. Yeah, I'm also having someone
Speaker 1: who looks at each of us and goes, I'm going
Speaker 1: to invest the time and the energy it takes in
Speaker 1: each of you to train you and to to teach
Speaker 1: you and to bring you into this because it's it's
Speaker 1: so much I imagine for you, so much easier to
Speaker 1: just let the professional sunt people do the job. As
Speaker 1: opposed to taking the time to actually train actors who
Speaker 1: you know, don knew more than I did at the time.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know how to throw a punch, or
Speaker 1: hold a sword or do hardly anything to be able
Speaker 1: to do your own fighting in the future. And it's
Speaker 1: it's I mean, here we are passing credit back and
Speaker 1: forth again, but it goes without saying yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: And I pick a big key in that was that
Speaker 1: you guys learn how to really do it as a
Speaker 1: martial artist. When I was growing up, I was very
Speaker 1: lucky genetically. I had a crazy vertical I don't know
Speaker 1: about growing up. Let's talk about that real quick before
Speaker 1: we move on. I went down talking about his crazy vertical.
Speaker 1: What he's talking about is being able to get his
Speaker 1: leg like up to a certain length right like most
Speaker 1: normal human beings can reach about forty five between forty
Speaker 1: five and ninety degrees um, and then the ballet dancwers
Speaker 1: can get it all the way to the side of
Speaker 1: the head. And I remember having my parents on set
Speaker 1: and I was like, damn, showing the thing, man, just
Speaker 1: go and show him the thing. And just so I
Speaker 1: can only do it with my arm because I'm I
Speaker 1: can't do this, but just slowly but extends all the
Speaker 1: way up to the side of his body, and we're like, wow,
Speaker 1: I mean that's crazy. So don't say in your younger
Speaker 1: days ever again, because you and I both know that
Speaker 1: this is something that you've got in the bag, so
Speaker 1: you know that, well it's too Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: definitely I worked really hard at it, and it didn't
Speaker 1: come easy, guys, like a you know, I trained obsessively,
Speaker 1: you know, like like like I wore ankle weights for example.
Speaker 1: I went through a whole period of ankle weights for
Speaker 1: both three and three and a half years and started
Speaker 1: with like just like two and a half pounds on
Speaker 1: each ankle and eventually sixteen pounds you know, and sleep
Speaker 1: in them in and go to weddings with them and
Speaker 1: embarrass my friends, and you know, it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where I was just
Speaker 1: very lucky athletically to have the genetic benefits that I had,
Speaker 1: and and having been doing it since I was a baby. Literally, um,
Speaker 1: it just I had a lot of things going for
Speaker 1: me and and I will say that the dedication was
Speaker 1: definitely born of love. But like like most people, there's
Speaker 1: usually you know people that work very, very hard at something.
Speaker 1: There's usually a story behind that. There's usually a reason.
Speaker 1: And I'm the same and I think that. Man, it
Speaker 1: was just a lot of things lined up just perfectly
Speaker 1: for me to meet you guys at the time that
Speaker 1: I did, and to meet the type of people that
Speaker 1: would appreciate the kind of work that goes into being
Speaker 1: able to put my legs straight up like that and
Speaker 1: do the things that I did. Um, So I when
Speaker 1: I saw how committed you were, Yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that we didn't take a shortcut, that we taught
Speaker 1: you the real technique and and that you embraced it
Speaker 1: the way you did, because that's a big part of
Speaker 1: what made it so believable, because it was believable and
Speaker 1: look what you ended up doing, Like remember the Bob.
Speaker 1: Remember that? And you guys would work your different techniques
Speaker 1: on there and I and I could see you getting
Speaker 1: more and more Persent's just going to talk about that, man,
Speaker 1: Like I still have a Bob, I still have this.
Speaker 1: You do still have a Bob. I have a I
Speaker 1: have a little punching bag outside. But it's in England,
Speaker 1: so it's raining all the time. It never gets you,
Speaker 1: but it's out there. But Bob and weave. It's so
Speaker 1: funny the little bits that I learned from Dean. Like
Speaker 1: my friends or my girlfriend are like, let's do a
Speaker 1: little like boxing workout class. I'm like, great, I know
Speaker 1: exactly what to do because I learned sort of the
Speaker 1: catching section from Dean. And I still go still to
Speaker 1: this day when I go overhead so like the hooks
Speaker 1: or whatever, I go, Yeah, you remember, Dean used to
Speaker 1: make that noise every time you would go ahead. You
Speaker 1: would make that noise in his mouth, and it's just
Speaker 1: ingrained in me, like every time I do it, and
Speaker 1: people are like, why are you making that noise? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, but that's what I do.
Speaker 1: That's the noise that goes with that motion. It's just
Speaker 1: how it goes. Yeah, fantastic and and and Dean. Dean
Speaker 1: was great with you guys that way and built it
Speaker 1: with you individually too. You guys had your things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really was the biggest gift, and it's something that
Speaker 1: you know. I I still box to this day. I
Speaker 1: travel with a set of small mmm a gloves just
Speaker 1: so I can keep it up wherever I can find
Speaker 1: a bag and even the next job I did right
Speaker 1: after Shadow Hunters was Arrow. My first scene my first
Speaker 1: day on set was a three minute fight scene, and
Speaker 1: I was so proud to be able to take what
Speaker 1: I had learned from you guys and walk into that
Speaker 1: stunt rehearsal and go, I at least know I can
Speaker 1: carry myself with the technique that I have. That's all.
