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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. Hey, thanks for joining us. We're really happy that you're here. Later on today, we'll talk with artist and activist LaToya Ruby Frazier about her work documenting working-class communities and about her upcoming show at the MoMA called Monuments of Solidarity. We're also going to open up the phones to hear about your weekend plans, like what fun activities or events are you looking forward to for Mother's Day, or hey, even just for yourself. We want to hear from you, so get ready to dial us up. It's the last weekend to submit to WNYC's public song project, so we'll take a listen to some of last year's submissions to help inspire you to send in your own musical adaptation of some works that are from the public domain. That's the plan, but first, let's get things started with some stuntin'.

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Kousha Navidar: In the new film, The Fall Guy, Ryan Gosling plays an out-of-work stuntman recruited to return to set to save a movie for a first-time director who also happens to be his former girlfriend. It's a big, fun adventure of a movie, and it's got all the makings of a summer blockbuster. There are beautiful movie stars, romance, lots of action, and an earworm of a soundtrack. Yes, you will start bumping Kiss's, I Was Made For Lovin' You on repeat. It also cleverly subverts the premise by pulling the curtain back to get a peek into the world of stunt performers and how integral they are for these big, action-packed movies.

We learn the names for maneuvers we see in car crashes, like the cannon roll. We learn what goes into setting a performer on fire. Spoiler alert, it hurts. How the thumbs-up gesture is the universal sign that the stunt went okay. There's all kinds of high jumps, car chases, boat jumps, fights, and we even get a trained dog in on the action. All of it was designed, engineered, and executed by our next guest. Chris O'Hara is a stuntman performing in films like Fast and Furious, Bullet Train, Iron Man, some of my favorites. He's also an assistant director, a stunt coordinator, and also now holds the first film credit as stunt designer for The Fall Guy. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris O'Hara: Oh, thank you for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Listeners, did you see The Fall Guy and want to ask a question or comment about the stunts? Do you have a stunt that made an impression on you from a movie you've seen in the past, or do you just want to ask Chris a question about his work? Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692, or you can hit us up on social, we're @allofitwnyc. All right. Chris, watching the movie, one of the things that struck me is how many stunt people are needed on a big action film like the one that you see in The Fall Guy, and yet this world of stunts is one that we don't hear a lot about otherwise. Can you tell me, how did you become a stuntman?

Chris O'Hara: I actually became a stuntman because I went to school in Philadelphia at Temple University and I was a college gymnast. Once I got done with college, I felt that I never reached my full potential as a college athlete. I wanted to find something to keep performing, keep competing. Lots of college former gymnasts go to either Cirque du Soleil, or aerial skiing was one that a bunch of college gymnast went to. I did the aerial skiing route for a season and then realized I wanted something bigger. I packed up my car, left the East Coast, and moved to California, and that was 1995, so 29 years ago.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. What was it that originally made you think, "Oh, stunts could be," in your words, "Bigger." Was it from watching movies yourself or was there some kind of inspiration for you in your life?

Chris O'Hara: Well, stunts being bigger as far as on The Fall Guy?

Kousha Navidar: You just talked about aerial skiing, right?

Chris O'Hara: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: You said, "Oh, I want to go do something bigger." What was the influence in your life that made you think, "Oh, hey, stunts. That's the direction that I want to go."

Chris O'Hara: I knew the guy that won the World Cup and he was the best in the world at the time and saw where his life was and saw everything it took to really be down that track to be an aerial skier and knew that, at some point, I needed to have a career. I knew my coach at the time would do stunts in Salt Lake City when he wasn't coaching the World Cup team. I followed his lead and knew that there was a movie business and there was something that could highlight attributes that I had and skill sets that I had. It's just taking-- a lot of stunt guys, I basically consider them professional athletes. It's just basically taking one discipline of aerial skiing and transitioning it into stunt work.

Kousha Navidar: What other training did you need to do and where did you go for that training once you decided, "Hey, I want to go from being a gymnast, aerial skier, into specifically stunts"?

