How to be a ‘Fall Guy': Stunt performers on their rough-and-tumble life

NEW YORK — There are two things to keep in mind while being burned alive for a movie scene. Jenkin was reminded of that over and over before doing his first fire burn in David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy,” an action extravaganza that affectionately celebrates the rough-and-tumble lives of stunt performers. We create these sequences, whether it’s for Paul Thomas Anderson or Adam Sandler or James Cameron.” The most eye-catching stunts come in big-budget action movies like “The Fall Guy,” but nearly every studio movie involves some stunt work. Take Chris O’Hara, head of Stunts Unlimited and the stunt designer on “The Fall Guy.” He’s not only a veteran of innovative, stunt-heavy films like “The Matrix” and the Jason Bourne series but he was also the guy who caught Saoirse Ronan when she leapt out of a moving car in Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird.” With “The Fall Guy,” O’Hara is the first person to be credited as a “stunt designer,” a designation that’s been approved by SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild. ‘I’M RYAN GOSLING AND I DID ALMOST NONE OF MY OWN STUNTS IN THIS MOVIE’ Ryan Gosling and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with stunt actors Ben Jenkin, Logan Holladay, and Justin Eaton, posing with director David Leitch on the set of “The Fall Guy.” At the SXSW premiere of “The Fall Guy,” Gosling proudly announced what few actors do: He did not do his own stunts.