Speaker 1: That's all you and Dean, Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was you two. Obviously, you guys were
Speaker 1: in the hot seat the most frequently. Um. But I
Speaker 1: remember training Alberto and Dean identified it. He was like,
Speaker 1: this guy's a boxer. He is a natural boxer. It
Speaker 1: was just like we could believe how fast he could
Speaker 1: learn it, you know, and and have that low game.
Speaker 1: He had that look, and and and obviously Harry off
Speaker 1: the hook. Harry is so talented. He blew my mind everything.
Speaker 1: Harry It's crazy. Oh my god, Oh my god. And Matt.
Speaker 1: I remember Matt's character. It was really interesting how perfect
Speaker 1: he was for that. When I first met him, I thought,
Speaker 1: his subtlety is perfect. Um. And I remember working out
Speaker 1: fight sequences, and my favorite fight sequences were the ones
Speaker 1: that you guys would do in a training sequence, right,
Speaker 1: like that. Some of the stuff you and Matt did
Speaker 1: was awesome. Some of my favorite fights. I just found
Speaker 1: it remarkably easy to adapt the fight style for the characters.
Speaker 1: Also because I think it was properly cast. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like any of you were fighting natural instincts in
Speaker 1: order to perform that your character physically. It seemed that
Speaker 1: the casting was pretty appropriate, you know, like in terms
Speaker 1: of what I then had to translate the movement, there
Speaker 1: was no problem. Let's talk about favorite fights. We should
Speaker 1: talk about favorite fights. I I'm on board with you
Speaker 1: about favorite fights being the training ones. I think mine
Speaker 1: is probably the like opening of second half of season
Speaker 1: two with the training with Matt and I with the
Speaker 1: jewel access. That thing is the first time I used
Speaker 1: those and that was so fun. However, you remember the
Speaker 1: last fight we did in the training room with Alberto
Speaker 1: with fucking broken collar bone and like freshly torn up
Speaker 1: first So I remember about third filming that because I'm
Speaker 1: on this killers, just trying to get me through the day.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's the same thing that we were
Speaker 1: talking about, right, like, you want to work hard for
Speaker 1: these people that we care about. This Aaron was going
Speaker 1: to do the do you remember who's going to do
Speaker 1: the sweeping he'll kick that we were just talking about
Speaker 1: over Alberto's face, and you were like, let Aaron do this,
Speaker 1: woe man, You've gotta balance through arm And I was like,
Speaker 1: get to funk, Bud. Do you think I'm gonna throw
Speaker 1: I'm going to give away my last sweeping he'll kick
Speaker 1: that I'm never going to do on this show. You
Speaker 1: out of your mind. Wait, I'm doing it. It's gonna
Speaker 1: cause me pain, I don't care. But it was that
Speaker 1: like every time we got out, I was like, we
Speaker 1: don't need to do that again, right because I am
Speaker 1: in a severe amount of pain. We got it, okay, good? Correct.
Speaker 1: Those training room fights were so special, like between the
Speaker 1: you know, the one that you and I did with
Speaker 1: the double wire stunt there and that you were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier. Even the fight I had with Jackie when
Speaker 1: she came in and it was her first episode. She
Speaker 1: had that brand new sword and we had this this
Speaker 1: five page long scene with a fight that Donny came
Speaker 1: in at the end, and it's all of these things
Speaker 1: that just over and over and over again. We got
Speaker 1: to use the same space but make it so different
Speaker 1: every time. Oh yeah, yeah. And that was again where
Speaker 1: Matt Hastings and I were selling cahoots. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it was like fairly early on that I I
Speaker 1: understood what Matt wanted and how he visualized it, and
Speaker 1: so then I started to craft the fights. And again
Speaker 1: when I say I started to craft the fights, remember
Speaker 1: there was Hubert Border who is brilliant, George Shortov brilliant,
Speaker 1: My brother Chris the pizza fight, that was him, you know,
Speaker 1: Chris Mark, another huge person that contributed in a big way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I love the training sequences, like
Speaker 1: Cat that fight in the second season when you kill Valentine.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of that. That was vicious in the cold.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was a cold day, it was, And
Speaker 1: and Cat, you were in your confidence. I remember looking
Speaker 1: at it and being like and Dean saying like, she's
Speaker 1: in the zone a but we're like, yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 1: Because with with everybody, with every every actor, when you
Speaker 1: perform a fight scene, let's say, and it's still an
Speaker 1: examination of the character, but under extreme circumstances, and so
Speaker 1: it's very tempting to just put together a fight that
Speaker 1: is just all the coolest moves we ever wanted to see,
Speaker 1: but that the best fights, the best are where I
Speaker 1: as a choreographer can create and provide multiple opportunities for you,
Speaker 1: the performers, to express your character, and that means don't
Speaker 1: over complicate the choreography at times. And I really felt
Speaker 1: like the fight with Valentine when when Clary finally eliminates Valentine,
Speaker 1: I just remember feeling that we got it right. We
Speaker 1: got it right for you, Cat, and we also got
Speaker 1: it right for Alan, and I thought that that was
Speaker 1: an achievement. We on this podcast have spoken about that
Speaker 1: seen very fondly, very often, like arguably our favorite scene.
