Just when we thought we’d seen everything movies could do, the John Wick films came along and showed us more. It seems this level of action was building up in director Chad Stahelski, who created the franchise with David Leitch.
Stahelski has directed all three films in the John Wick series while Leitch went on to do Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and this summer’s Hobbs and Shaw. The 87eleven stunt team Stahelski and Leitch created still designs and performs the stunts in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.
When we last left John Wick (Keanu Reeves) he had killed on Continental grounds. Even though the guy totally deserved it, Wick is now excommunicado. In his third adventure, he’ll either take down the High Table itself or dig himself in deeper for John Wick 4.
Stahelski spoke with Monsters and Critics by phone out of New York about the incredible world of John Wick 3. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is in theaters Friday.
Monsters & Critics: Was there an “oh” that I missed? I didn’t hear anyone say “Oh” in John Wick 3.
Chad Stahelski: Not in this one. There’s no “Oh.”
M&C: Is there a story behind the operators with all their tattoos and hair?
CS: Yeah, we call them the SuicideGirls. I feel like the regulator girls kind of have the same vibe. I saw a big documentary on the SuicideGirls and I thought that was a really unique subculture, kind of the punky, athletic female power movement.
I thought that was really, really cool how we could have this really aggressive group of women be the information highway of our underworld. I just thought that the look was really cool and that whole vibe seemed very sassy to me.
M&C: Have you developed the backstory for why they all chose that as their uniform?
CS: I like it because it was part roller derby drive-in waitress, part operator and part f*** you roller derby girl. I kind of put it together like that, to show off how proud they are of their tattoos and the tattoos tell their own life story. Almost like prison tattoos, just in a completely different use.
M&C: CGI bullet hits are sort of the industry standard. Did you ever explore whether or not physical squibs could be possible in John Wick action?
CS: They can be for certain things. It’s just other than massive, massive time constraint, the effectiveness of some of these special effects, you have like a 70% success rate. You have to remember what that means.
One, you’re always going to have to remove the wires. You’re going to have to remove the patches and some of the not cool stuff about physical squibs. I love physical squibs. When they go right, they’re fantastic.
The time, the reset and every time you reset, I have dogs, I have horses, I have cars, I have motorcycles. I have Keanu who’s busting his ass for me and every time we reset and do a take, because of the long takes he’s f***ing exhausted.
So if I’m doing 20 takes just to do one piece of a 50 move fight scenes, that’s almost 300 takes I’d have to do. You know how exhausting [that is]? It’s like running a marathon. There’s no half speed. We go balls out every time we do a take.
Do you know how exhausting that would be? The last thing I want is to have to redo a 20 move sequence with guns and bombs because a squib didn’t go off. Digital squibs I can put as close to a human head as I want. There’s zero safety issues involved and I can control the timing.
The controllability and the resettability wins out over any other thing. And they’re getting better and better. I agree with you. I miss squibs and we still do them sometimes in cars and other Marvel films and stuff that really gives it a cool effect. As far as long take sequences and protecting the actors’ energy and efficiency, digital is the only way to go.
M&C: It’s not a criticism, just a question about the tradeoff.
CS: That’s one of those times where I think technology is really, really helping both safety wise and efficiency wise.
M&C: John Wick gets hurts in his fights. Is that something you deal with when you choreograph for big movie stars? Some of their egos don’t want to get hit.
CS: Yeah, thats’ a very ‘80s/90s thing. I’m a Joseph Campbell fan. I believe heroes should be fractured. We call it the Die Hard test. They should have the sh*t kicked out of them.
Otherwise they’re not human. I’m not trying to create a superhero. I’m just trying to create an extraordinary human. The Rocky thing, I want you to get knocked down 10 times. I just want you to stand up 11.
M&C: Did you film in the actual New York Public Library stacks?
CS: We did. That’s the real Grand Central Station. That’s the real New York Public Library. That’s the real elevated train in Brooklyn. That’s the real Sahara Dessert. That’s a real antique store. That’s real Chinatown.
I love shooting on location. I think it’s one of the best things about film. I’m pretty into doing actual locations. I hate doing things against blue screen on a stage. It drives me apesh*t.
M&C: When was the library available to you, after hours?
CS: Late at night. Very late at night.
M&C: Had you been thinking about how you can use a book as a weapon in a fight?
CS: Actually, it’s something we’ve had in our pocket for quite some time. I have a company called 87eleven and that’s all we do all day long. We have notebooks for days but I love the New York City Library. I spend a lot of time there wandering around, just like The Met.
What do you think about when you’re in a library? Books, and how do you kill someone with books?
M&C: Keanu is so athletic and looks great doing it in those suits. Are those suits made of a flexible material that allow him to perform in them?
CS: Yeah, the suits are all tailor made to him. We have some of the fight suits which have a special, different fabric. The way it’s cut, some of the tricks the wardrobe guys do to make it a little bit more flexible and stretchable to allow him to the motions without ruining the form of the suit.
