Last week I conducted a live interview with directorsChad StahelskiandDavid Leitchfor our new series Collider Connected. As you’ve hopefully seen in our previous episodes, Collider Connected allows us to go in-depth with our subjects due to the length of the conversations, and this discussion with Stahelski and Leitch was no different. Even though we had talked about the interview running around 45 minutes, we hit the 90-minute mark and I still had questions!I would have kept it going, but Leitch was late for a meeting.
If for some reason you’re unfamiliar with Stahelski and Leitch, the two got their start as Hollywood stuntmen before becoming stunt coordinators, creating their own action design company87elevenin 1997. Stahelski and Leitch quickly became household names in the stunt world, and began directing second unit on tons of projects includingCaptain America: Civil War. In 2014, they released their directorial debutJohn Wick, and have since gone on to successful careers all their own—Stahelski has continued to steer theJohn Wickfranchise, while Leitch has directed films likeDeadpool 2,Atomic Blonde, andHobbs & Shaw.
If you’re a fan of their work, you’re going tolovethis interview. During the wide-ranging conversation they talked about what they learned from working with the Wachowskis early in their careers, what they did onSpeed Racerand how it was like going back to film school, working withLana WachowskionThe Matrix 4, the formation of their action design team 87eleven, what it will take to get stunt work recognized at the Oscars, the status of a newHighlanderfilm that Stahelski is developing, the importance of pre-production, and they shared somegreatbehind-the-scenes stories about the making of the firstJohn Wick(which they directed together) including how it almost was a straight to home video release. In addition, we talked about future projects likeJohn Wick4,Atomic Blonde 2,Deadpool 3,Hobbs & Shaw 2, and so much more it would be impossible to list it all here.
A huge thank you to Chad Stahelski and David Leitch for giving me so much time and to everyone that made it happen. Over the past decade I’ve done a lot of interviews. This is one my favorites. Check it out in the player below and further down is a list of everything we talked about.
Chad Stahelski and David Leitch:
If you’ve missed our previous Collider Connected interviews, we’ve had Oscar-winning composerMichael Giacchino(watch that here), two-time Oscar-winning cinematographerRoger Deakins(watch that here),Will Forte(watch that here),Kaitlyn Dever(watch that here), andJoe Pantoliano(watch that here).