Speaker 1: I'm dead the whole time, so I don't really do anything,
Speaker 1: but arguably our favorite scene of the only thing, the
Speaker 1: only stunt thing that happened to me was and we
Speaker 1: I think we've spoken about this already, is the rock smash.
Speaker 1: Now I'm dead, so like my eyes are closed, I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen. And obviously we're not
Speaker 1: throwing a real rock around that wouldn't be safe. It's
Speaker 1: a sort of rubberized rock that looks real and it
Speaker 1: bounced every time, and every time it would land a
Speaker 1: little closer to me, and I could hear it landing
Speaker 1: a little closer to me, and I remember Drew's cameras
Speaker 1: here and I'm dead and I open and eye were
Speaker 1: about to roll and I look at Drew and I go,
Speaker 1: it's gonna hit me in the fucking nuts this time,
Speaker 1: Like I promise you, It's going to hit me in
Speaker 1: the nuts this time. Sure enough. And you just see
Speaker 1: I saw the footage back. You just see this like
Speaker 1: sort of side profiles. I'm dead like that, and you
Speaker 1: see my chest going, that's the only reaction I'm allowed
Speaker 1: to give. Just like there it is. I love it.
Speaker 1: I know stuff like that would happen, like so many
Speaker 1: things guys, where I would be thinking, there's always the
Speaker 1: potential for does aster, right, And the more we pushed
Speaker 1: the boundaries, the more potential for disaster that was. And
Speaker 1: I remember too, there were times when the schedule was
Speaker 1: mad and here I'd see you guys come in, and
Speaker 1: I know what we're going to do that day. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have you guys flipping in wires. We're going to
Speaker 1: have you in close proximity where the team that's doing
Speaker 1: the rigging the pulling has to be exact. You guys
Speaker 1: have to be exact. And I remember sometimes seeing you
Speaker 1: come in exhausted where I'd be worried. I'd be worried.
Speaker 1: I'd be thinking, man, they really have to be paying
Speaker 1: attention at this part of it, or they really need
Speaker 1: to be you know. And I just remember being in
Speaker 1: awe of your professionalism. Bear in mind this a few
Speaker 1: years ago. You're just young actors, many of you were,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, wow, their focus is remarkable, and
Speaker 1: I could see they're exhausted. So there was like many
Speaker 1: many times when when I would come out of there
Speaker 1: and think, wow, a sponge rock and then and the
Speaker 1: nuts was actually not as bad as it could have been,
Speaker 1: not doing bad as bad it could have been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember, it's so funny we had We
Speaker 1: had this conversation, you and I and I remember this
Speaker 1: and it and it's followed me through right, So like
Speaker 1: you know, you do a stunt and the medic comes
Speaker 1: over and goes, are you okay? And I go listen.
Speaker 1: I was once told this, and here's what it is.
Speaker 1: If you want to do your own stunts, you can't
Speaker 1: bitch about every time you bump your knee. You can't
Speaker 1: do it because they're gonna stop you doing stunts because
Speaker 1: it's gonna slow us down. Then we're gonna be worried
Speaker 1: about whether you can do these things, and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth. And it came from the day that No,
Speaker 1: was it that rooftop fight, No, it wasn't. It was
Speaker 1: it was the Angel rooftop fight, you remember that. And
Speaker 1: I had to do that what it's called the half flip,
Speaker 1: and I land on my back slash and we did
Speaker 1: it over and over and over, and I come out
Speaker 1: and my hip is like swollen and blue, and you went, hey, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bruise. Is a bruise, that's all good. You
Speaker 1: come to me when you've broken a leg, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: fair enough, I see tomorrow. We're in a good spot, truly,
Speaker 1: is you right? Like we gotta get if you want to.
Speaker 1: You can't go in and be like, oh, I broke
Speaker 1: a nail. Now I can't do this, And you're like, well,
Speaker 1: you said you could. So we've prepped for everything to
Speaker 1: be in place. Now we need to get the stump
Speaker 1: performer into hair and make up and get them in
Speaker 1: and it changes everything. We need to get to a
Speaker 1: place where you trust each other. Where I trust that
Speaker 1: you have trained me thoroughly, that we've choreographed it thoroughly,
Speaker 1: that I trust Cat's going to do her job, and
Speaker 1: I trust that I'm going to do my job, and
Speaker 1: I really do. By the end, it like it's not
Speaker 1: even by the end, by like barely three or four
Speaker 1: episodes in when we had you, I'd already started feeling
Speaker 1: that I'd already started feeling like I feel prepared for this.
