BIG BAD FILM

Stuntman Caleb Spillyards is no stranger to big sets, big movies, and bigger stunts, having stunt doubled for Jeremy Renner in Disney's Hawkeye, running backwards in time as part of the Tenet stunt team, and consistently working in Hollywood for a decade, Caleb knew all the ins and outs of what makes an action set run smoothly. But did he ever think he would go from being a casual fan of the John Wick series to coordinating the fights on the latest installment? I spoke with the hard hitting creative to talk about his process, how he handles the pressure of taking on one of Hollywood's premiere action franchises, and that skate scene.

PATRICK YOUNG: Thanks for joining me, Caleb! First off I want to congratulate you on Ballerina’s release and your whole team’s work on it. There’s so much playful, creative work throughout this whole movie. Just on a human, film crew level - how did you handle the pressure of stepping into the world of John Wick?

CALEB SPILLYARDS: There was definitely a lot of pressure in the beginning, mostly self imposed. I deal with a lot of imposter syndrome personally, so a lot of it was just reminding myself over and over again that the reason that I was there was because of my past deeds (laughing) for better or worse.  It sounds cliché, but taking it a day at a time and sometimes an hour at a time is kind of what was necessary for me to digest it all and it let it become overwhelming.

PY: That makes a lot of sense. On one hand you need the pressure to make sure everyone takes things seriously and performs at their best, while also not putting too much pressure on yourself as to freeze up.

Which, clearly you didn't. One of the most fun aspects of Ballerina is how many fighting styles are involved. Everyone is given their own fighting personality and performs it to perfection. What goes into finding those styles, especially when that means you and your team have to be masters at everything.

CS: I think the basis of everything when it comes to developing fighting styles is just recognizing that they need to be present. Sitting down and intentionally saying for this character we want to do X or for that character we wanna do Y.  And for me all of that stuff has to be rooted in story and character. Who is this person? What type of moves makes sense for her?  She’s a ballerina and ballet is known to be an extremely physically demanding art form. We wanted to parallel her ability to suffer as a ballerina with her ability to suffer as an assassin, which is where a lot of the scenes where she’s getting her ass kicked come from.  And then when it comes to logistically creating a fight style or selecting moves for choreography, we take these character driven ideas and combine them with different strengths that each member of the fight team possess in terms of their own skill sets to try to come up with something that creatively makes sense with the character as well as feels fresh for the audience.

PY:  Absolutely. I know it's probably overnoted at this point in action movies, but I did enjoy having a lead who gets beat up a good bit, something all of the Wick movies are good at. 

Specifically for Eve / Ana, I loved seeing her grow as a fighter throughout the movie. Was it difficult to find both a consistency in how she approached fights while also allowing the character to advance/grow?

CS: I think a lot of what helps her growth as a fighter throughout the movie honestly comes down to the writing and the escalation of the plot. As things progress and she gets into deeper and deeper waters naturally the fights become more intricate and creative by necessity. She’s no longer fighting one or two people. She’s fighting an entire village of assassins.  At every turn, she’s forced to adapt and strategize in order to handle each situation as it comes. In reality, we were kind of in the same boat! The question we kept having to ask ourselves in developing the fights is OK now how is she going to get out of this? What could she realistically do to handle this situation and a lot of that resulted in using the environment and thinking on her feet. Finding ways to give herself a tactical advantage.

PY: With the amount of hand to hand fighting that goes into a movie like this, there must be an insane amount of trust with your performers. How do you go about building that team? Building trust.

CS: The Stunt world is so tight knit. Most of the time in a scenario like this, where you have to gain an actors trust, where you’re going to have to pivot and make adjustments on the fly every day, you can’t take a risk hiring people that you don’t know or you haven’t worked with before. Every member of this core fight team had experience working at these levels and had worked together before on other projects.  Knowing the people in these spots extremely well takes a ton of pressure off of an already very high pressure scenario. Everyone on this team is just so talented and creative.

PY: The creativity is incredible. One thing I love about the Wick series on the whole is the amount of THEMED fights. You can tell someone about the horse fight or the antique knife fight or the shotgun fight and they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. Here we have the grenade fight, the ice skate fight, the chef fight, the motherfucking flamethrower fight. How fun is it to take single items or weapons and find as many ways as possible to use them? And where does that start in the process from script to screen?

CS: There are honestly a couple of different ways.  Sometimes they originate in the script and sometimes it comes down to 'How do we make this unique?' Like you pointed out the great thing about the world of Wick is that the writing lends to a lot of these crazy scenarios. The grenade scene was in the script. She was always going to end up in an environment where her only weapon was a belt of grenades. From there, it’s just thinking about what’s the gnarliest thing that we could do with a grenade? Len came up with the concept of her having ice skates as gauntlets before we even started prep, but from there, it’s like what other ways can she use these? How do you fight long range weapons with ice skate boxing gloves? Well you could swing them around by their laces and gain a couple extra feet. Something I constantly ask myself and that I picked up from Chad in my time training at 8711 is where is the gag? Constantly approaching every scene with what gag is in this or how can we make this a gag people will remember?

PY: And as a stunt performer yourself did you get in on the fun at all? And if not was it hard not to want to get in and play?

CS: Yes! I actually have a fight with Ana in the kitchen. That’s a part of an extended scene in the bonus features of the digital download. Selfishly, I wish my fight had made it in the theatrical cut of the film, but I understand from a pacing perspective why they probably took it out. That was such a fun fight to do and I’m glad it made it in the film and some form. I also did a number of ND spots in the village and in the Belltower.

PY: Was there another move or fight or moment you and your team developed in pre-vis that didn’t make it to the end product that you really wish did?

CS: Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better outcome when it comes to the fights. Len was as down for everything as we were, which is rare.  I really enjoy working under pressure and one upside of having such a tight timeline with a film filled with as much action as this has is that it really forces you to trim the fat and focus on the moments that matter in each sequence.  That said, there’s a couple of moves and gags  that I’ll keep to myself that you’ll probably see in future projects that I’m involved in (laughing).

PY: For our stunt people who wish to one day make that next step into choreo / leadership roles, what’s your biggest advice?  

CS: Become the best problem, solver that you can. At the end of the day, you can surround yourself with talented people, talented performers, talented choreographers, but if you can be a really strong problem, solver that can think ahead and anticipate friction you will do really well.

I’m a huge advocate of having foolish self belief and always pursuing the things that you are passionate about that light you up.  I remember working a corporate job and seeing John Wick one in theaters and thinking to myself how cool it would be to work on movies and specifically a project like that.  Making the decision to act and to continually put 1 foot in front of the other is what got me to this place and is the only thing that separates me and the life I have now from being a cellphone salesman in middle America.  You really can do anything with enough focus and patience.

FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA is now available on Digital platforms everywhere to rent and buy.