Chris O'Hara: I think when I moved to California, I was very fortunate to hook up with five guys that are very like-minded like myself. They had a very extensive martial arts background. Me being a gymnast, I was able to pick up a lot of the martial arts aspects really fast enough to basically call it movie fu. You don't have to really be a black belt in a particular style to really pull it off on camera. I taught those guys gymnastics, they taught me martial arts. Then a lot of the stuff is on-the-job training and learning as you go. At first, you're going to start doing fights and basic falls is where you'll start off. Then you'll start building a name for yourself and, hopefully, you'll get bigger and bigger things as your career progresses.

Kousha Navidar: It's interesting to hear you say that you learn it as you go because I can totally understand how on-the-job training is important because every next stunt, you need to learn it to execute it, never sure what's going to come next. It also seems like there's a lot of categories of stunts. You've got fight scenes, jumping huge distances, driving cars, just to name a few. It makes me wonder, do most stunt performers specialize, or is it more like everyone is a jack-of-all-trades?

Chris O'Hara: I think to be a working stunt guy that you can do this as a career, I think being a jack-of-all-trades is really important. When you're doing something like Fall Guy, we're doing big iconic things. Having guys that are really the best at carwork or the best at high falls. Having those specific disciplines and really getting the best of the best to, A, make that shot as safe as possible and just head your bets to make sure that it goes off without a hitch, and so you get the best of the best for those guys. There are the jack-of-all-trades, which is a great thing to be, but sometimes you do need specific guys to pull off those specific stunts.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking to Chris O'Hara, the stunt designer for the new movie, The Fall Guy, which is out in theaters right now. We're talking about stunts, stunt designing, executing, and Chris's history in the stunt world in Hollywood. If you have a question or a comment about stunts, give us a call or send us a text. If you have a question for Chris about his work, we'd love to hear it. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also reach us out on social, we're @allofitwnyc. Chris, the director of The Fall Guy is David Leitch who is also a former stuntman and also a friend, I understand.

Chris O'Hara: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: How did you guys first meet? What did you work on previously?

Chris O'Hara: Oh, well, Dave is actually one of the guys that I mentioned, was one of the first guys I met when I moved out to California and a really great martial artist. There was six of us that spent every day together, training and eating and just training more. Dave and I have known each other for 29 years. Grew up in the business together when we're-- early days spent every day together. Then we find our paths have taken our own individual paths in this business.

At some point, early on in our careers, we lived together. We've started off on doing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and Martial Law, which is where you cut your teeth for early stunt guys and had a great opportunity to work on those shows together. As far as being a stunt coordinator, we've worked together. Second unit director, I've worked underneath him. Then first unit director, the job title he's in now. Done two movies together, Hobbs and Shaw. Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw, and then The Fall Guy.

Kousha Navidar: When he first told you the idea about this film, The Fall Guy, and that he wanted you to do it, what was your first reaction?

Chris O'Hara: I think it's happened a couple of times where we've had conversations on the phone and he calls me and we talk for about 20 minutes, and at the end, he goes, "Well, what do you think?" I always say, "You had me at hello."

Fall Guy is an iconic TV show that this movie is based off of my childhood. It highlights the the career of a stuntman, and so what better movie to want to be involved in as a stunt coordinator and stunt designer than The Fall Guy? It was a heavyweight to have on our shoulders because we want to make sure that we represent the stunt community and highlight what we do. Going through it, it was a big weight on our shoulders, but I think we created something really great that puts the stunt performer in a great light. I think mission accomplished.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, both the stunt performer and the stunts themselves. The stunts in this movie are big. You even broke a world record with one of the stunts. Was that intentional?

Chris O'Hara: We did. I think it was written by Drew Pearce, and so the writer wrote in the script, breaking the world record. My outlook is that I'm not trying to break world records with things. That's not my goal. I'm to create the illusion of danger by minimizing the risks when we do a film. I didn't know if I could pull it off, because I know the world record that they were comparing it to was done on, I believe, Casino Royale and it was seven rolls, and actually, it went downhill, so it had gravity helping it out.

When we went to look at locations for our film, we were going to do it on a beach. Beach is totally flat, so we didn't have gravity helping me. If I didn't pull off the world record, I at least knew that the first cannon roll ever done in film was done on a movie called McQ with John Wayne. That cannon roll was done on a beach. If we couldn't break a world record, I knew that we could pay homage to my predecessors in the stunt business.