Speaker 1: I could see it happening with you guys. I so
Speaker 1: could just filling it out and finding that place in
Speaker 1: yourselves where it felt like we could do anything, you know,
Speaker 1: and the trust that we developed amongst us that we're
Speaker 1: doing stuff frequently that we're you know, because you and
Speaker 1: Cat were in the heart seat frequently, that trust spread
Speaker 1: to the rest, to the cast, so that I remember
Speaker 1: that time when we did that gag with Matt where
Speaker 1: we pulled on while he's firing the arrow back into
Speaker 1: the mat. Remember that, and he didn't know, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was that was a stunt. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like it was something that you guys were doing,
Speaker 1: was on the level of something that you guys were doing,
Speaker 1: but he hadn't been doing a lot of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and I remember that, I remember him saying, I trust you,
Speaker 1: I trust we can do this, and he did it
Speaker 1: so good to remember what a great shot. And when
Speaker 1: I first showed Matt Hastings, I was like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: we can actually, I think we can watch Matt himself
Speaker 1: flying back at high speed, firing narrowly, you know, And
Speaker 1: and uh yeah. I was definitely one of those moments
Speaker 1: where trust was everything. And even though I hadn't done
Speaker 1: that much with Matt, because you guys had and you
Speaker 1: had communicated and he had seen, he was able to
Speaker 1: jump right on and do get one of the better shots,
Speaker 1: one of those shots. When you watch it in the show,
Speaker 1: it looks like we faked it. It looks like c
Speaker 1: h I because you're like, there's no way, there's no way.
Speaker 1: You did some computers with this. It was good stunts,
Speaker 1: good camera work, good acting. It just happened. That's real life.
Speaker 1: Go back and watch it if you're listening. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: speaking of camera magic and trickery, how many times did
Speaker 1: you double people? I can think of one, and I
Speaker 1: was immensely jealous that you didn't double me. You doubled
Speaker 1: the fucking newbie did, Yeah, you doubled will. Yes, I did.
Speaker 1: I doubled will for that fight sequence. And I remember
Speaker 1: when we first started choreographing it and and putting together
Speaker 1: the concept. I remember thinking, these kicks have to be
Speaker 1: just right, and the reason why they have to look
Speaker 1: effortless because I really was creating the jeopardy more with
Speaker 1: the sword, So it was I just needed the kicks
Speaker 1: to be exactly right. And and because there were set
Speaker 1: extensions that are expensive visual effects wise, I knew that
Speaker 1: for a couple of the hits, the kick would have
Speaker 1: to be one inch off the performer's face. And I
Speaker 1: didn't trust most people to do that, to be honest,
Speaker 1: and not that there aren't other people the right size
Speaker 1: that could do it, but I just wanted a specific
Speaker 1: look on it. And that was purely me getting my way.
Speaker 1: I want the kick. I want the kicks to look
Speaker 1: like this, and I wanted to look like that. So
Speaker 1: I'm doing it. And so that was a little, definitely
Speaker 1: a little, a little. I was there that day as well,
Speaker 1: and I was like, God, damn, it looks amazing. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question then, So we're talking
Speaker 1: about you getting away in this little world, and you
Speaker 1: wanted the shots to be very specific, and you wanted
Speaker 1: certain things right. What a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: about how stunts work is, we will train with you
Speaker 1: for if we're lucky, a couple of hours, we'll get
Speaker 1: the fight scene down. We'll get it done, and then
Speaker 1: you film a previous, which a previous is an early
Speaker 1: version of the fight that we normally film in the
Speaker 1: stunt room. If we're lucky enough to have the location,
Speaker 1: then we do it on location and they send it
Speaker 1: to directors producers make sure they cover all the aspects
Speaker 1: that they wanted because very often in the script it's
Speaker 1: just like they fight. There's no specifics of what it is.
Speaker 1: It's just like these two people have a fight and
Speaker 1: then it's handed over. Um, have you ever considered directing?
Speaker 1: Because these previouses were previous? They were incredible, like absolutely incredibly.
Speaker 1: Watched them sometimes when we were like, Darren should shoot this,
Speaker 1: like this should be done. In fact, I say, very often,
Speaker 1: more often than not, we would look at the previous
Speaker 1: and go, it needs to be shot exactly this way.
Speaker 1: This looks incredible, and not very often they were yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thank you man. I'll tell you. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: the fight scenes were written a little in a little
Speaker 1: bit more detail. And then after the powers that be
Speaker 1: started to see how Matt and I were, We're starting
Speaker 1: to get really get into cahoots and really starting to collaborate.
Speaker 1: You know, Matt would tell me, Okay, Darren, I want
Speaker 1: I would like to have a Dolly shot here. You know,
Speaker 1: let's not look over there, Let's keep it looking this way.
Speaker 1: They should enter over here and it should end over there.
Speaker 1: That was pretty much it. I was given the freedom
Speaker 1: to create a lot of the moving movement in the staging,
Speaker 1: in the action, and that that just gave me a
Speaker 1: huge amount of experience in telling this story with the camera.
Speaker 1: So yes, in answer to your question, Um, directing has
Speaker 1: really become more and more of something that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1: And I actually very recently got to direct. I was
Speaker 1: working on Cabinet of Curiosities Miles Dale executive producer who
Speaker 1: is also Yes, we love Miles Uh. He's an executive
Speaker 1: producer on sex Life, Netflix's Sex Life also and I
Speaker 1: had needed the first season and anyway, I got the
Speaker 1: script and it was it was very interesting sort of
Speaker 1: sequence that happened in the script and I gave me
Speaker 1: an idea about how it might be shot and it
Speaker 1: involved cars, and came up with an idea and then
Speaker 1: I pitched it to Miles and it was you know,
Speaker 1: it's Miles Dale. He's like always the smartest guy in
Speaker 1: the room, you know. And I was very you know,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't pitching it with the thought that I
Speaker 1: would direct it. I was just pitching this concept I
Speaker 1: had with the thought that it might look cool and
Speaker 1: it might tell the story. Well yeah, so I anyway,
Speaker 1: I pitched, I pitched it to him and I ended
Speaker 1: up and I said, it's like a full on director's
Speaker 1: guild thing. It's my first credit as a director on
Speaker 1: sex Life and yes, thank you, thank you, and and
Speaker 1: it definitely is born of what I learned totally. This
Speaker 1: is why I bring it up, right, So do you
Speaker 1: see bullet Train? And had bulletin so that I watched
Speaker 1: it and I was watching it in the fight scenes.
