Deadpool not only broke box office records when it was released earlier this year, but it gave us some of the coolest fight sequences we’ve seen in a long time. That opening scene, set to Juice Newton’s Morning Angel was a thing of beauty. Rolling Stone has a pretty fantastic look behind-the-scenes at stunt choreographer Philip J. Silvera’s work on the film.
Click here to view the video on Rolling Stone‘s site.
Silvera works all over Hollywood, choreographing fights in films like Iron Man 3 (he did the final scene), TV shows like Daredevil (remember that fight between Daredevil and Nobu?) and video games like Star Wars: The Old Republic. He works with Liam Neeson pretty regularly as well. This time around, he took on the King of chimichangas, Deadpool, and his epic fight scenes. Silvera has been working with director Tim Miller for eight years, setting up the first test fight over five years ago.
His feelings on fight scenes are that kicking and punching alone don’t give the right feel. You need story. “In stunts and designing the action overall, it has to tell the story,” he said. “You don’t ever want to get to the point where you’re just doing punches and kicks or car hits for no reason, or wire gags just because they’re cool. It should tell a story.” He said that he starts by working with a concept design, thinking about how the character moves, then gets a stunt double to work it out physically so he can see how it might look on film.
Silvera talked all about how Deadpool was different from the average fight film. He explained that usually someone like this would work with stealth; “Merc 101,” he called it. However, Deadpool can’t die. He can feel pain, but no fight is going to take him out permanently. It changes the moves, with the character willing to walk right at the enemy. You can see that he’s feeling the burn, but he’s not backing down like anyone mortal would.
He also talked about working in the big fight scene with Angel Dust (Gina Carano), Deadpool and Colossus (Stefan Kapicic). She said that they first worked with a mo-cap double of Colossus, but when they took him out and just let Carano go crazy, she went full out and he really got to see what she could do.
Check out the video and let us know what you think. So much goes into films with this much fighting and it’s pretty cool to see how it all comes together. Tweet me/us @JennaBusch/@Nerdist and tell us your favorite Deadpool moment. I’m going with every scene that Blind Al was in. Leslie Uggams stole the show! The Ikea dresser, you guys. The Ikea dresser.
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HT: Rolling Stone
Image credit: Fox