Kousha Navidar: Can you explain quickly what a cannon roll is because I'm not sure that everybody listening will recognize?

Chris O'Hara: A cannon roll is like an air-driven plug. A plug being, think about almost like a telephone pole, something that shoots out of the bottom driven by air, and that basically as the car is driving down the beach where we were, there's a slight turn, and then we hit this button, which basically propels this pole down to the ground, which lifts the car up, creating the cannon effect of it. That's what I'm saying with a cannon. When they did it on McQ, they did it with black powder. They used black powder to deploy the cannon or the pole. Now, we use air. We use compressed air, and they use that to deploy the pole. That's what creates that effect of a cannon roll.

Kousha Navidar: The car is rolling. You said the previous record was Casino Royale, my favorite Bond movie, by the way, so I remember this. Then I saw the rolls. How many rolls was it in the movie that you accomplished?

Chris O'Hara: They did seven.

Kousha Navidar: Then for The Fall Guy, how many rolls was it?

Chris O'Hara: We did eight and a half.

Kousha Navidar: Eight and a half. Wow. You had mentioned that it's on sand as well. It's clear that this is a real science when you watch the behind-the-scenes footage.

Chris O'Hara: Absolutely.

Kousha Navidar: You're thinking about gravity, force, the density of the sand, for instance. Can you describe the process of designing a stunt?

Chris O'Hara: I think the misconception about stunt performers is it's just what you see in the film, right? It's grandiose. You see this great crash, and it's amazing, but the lead up to that was four months of development, all the way down to choice of car. The car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We chose that car because it's basically as tall as it is wide. If something's as tall as it is wide, it creates a cylinder, and so cylinders roll. We specifically chose the car for that.

When we had the special effects team put a cage in the car, on the corners of the car, we pulled the cage in a little bit so as the car crushed, the corners crushed, which created more of a cylinder, which helped out the roll. We had a lot of production support to allow us to test at the location. We basically had two test cars. We were able to go to the location on the sand and get factual information from doing testing.

We knew that the sand was going to play a factor, and it played a factor in our early tests. We didn't have all the support to make the beach exactly what we needed it to do or needed it to be as far as compressing the sand, rolling the sand, wetting the sand to make it as dense as possible to help out the effort because big, fluffy sand sucks up energy. We want to try and keep the sand as hard as possible. When we did that last one that you see that broke the record, we really-- we had guys on the beach from 4:00 AM laying down water, rolling the beach. They have these rollers that have shakers in it, which compact the sand even more.

They just kept rolling it and wetting it for six hours until we actually did the shot, because not only does the cannon car need to have a great surface, the vehicles filming it have to have the best service. You're only as good as your slowest car. The slowest car was actually the first car or the car leading has to be set the pace. That was the actual camera car filming it. He was the most important one that we had to make sure that his track was as compacted as possible so that he had the best chance because he was basically pulling and setting the speed for everybody to get into.

Kousha Navidar: Wow, that's an enormous amount of design. I'm sure a lot of math, a lot of 3D programming probably goes into making all of this. Before we go to break, I just want to read a text we just got in from a listener. It says, "Zoe Bell had a film learning to be a stunt performer with Jeannie Epper, who recently passed. She was Lynda Carter's stunt double for Wonder Woman. Stunt performers definitely need to be recognized for their work behind and in front of the camera. I thoroughly enjoyed The Fall Guy. Great start for the summer movie season."

Listeners, we're talking to Chris O'Hara, the stunt designer behind the movie The Fall Guy, which is out in theaters now. If you have a question about stunt work, or you have a favorite stunt from a movie that has really struck you through the years, give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, we'll talk more about the new title of stunt designer, and we'll take some of your calls. This is All Of It.

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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, and we're talking about stunts in movies with Chris O'Hara, the stunt designer for the new movie, The Fall Guy, which is out in theaters right now. Listeners, before the break, we were talking about a world-record stunt that Chris was part of the team that designed in this movie. We're ready to take your calls. If you have a stunt in a movie that has stuck with you over the years, or if you have a question for Chris about being a stuntman, a stunt designer, give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. Chris, we've got our first caller, Jessica in Montclair. Hi, Jessica, welcome to the show.