Speaker 1: I remember reading it and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: ambitious and the fight scenes are like really good and
Speaker 1: I was like, these are filmed really well. And then
Speaker 1: I saw an interview he was Brad Pitt stunt double
Speaker 1: on Fight Club. There you go and then they get
Speaker 1: circle back around and he ended up working with So
Speaker 1: that's that was his background. I think his name is
Speaker 1: David David Leach, David Leach. You know what's interesting about Dave.
Speaker 1: I first met him on three hundred Um. I played
Speaker 1: one of the snow Yeah. I played one of the
Speaker 1: spartans on three hundred and as did my brother Christopher
Speaker 1: and and Hubert and Max White. We were all on
Speaker 1: that show. Oh my god. Yeah, and we met Dave
Speaker 1: and chat to Healthy who was so he originally doubled
Speaker 1: Kanu Reeves and was part of the choreography for the Matrix.
Speaker 1: Dave Leach double Mr Smith and Brad Pitt and I met.
Speaker 1: That's where Chris and I first met them. And it
Speaker 1: was actually David Leach who ultimately helped me into the
Speaker 1: stunt coordinating position on Nikita with Maggie Q. And then
Speaker 1: Dave now has gone on to direct. He directed Atomic Blonde,
Speaker 1: Deadpool to uh, you know, he's a brilliant and so yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's just interesting that you should say that because
Speaker 1: it was Dave and Chad. They liked the concepts that
Speaker 1: Chris and I had and they incourage us heavily to
Speaker 1: learn editing and to do more shooting, and ultimately that's
Speaker 1: what we've done. And yeah, and it ultimately lead to
Speaker 1: a different approach to the work where I was looking
Speaker 1: at much more as a director. And this was their advice.
Speaker 1: And here we are. What a small world, What a
Speaker 1: small world? Yet what a small world? Man, That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I would I like, I would do just about anything
Speaker 1: to be directed, even if it wasn't sun stuff. Let's
Speaker 1: do pride and prejudice, just you and I will do
Speaker 1: private prejudice. Or do you do a Western Darren? Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that never was the goal in my
Speaker 1: mind to direct. It was just like learning the craft,
Speaker 1: how to tell the story with the camera like hands on,
Speaker 1: you know. And that flowed of course from obviously if
Speaker 1: you if you're a fight choreographer, you have to think
Speaker 1: about how it's going to be shot, and you have
Speaker 1: to be cognizant of the story that you're trying to tell,
Speaker 1: and and yeah, and it just it just pays forward
Speaker 1: and pays for it and pays ford until eventually you're
Speaker 1: you're actually starting to think about it as a truly
Speaker 1: as a filmmaker, as a director, you know, And it
Speaker 1: is a trip, Like, dude, Like I remember when I
Speaker 1: showed up for that directing day, you know, and there's
Speaker 1: like four cameras and a drone, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: sliding cars down metal veil, you know. But it's just
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I don't know. It's like coordinating for Geermo
Speaker 1: del Toro, you know, making my little previous guys imagine
Speaker 1: and they give that to Geermo del Toro for him
Speaker 1: to look at my concept, you know, terrifying. I just
Speaker 1: imagine him like sat on his desk with his oscars
Speaker 1: around him, just like let me watch this little thing,
Speaker 1: like fucking ship. It's the same when we send auditions off,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like you send these auditions
Speaker 1: off and you know who's going to see them. You
Speaker 1: know whose eyes these are going to end up then
Speaker 1: in success and you're like, holy ship, man, this is
Speaker 1: like one of these people is like why I became
Speaker 1: an actor, and my face is going to be on
Speaker 1: his or her computer at some point, and that's like
Speaker 1: the most horrifying. It's something more awards rather than West Wash.
Speaker 1: If you do it, Wash, you're doing it. You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: well Meryl Street might watch this, so I need to
Speaker 1: focus on, like how do I impress Meryl Street Me, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't know, do your job, and then if it works,
Speaker 1: it works, and you know what it is. You know
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But yeah, man, just just to be
Speaker 1: faced with that level of talent. Like I remember we're
Speaker 1: doing night Mery ally and there's a part in the
Speaker 1: movie where they where you know, the character gets hit
Speaker 1: by a car backwards and then Bradley Cooper's character stand
Speaker 1: drives over him. And so it's an old car and
Speaker 1: the back of the car is sort of steeply. It's
Speaker 1: not very slanted, it's quite steeply sloped. And I was
Speaker 1: concerned about how to make it look real with the
Speaker 1: cars hitting the guy that he's supposed to fly over
Speaker 1: top of the car. And I thought, oh no, if
Speaker 1: it's this steep, it should hit him and he should
Speaker 1: just go flying backwards. And so I was concerned about this.
