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I said, Danny, youve got to come.
The Oyo battle is broken up into vignettes.
We have the overall crush of bodies and armies, but there are individual moments throughout.
Thats going to be the centerpiece.
But then I said, I really want our actors to do it.
Not a little rubber machete but a real (unsharpened) machete.
Then youve got to land and immediately start fighting.
By the time we got there, they had the mentality ofGive me harder and harder stuff.
I went to Adrienne first.
As soon I showed her, she was like, Fuck yeah, I want that.
She used to play ball, so I knew that she had hops.
It took them about an hour to teach her.
I explained the stunt to her, and she was quiet for a moment.
Then I said, Adrienne learned it in an hour.
As soon as I said that, she said, Okay, Ill do it.
I knew her competitiveness!
So the next morning, while we were shooting other stuff, she was learning the stunt.
And she had about an hour to do it.
you gotta have complete trust in the guy youre stepping on, whom youve just met.
But what if they land wrong?
What if they slip off the back?
These warriors are oiled up with palm oil.
Lashana was already sore, because she had a foot issue, but they just wanted to do it.
We had to do at least 14 takes to get the timing right.
On about the tenth one, Adrienne landed wrong.
As a director and a friend, you see somebody go down and your heart sinks.
She gets up limping.
And shes like, Lets go again.
I was like, Okay, wait a second.
No, lets go!
Lets go, lets go!
That was the mentality.
So we did it again and finally got that perfect one.
Then the two of them came separately to me asking who jumped higher.
The stunt that made her most nervous
Its not the technical that scares me.
In the montage scene of them training, I have Lashana flipping Thuso Mbedu.
And its not a little flip.
Stunt people get hurt, and an actor might get hurt too.
Yes, we had somebody right there.
If something happens, that fire goes out immediately.
But Lashanas back was oiled, and they were still getting used to that stunt.
So my heart was just a knot until we got it.
They kept wanting me and Danny to up the difficulty, and they trained incessantly during the shoot.
Thats something important I learned onThe Old Guard: You have to keep training.
Were shooting five, six days a week.
Then these women would then come in on Sunday we call them Sneaky Sundays and continue to train.
Thuso, with that rope gag, was in front of her trailer constantly figuring it out.
And again, Lashana she just wanted more.
She was the one who came in with some experience with stunts fromNo Time to Die.
But shell say that nothing prepared her for this.
Grant went to dance studios, martial-arts studios.
Then they went to a boot camp for months in the same way our actors did.
There were about five women who had some stunt experience, but everybody else became stunt folk.
That was the most intimidating at first, knowing we had to do that.
Best stunt lesson learned makingThe Old Guard
Foremost, Danny.
And what is it saying about the character?
How does it push the story forward?
So that defines fighting styles.
You dont want sameness ever.
You dont want gratuitous fighting.
We know when we see that how boring it could be.
That was something I had to constantly remind myself.
We did it 21 times.
Everyone gets tired, and people get cranky.
You see the time slipping away, and your day is dying.
But we had to get it right.
And thankfully, KiKi had the mentality ofYeah, Im not quitting until we get it right.
When I cast, its not just talent.
It issurrealhow hard it is.
And youve got to keep training throughout filming.
OnThe Woman King, we didnt leave anything to chance.
We were in charge of their nutrition.
They all were on a meal plan.
You cant be eating McDonalds and perform at the level required.
It was just so cool.
I do miss that.
Theres another scene, which we did shoot.
Sheila, who plays Amenza, knows how to pole dance.
She can go upside down and spin around.
So we used that.
Then she comes around and kicks them.
We shot it, and she did it herself its incredible.
I felt bad about it, because she shot it and was so good.
The biggest influences onThe Woman Kings stunts
My professional jealousy isMission: ImpossibleFallout.
That bathroom fight is one of the greatest fight scenes ever.
So much of the action in that film is just next level.
Its exciting, and its personal.
And because its really Tom Cruise, he inspires the other actors to be in it as well.
You see the importance of performance in stunt work.
When it came to makingThe Woman King, we looked atBraveheart.
How do you shoot a whole battle?
How you have to verify you have a beginning, middle, and end.
What is the drive?
How do you feel throughout it?
Where do you get the specificity?
What is specific toThe Woman King?Its the style of fighting.
Its the stories in the fight.