You can see small color differentiations sometimes that we try to tweak in post.
M&C: Could Keanu ride a horse?
CS: Absolutely, he’s fantastic on a horse. We wanted to do trick rides so we worked with a guy named Tad Griffith who’s one of the best stunt trick riders in the world right now. So we stuck Keanu with him for a couple months to improve his horse riding.
Riding a horse on a dirt road on a stable is one thing. Riding a horse through Brooklyn with motorcycles chasing you, firing guns and hanging off the side is quite a different animal.
M&C: How much of the motorcycle chase was filmed at full speed?
CS: I would say a good portion of it. The crashes, the interactives, the first sword drawing, the finale, all the bridge stuff you see is real. It’s all on the Verrazzano Bridge.
Some of the interactive stuff, that couldn’t be done at high speed in that environment so that, we had to get a little tricky with.
M&C: Do you replace Keanu’s face on a stuntman? I can’t imagine the insurance to have the actor do that.
CS: Keanu is very, very good on a motorcycle, very, very good on a motorcycle. He owns Arch Motorcycle company. He’s better on a motorcycle and on a track than most stuntmen so we were able to get a higher degree out of performance out of someone like Keanu than we would have on the average guy that could just ride on the street.
Keanu’s above average, even for a professional racer. He’s very high up there which is why we chose to do that kind of scene.
M&C: Was the barbershop quartet singing “Take You Back” a deep cut homage to Rocky?
CS: I’ve done a lot of work with Sylvester Stallone so I’m a big fan of Sylvester Stallone’s. I’ve worked with him as a director and as a performer. I’m a big fan of his. he helped me out very early on in my career and it was just a little throwback to Rocky.
So I managed to call him up. Frank Stallone technically owns the rights to “Take You Back.” Sylvester Stallone, within a phone call, emails me back, “Done, done, put it in.” He thought it was awesome. That’s just how cool of a guy he is.
M&C: How do you get the light in New York City to look like it does in the John Wick films?
CS: Hire Dan Lausten, the best cinematographer on the planet, and you hope for the best. I give Dan my vision, he looks and laughs at me and then does his thing.
I honestly think, if I could have any cinematographer in the world, I’d still use Dan. He’s just an amazing, amazing artist. So beyond just film. He’s an amazing artist.
M&C: We’ve seen lots of movies in New York and none of them look like these movies, so how does he do it?
CS: We go out of our way to find the right sets, to really plan out our lighting palettes and he gets the equipment we need to make that happen. I dare you to go to a studio and say you want to do 45 days in the rain in New York City. They’d just laugh at you. Somehow we manage to pull it up.
M&C: Even overhead shots looking down, the light looks different.
CS: I wanted to really underexpose the aerials as opposed to what we did in number two that made them a little more digitally clean. These I wanted to make look a little dirty and rough and a little saturated due to the rainfall. So we took a different approach on this one. Dan Lausten is literally a genius.
M&C: Was casting a nonbinary person in a position of authority groundbreaking?
CS: It’s funny you bring that up. I’ve had a lot of those questions. I’ll be incredibly brutally honest with you.
I’m 50 years old. I come from a different generation. I don’t ever cast checking boxes. No one came to me and went, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a gender nonbinary or transgender or black or Malaysian here?”
Honestly, one of the producers was a big fan of Billions. I hadn’t seen the show. I saw literally one episode with Asia and I’m like, “I think they’re amazing.” Then I was brought up to speed and met with Asia.
When they explained the whole thing I thought that was fascinating and I was just like, “Look, I love your work. We can play this, rewrite this” but I thought the way Asia played the character was fantastic.
That’s how I continue to cast, getting great performers to do great things. Whatever the backstory is on that, great. I’m happy to be part of all that. I don’t think it’s groundbreaking. I just think it was a very, very good choice which hopefully helps the project.
Asia brings an incredible vibe to the movie I thought. I think they did an amazing job. I’m just going to go with I got really lucky casting a really good actor.
M&C: Do you expect each John Wick will end on a cliffhanger to set up the next film?
CS: That’s a good question too. I don’t really plan them as cliffhangers. Honestly, as a director, I don’t see another way to end a movie with a character like this.
Surely John is neither deserved nor, I don’t think, entitled to a ride off into the sunset ending or fall back in love or have a fulfilling ending. I think the theme of finality and consequence hit really hard at home when it comes to that.
I think he’s just had a really bad day and he might have a few good days in the interim but ultimately, you do bad things, bad things happen. So while concluding one chapter of his life, he has to go into the next one carrying the consequences of what has already been done.
If that seems like a cliffhanger, I get it but it’s meant more to be an unfulfilled ending.
M&C: Has there been any movement on Highlander?
CS: Still developing. It’s something that I’m very interested in doing next. We get closer and closer every day. It’s a very thick property and again, I love it so much that I just don’t want to f*** it up so we’re just taking our time trying to get it absolutely right before we jump off and we don’t corner ourselves in by doing something that doesn’t justify the vastness of the project.