Speaker 1: I I went to see Garmo in his office and
Speaker 1: I explained this to him and he's like, humm. So
Speaker 1: he takes a piece of paper and he puts it
Speaker 1: down on his desk and he grabs a marker like
Speaker 1: a sharpie, and he draws the silhouette of the car
Speaker 1: in one stroke, exactly the same I ship you not.
Speaker 1: I was like and it and it just came out
Speaker 1: of me. I was like, holy sh it, dude. I's like,
Speaker 1: that looks exactly like the car and it looks like that,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yes, yes, yes, what are you talking
Speaker 1: about in terms of thing you know? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you believe I just saw this fucking guy do this.
Speaker 1: It was like it was like, one stroke, there's the car,
Speaker 1: exactly as it is. And I went back to my
Speaker 1: office and I compared it to the actual car, and
Speaker 1: you'd swear to god, the guy traced it. Yes. You
Speaker 1: have to understand, guys, that I get that from YouTube.
Speaker 1: I would put together an action sequence or a fight,
Speaker 1: and we'll put it together and we'll rehearse it, we'll
Speaker 1: shoot the previous and then I'd be standing beside Matt
Speaker 1: at the monitor and you guys would run through it
Speaker 1: and you would just add your flavor to it, and
Speaker 1: I would become instantly poignantly aware of your talent and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, damn, I didn't see that that's cool,
Speaker 1: or like a little pause you might take, or like
Speaker 1: a little look that you might cast that just added
Speaker 1: that I can't quantify. As a choreographer, I shouldn't see it.
Speaker 1: But the director in me, I'd be like, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: That's like that's talent. That's awesome. That's like they are
Speaker 1: wicked actors. You know, they're not just amazing athletes that
Speaker 1: can do my bidding and create wicked fights. Amazing actors
Speaker 1: who who give it the real texture, who instruct me
Speaker 1: on how to tell the stories sometimes with just a look.
Speaker 1: I learned so much, guys, I learned so much from you.
Speaker 1: We learned so much from you as well. Like I
Speaker 1: still will go into a fight scene. Now, do you
Speaker 1: remember the three words you would say to me, all
Speaker 1: of us, Like right before especially a particularly vicious fight,
Speaker 1: Darren would come up and he talked, you know, I
Speaker 1: would talk through and the camera's gonna be here, so
Speaker 1: you know, make sure when you do this block that
Speaker 1: you don't cover too far back. You're gonna cover your face,
Speaker 1: and you know, whatever it is. We go through our
Speaker 1: things and then he pat me on the shoulder and
Speaker 1: he go blood and guts and then send me in.
Speaker 1: And I still in my head whenever I do a
Speaker 1: fight scene. Now, I said it to myself and your voice.
Speaker 1: I go give a blood and guy see and then
Speaker 1: I'm away and then that voice needs to happen in
Speaker 1: my head otherwise it doesn't work. That's why bud is
Speaker 1: on my shoulder. So and I know this every single
Speaker 1: every single fight scene, so for you and Dean. This
Speaker 1: one particularly is for Dean. But he and I remember
Speaker 1: this so poignantly because I had broken my collar bone
Speaker 1: right so it was the last one in particular. And
Speaker 1: he used to do the same thing. He would pat
Speaker 1: me always on this shoulder and you go, give her bud,
Speaker 1: always on that shoulder. And I didn't realize it was
Speaker 1: it was a thing until I had a broken collar bone.
Speaker 1: And he goes give her bud. And Dean's are big,
Speaker 1: like you know, pounds, just like total softly but just
Speaker 1: this big lump of the man. And he goes give
Speaker 1: her bud, and I go, oh, Christ, And that's why
Speaker 1: it's right here. I'll show you. That's why Dean is
Speaker 1: right there on my shoulderings and be there forever. Bless you, lad,
Speaker 1: bless you lads, buddy mine day. But I have one
Speaker 1: that says not fragile on my wrist right here because
Speaker 1: That's what Dean always used to tell me. He's like,
Speaker 1: you're not fragile, because you and Dean were the people
Speaker 1: that never underestimated me on that set. And he would
Speaker 1: tell me that every single day and every time we
Speaker 1: box and every time, you know, good day, bad day,
Speaker 1: whatever it was. And I didn't know how much that
Speaker 1: phrase meant to him until much later on. But as
Speaker 1: soon as I heard that, that immediately the only tattoo
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about for a year. It's immediately, that's amazing. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, I would say, guys, I'm still grieving him hard.
Speaker 1: We all are, yeah, and I know, I know you are.