Jessica: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I wondered if Chris could speak about the dangers and risks that stunt people face, and also what protections there are in place for them, if there's like a stunt person union or something like that. Also, I'm sure Chris is aware of the tragic stunt in the last Harry Potter movie where Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double did a stunt and broke his neck, and it was just so horrible. I think that was the first time I really appreciated watching that documentary, how dangerous a profession this can be.

Kousha Navidar: Jessica, thank you so much. It's an important element. Chris, can you talk about that a little bit, the safety precautions that go into everything?

Chris O'Hara: Stunt performers are members of the Screen Actors Guild. We do have a union that we work under. As far as stunts being dangerous, the ultimate goal, I've said it before, is that we want to create the illusion of danger by minimizing the risks. We do everything we can to minimize those risks by hopefully doing proper testing, having support from production to allow us to do the proper testing so that we basically take baby steps and we work it up to what you eventually see on the screen.

We are putting ourselves in a little bit of risks. Nobody wants to ever get hurt, but we do everything we can to make that not happen. Through testing on like the cannon roll, for instance, we had a cage that was built by a special effects guy that we understood they've done that numerous times. That was a big safety factor. We have seat belts and containment seats, pads. We have safety's fuel cells that keep the fuel in that contain that from being a burn risk. It's just that it is a business that looks dangerous from the outside, but it is very calculated. There are those times that things do happen, but nobody wants that to happen. Hopefully, we can just properly test and take the baby steps to make it go off without a hitch, so it's like a little bit long-winded

Kousha Navidar: No, not at all. There's an enormous amount of work that it sounds like even before anyone steps on set to make sure that the baby steps are taken like you say. Jessica, we really appreciate the question. It looks like we've got Bobby in Union City who's got a favorite stunt from a movie. Bobby, what is it? Welcome to the show.

Bobby: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my call, and good morning to your guest. I don't know if your guest has ever seen this movie. It's a 1974, or '75 film starring John Wayne as a Seattle police detective. The stunt I'm going to describe takes place on a beach. John Wayne is in a car. He's being pursued by these gangsters that want to kill him. One of the cars is a 1973 Chevy Impala. He fires a machine gun at the driver, and the car does about six or seven flips and lands right-side up. All in one shot.

How it was done, I know, was that they didn't have a ramp for the car to flip over because it takes place on a beach. Somebody got the bright idea to cut a hole in the bottom of the car, put an explosive charge in, and part of a utility pole, so at a certain point, the explosive would be triggered, and that piece of utility pole would go down and flip the car. If anybody in the audience who's listening and has ever seen the movie, it's the highlight of the movie and you have to wonder how did they do that. That's what I just wanted to mention.

Kousha Navidar: Bobby, thank you so much for that call. Chris, I saw you nodding your head a little bit. Are you familiar with that movie, that's stunt?

Chris O'Hara: Yes, I mentioned it. I mentioned earlier, the name of that movie is McQ with John Wayne. That stunt was done by Gary McLarty, and the second unit director on that movie was Ronnie Rondell, a legendary stuntman on his own. That was the big inspiration for The Fall Guy. Like I said earlier, it was written as a world record, but I wasn't sure if we could pull off the world record. At least if we didn't do that, I knew it was going to pay homage to Gary McLarty, McQ, John Wayne, Ronnie Rondell on that first cannon roll ever performed in a movie.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we're talking to Chris O'Hara, the stunt designer behind The Fall Guy. It's a new movie that looks at a stunt person who is working back on the set of a film. It looks into all of the enormous work that goes into making these stunts spectacular and safe. Give us a call if you have a question about stunts. We are at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. Chris, as we mentioned in the intro, you have the first-ever credit as a stunt designer. Why was that important, and how's that title differ from a stunt coordinator?

Chris O'Hara: It's very similar other, but than the fact that people look at stunt coordinator and are like, "Oh, you coordinate the stunts?" Well, really, stunt designer is taking it from nothing and turning into what you see at the end product of the show. In The Fall Guy, we did a bin chase with these trash bins that I found on a director scout down Australia because, in Australia, those bin trucks are everywhere. I was like, "Man, that would make a really interesting place to do a fight."