Speaker 1: And and honestly, it inspired a lot of change in
Speaker 1: my life for the better. And I will admit that
Speaker 1: I've I've had to wander for the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: In between work, I started to spend more and more
Speaker 1: time up north, more sort of extreme expeditions that I
Speaker 1: was taking twenty twenty days solo canoe trips, very up
Speaker 1: there with the with the bears in the caribou, you know,
Speaker 1: and I started filming them. I started to make them
Speaker 1: into videos so that I could look at them later,
Speaker 1: and I post them on YouTube, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it has been about just processing the incredible effect that
Speaker 1: that man had on my life and on the lives
Speaker 1: of the people around me. You know, it's empowering. Now
Speaker 1: I know that we got to share a version of
Speaker 1: Dean that very few people in the world ever did
Speaker 1: and and now ever will. And I am so grateful
Speaker 1: that I was able to experience that relationship with Dean
Speaker 1: with you guys, because you guys got him. You understood Dean,
Speaker 1: you know, even when he was standing right there behind
Speaker 1: eating a devil bay like he always seemed to be eating,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and uh, oh my god, it
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm so glad that that it was
Speaker 1: you guys, because you you understood why Dean was awesome,
Speaker 1: you really did. And uh and I'm forever, forever grateful,
Speaker 1: and I love him with all my heart. And I
Speaker 1: and I talked to Dino every day. Yeah, I talked
Speaker 1: to him every day. And and I just want you
Speaker 1: to know that he loved you guys, like you know,
Speaker 1: when it was just him and I driving home because
Speaker 1: he thought he was going to have a ride and
Speaker 1: it's gone. And now when I'm driving him home, you know,
Speaker 1: we'd be you know, we'd be singing at the top
Speaker 1: of our lungs, listening to Pearl Jam and Sound Garden,
Speaker 1: and you know, and we'd be driving home and then
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, he'd stop, turn the music down. He'd say,
Speaker 1: I love those kids a but just out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: you know, he would just come up with some story
Speaker 1: that something you guys were talking about, like from the heart,
Speaker 1: hundred percent. God bless him. God bless him then, And
Speaker 1: so God bless you guys for being a part of it.
Speaker 1: And and I know that whenever I talked to you,
Speaker 1: whenever we text, whenever we share, and I say I'm
Speaker 1: missing Dino, and you guys come back and say remissing
Speaker 1: him to like I know you are. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And it's it's it's a comfort, it's a comfort.
Speaker 1: It took me a long time to be able to
Speaker 1: box again. Honestly, I bet long time. And I bet
Speaker 1: you know it's we are a family and we always
Speaker 1: will be. And that kind of trust and that kind
Speaker 1: of love is not something that comes easily, and it's
Speaker 1: not something that's ever going to go away. No, it isn't.
Speaker 1: And and I will say that I don't make friends
Speaker 1: that I make lots of friends, but I don't have
Speaker 1: many close friends. But Dean was definitely that guy. And
Speaker 1: I think Dean was best friends with lots of people,
Speaker 1: and he was he was everybody loved, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: and and you know that I'll just I'll share something
Speaker 1: that you guys might not realize. I know what I'm
Speaker 1: doing out there, but still I'm a human being. And
Speaker 1: sometimes the massiveness of what it was that I would
Speaker 1: be doing sometimes would make me nervous. And and I
Speaker 1: remember Dean would come up and he'd look at me'd
Speaker 1: be like, you got this a but remember him saying
Speaker 1: that you got this it but and he'd be like,
Speaker 1: I can see you're worried about but you got this.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm here, I'm fucking right here, right but
Speaker 1: and he would say that, and it would just like,
Speaker 1: you know, it would make me feel tan feet taller
Speaker 1: wood makes men use that I trust you. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: I do have this, yeah Jesus dude, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And he always had a smile in his face. You know,
Speaker 1: nine times that Jesus, what time day it was, he
Speaker 1: was always Swinney. I remember when he was in that
Speaker 1: fucking fast suit and it's like wrenched in his own swear.
Speaker 1: It was like twenty pounds heavy. And he was just laughing. Man,
Speaker 1: he was just smiling all day every day. But so
Speaker 1: that guy, God bless and thank you for talking about that.
Speaker 1: Obviously we all know. Yeah, I honestly I didn't know
Speaker 1: whether or not to bring it up, and I sort
Speaker 1: of danced around it for a second, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, he was a huge part of what
Speaker 1: we did, Like every time we were up in the wire,
Speaker 1: the person making sure we didn't drop fifty deaths was deep.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and he would obsess about it to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd be working on a budget or something.
Speaker 1: I'd be working long after the training day and everything
Speaker 1: will have already been set up for the next day,
Speaker 1: you know, whether we were in the cloisters or wherever
Speaker 1: it was that we were shooting. And I remember sometimes
Speaker 1: just walking out to look at it and there'd be Dean.
Speaker 1: He'd be up there checking it again, you know, checking
Speaker 1: the wire one more time, checking the harness one more time.
Speaker 1: You know. It was just one of those things where
Speaker 1: I knew that that there was legitimate love. It was
Speaker 1: legitimate love for you guys, and we were both very
Speaker 1: very aware that the faith that you were putting in
Speaker 1: us to do the extreme stuff that we did. And
Speaker 1: there was lots of extreme stuff that we did that's
Speaker 1: very hard to quantify. We could tell stories for days
Speaker 1: and days and days about different fights we did about Oh, dude,
Speaker 1: I remember you in one fight scene where you're full
Speaker 1: on defending yourself YouTube Cat. I remember where it's like
Speaker 1: if you guys didn't get that sort out, and so
Speaker 1: often Cat, you'd have that stupid little dag and I'd
Speaker 1: be stressing about it, you know, and you guys would
Speaker 1: make the block, you know, you'd make the block, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'd feel like thank goodness, you know, and very
Speaker 1: often do and I would talk about it. We'd be
Speaker 1: like we would both know the scares that we had
Speaker 1: where where it's like I thought Allan was going to
Speaker 1: crack him right over the head that time, you know,
Speaker 1: or you know or whatever. You know, it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. And there were some wire gags that I know,
Speaker 1: you guys know, they're scary. They're a little scary, and
Speaker 1: you know you got to lay back in the wires
Speaker 1: sometimes or whatever. And Dean and I when we would
Speaker 1: talk about it after. We would always know what moments
Speaker 1: made us both so nervous, and it was always closely
Speaker 1: associated with love for you guys for trusting us and
Speaker 1: allowing us to create what we did. You know, it
Speaker 1: was so much more real than people would believe. It
Speaker 1: was so freaking real. It really was. And and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you it's been a long path to be able
Speaker 1: to talk about even just to be able to talk
Speaker 1: about Dean. There was literally a year and a half
Speaker 1: when I couldn't look back at our old videos of
Speaker 1: fights we did. I couldn't. It's been a combination of
Speaker 1: time and professional help and working on my mental health. Um,
Speaker 1: no kidding, but same here, dude. Like it's especially like
Speaker 1: and I don't mean alien age in this, because everyone
Speaker 1: deals with grief a certain way, but men of our
Speaker 1: age especially was sort of taught to deal with grief
Speaker 1: a very different way and it's not the right way
Speaker 1: of doing it. It's not a healthy way of doing it.
Speaker 1: And if there are men out there dealing with grief,
Speaker 1: I hope you listen to this and some small part
Speaker 1: of you goes it is okay to um to reach
Speaker 1: out and to talk to people about it. Because it's important.
Speaker 1: And I've mentioned this before and it is really important,
Speaker 1: and thank god that you you did. You know, you
Speaker 1: never know when it's going to get you, Like I was,
Speaker 1: fuck me, man, this is so like I was annoyed
Speaker 1: that this situation happened, and I got so upset by
Speaker 1: I just like immediately started balling my eyes out. I
Speaker 1: was watching fucking Resident Evil too, and it was way
Speaker 1: too close to it happening, and right at the end
Speaker 1: made it the whole way through the movie and then boom,
Speaker 1: there's Dean's face and I'm like, okay, yep, here I go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely devastated. Legs taken rad off from under you. Yeah, dude, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: Like someone kicked the back of my knees in. It
Speaker 1: was nuts. That was awful, yeah to my Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I think that, um, that grief is definitely something people
Speaker 1: don't understand that it can literally traumatize you. And I
Speaker 1: would that that was definitely an effect for me. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, and there was a couple of major losses,
Speaker 1: all closely connected, Like I mean, I lost Fred only
Speaker 1: months later. Um after devastated, man, absolutely devastated my giant dog, Fred,
Speaker 1: my giant English Master Fred who was awesome, And I
Speaker 1: had them for nine years and I know that a
Speaker 1: giant dog like that generally they don't live that long.
Speaker 1: So it was Yeah, it was incredibly difficult. And I'm
Speaker 1: very very grateful that there are resources out there to
Speaker 1: help to help with the trauma, to help with the
Speaker 1: depression that can come with from from grief and you know,
Speaker 1: enhance all of the traveling that I did, that the
Speaker 1: hardcore canee trips, close calls with bears and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it all flowed from that. Oh, I had
Speaker 1: a couple of close ones, boy, and it all flowed
Speaker 1: from that and has got me to a much more
Speaker 1: positive place in my life. And uh, and I'm grateful.
Speaker 1: So it's there you go. You know, sometimes something that
Speaker 1: can just feel like the worst thing ever, that takes
Speaker 1: forever to recover, can actually transport you to a place
Speaker 1: where you are healthier, happier, better adjusted, you know, in
Speaker 1: much more in a in a stable sort of flow.
Speaker 1: There's hope, even when it feels like there isn't. There's hope. Yeah, absolutely, right, words,
Speaker 1: thank you. I can't think of a better way to
Speaker 1: round this out as well, I can. I know you've
Speaker 1: got to get off and Darren, we don't want to
Speaker 1: take up any more of your time. So Darren, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for talking to us. Man. They just
Speaker 1: the little trip down memory lane and seeing your face again,
Speaker 1: it's been such a pleasure. Please please, please, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's so let's all get together and have a drink
Speaker 1: one of these days and just keep talking because I
Speaker 1: miss you, Darren, and thank you for everything you taught
Speaker 1: us and are still teaching us. Um, there's not a
Speaker 1: day goes by that we don't that you influence our
Speaker 1: lives in one way or another. So just thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And I want to say from
Speaker 1: my brother Chris and myself because we both sort of
Speaker 1: we definitely collaborated on the original concept of this show
Speaker 1: and we talked about it often and we think of
Speaker 1: you guys often, and it's I just love you both
Speaker 1: and thank you so much. Thank you. Return to the
Speaker 1: Shadows is hosted and executive produced by me Dominic, Shrwood
Speaker 1: and Katherine McNamara. Our executive producer is Lingley. Our senior
Speaker 1: producers are Liz Hayes and Diego Tapia. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Hannah Harris and Kristin Familiar and our intern is sam Cats.
Speaker 1: Original music by Alex Kinzy performed by Alex Kinzy and
Speaker 1: Katherine McNamara, and the episode was mixed by Seth A.
Speaker 1: Lanski