It was basically designed and developed from just me walking around through downtown Sydney, and that's what ended up in the movie. Designing that whole sequence and that whole chase went from nothing. In the original script, it was written as something else, and we turned it into that. The jump at the end of the movie was literally designed from a boat ride in Sydney Harbour, and I saw a bridge that was like, "Man, we should jump that." Then we couldn't jump that, and I basically went to Google Earth and I looked at how big the gap was, and that's how the 200-foot jump was thought about. Was just like, "Man, let's do that," and creative and really working hand in hand with the director to design the action sequences.

The difference between stunt coordinator and stunt designer is really trying to educate people as far as we're just not stunt guys doing these grandiose things. There's a lot of science, there's a lot of creative aspects to what we do. I was just trying to educate and enlighten people to the whole big picture of what my job really is. Having this title as stunt designer is just a way of educating those people that we are creative. We are integral to the process of making movies, and this leads into a little bit of the Academy Awards, and there's been this every year, and so why don't stunts have an Oscar?

I think this is hopefully just one step because there's other departments. There's production designer, which designs the whole look of the movie. There's a costume designer, which designs all the costumes for the movie, and all of those people get Academy Awards. Hopefully, having this title will enlighten people in the academy, and so we really are integral to the whole filmmaking process. We are creative, and we're not just a bunch of stunt guys just doing stunts. We are really creative to the whole film process.

Kousha Navidar: What would that mean to you if there was an award, an Oscar for best stunt designer?

Chris O'Hara: I think it would just be that getting recognized for the work that we do. I think it's really for the stunt community to just get recognized for the efforts that we put into a movie and really being taken-- just being accepted by the peers in the film industry, it would be amazing.

Kousha Navidar: Are there any awards for stunt performers elsewhere in part of the organization?

Chris O'Hara: Red Bull has done a really great thing over the past, geez, I don't even know, 25 years, maybe. We have something called the Red Bull Taurus Awards. Actually, the Red Bull Taurus Awards are happening this Saturday out here in California. That's something that's been a very stunt-specific award ceremony that Red Bull has put on for us every year. They've been really great at supporting our industry. They also have the Red Bull Taurus Foundation, which is a fund that helps support injured stunt performers. Red Bull has been really, really supportive over the years about our community.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. We have so many calls that, unfortunately, we can't get to. There is one that I just want to summarize here. Frank in Avenel, New Jersey says, "Favorite stunts, Zoë Bell in Death Proof, Man with the Golden Gun when James Bond jumps over a bridge and the car does a twist."

There are so many great stunts out there. I'm looking at the clock we're wrapping up here. Chris, I just wanted to ask you, being a stunt person requires so many different skills, like you said, jack-of-all-trades kind of, you have to be part professional athlete, part visionary for what looks good on film, and part just really good at being an executor. What do you think really good stunt people have in common? I think at first blush, the easy answer is, oh, it appeared like you have to be fearless, but is it something different for you?

Chris O'Hara: No, I think we're all professional athletes. I think we have a common goal of making it look amazing. I think everybody in the film business, all is kind of we're like this traveling circus, this kind of, we're all very like-minded in this business, and we just want to perform and do a great job. As a stunt performer, it's just being able to take direction and execute the plan. Again, it looks amazing, but it's well thought out and well practiced. Hopefully, the audience enjoys all of the hard work that stunt performers put in to entertain them.

Kousha Navidar: I want to be sure that we bring up-- there's all different kinds of stunt performers, of course, gender as a part of the profession. Are there more stunt women now than there used to be in the past? What does that break look like?

Chris O'Hara: There's a ton of stuntwomen because there's actors and actresses. I'd probably say there's the same amount. I don't actually have factual numbers of how many stunts, the breakdown is between male and female, but there's definitely actors and actresses both do stunts. Female stunt performers have a harder job because they tend to be in dresses or wardrobes that doesn't allow for the pads to cover stuff. The stunt women that perform, my hats off to them because they are super tough, super calculated, and they are amazing performers.

Kousha Navidar: Folks, we've been talking to Chris O'Hara, the stunt designer behind the new film, The Fall Guy. It's out in theaters now, Chris holding the title of the first time for stunt designer. We've been talking about stunts. Thank you all so much for your calls. Chris, thank you so much for joining us and for your work on this movie

Chris O'Hara: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it.

 

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