--- title: See the Movies That Inspired The Fall Guy's Most Epic Stunts description: The new action rom-com is a love letter to stunts and the people who do them, paying homage to movies like Casino Royale and True Lies. canonical: https://time.com/6973939/the-fall-guy-stunts-inspiration/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-05-03T15:49:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:49:55.146Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Watch the Classic Stunts That Inspired the Action in 'The Fall Guy' og:description: The new action rom-com is a love letter to stunts and the people who do them, paying homage to movies like Casino Royale and True Lies. og:url: https://time.com/6973939/the-fall-guy-stunts-inspiration/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32930350351dddd7/698a565c47ca3827a73bd7b9/fall-guy-casino-royale-Indiana-Jones.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1600 og:image:alt: fall-guy-casino-royale-Indiana Jones og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch the Classic Stunts That Inspired the Action in 'The Fall Guy' twitter:description: The new action rom-com is a love letter to stunts and the people who do them, paying homage to movies like Casino Royale and True Lies. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32930350351dddd7/698a565c47ca3827a73bd7b9/fall-guy-casino-royale-Indiana-Jones.jpg?branch=production ---  # Watch the Classic Stunts That Inspired the Action in _The Fall Guy_ by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/) and [Video by Andrew D. Johnson](https://time.com/author/andrew-johnson/) May 3, 2024 3:49 PM UTC by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/) and [Video by Andrew D. Johnson](https://time.com/author/andrew-johnson/) May 3, 2024 3:49 PM UTC Before directing [_Atomic Blonde_](https://time.com/4874696/atomic-blonde-charlize-theron-review/), _Deadpool 2_, or [_Bullet Train_](https://time.com/6203227/bullet-train-review/), David Leitch was one of the most prolific stuntmen in Hollywood. He doubled for Brad Pitt in _Fight Club_ and _Troy_. He executed stunts on two of the [_Matrix_ movies](https://time.com/6129306/matrix-trilogy-recap/) and one of the _Bourne_ installments. He is a scholar of the action flickand told TIME his latest movie, _The Fall Guy,_ is a "love letter to action movies." The film centers on a stunt man, played by [Ryan Gosling](https://time.com/6972690/ryan-gosling-the-fall-guy-tribute/). He had a brief romance with an aspiring director ([Emily Blunt](https://time.com/4473275/emily-blunt-girl-on-the-train-interview/))but ghosted her after a serious injury. When she finally gets her first big break, her new movie's star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)goes missing, so the stunt man sets out to find him and save his true love's picture (and maybe win her back in the process). _The Fall Guy_ depicts the meticulous preparation needed to execute stunts as well as the fantastic feats themselves. And the movie broke the world record for the number of cannon rolls—or car flips—in a movie. _The Fall Guy_ also nods at the dozens of action movies that came before it. "I wanted to pay homage to the history of stunts and do really fun ones in the spirit of some of the classics," says Leitch. When dreaming up the stunts in their various films, Leitch and his executive producer and wife Kelly McCormick keep a TV running in the background of their brainstorming meetings that plays everything from Buster Keaton's leaps to Bollywood battle scenes. TIME asked Leitch and McCormick to talk through the classic action scenes in movies like _Casino Royale_, _True Lies_, and _Indiana Jones_ that inspired the stunts in _The Fall Guy_. ## The _Casino Royale_ Cannon Roll  Everett A cannon roll is a classic stunt that involves fitting a cannon-like contraption beneath a car. When the car reaches a specific speed, the apparatus triggers and propels the car into a series of rolls. Before _The Fall Guy_, the 2006 James Bond film _Casino Royale_ held the record with seven rolls. "David challenged the team to break the world record," says McCormick. "He actually put it in the script." Leitch's team ultimately achieved eight and a half cannon rolls. The feat is all the more impressive considering that _Casino Royale'_s cannon rolls were accomplished with the car moving downhill and gravity working in its favor. _The Fall Guy_ shot its cannon rolls on a flat, sandy surface. As McCormick explains, "Sand is hard because that canon hits down into a surface, and the harder the surface, the easier it is to roll it." Sand, by contrast, has a lot of give. ## The High Falls in _Sharky's Machine_ & _Assassin's Creed_  Assassin's Creed with Michael Fassbender, 2016 Courtesy Everett Collection High falls are another familiar if complicated stunt. One of Leitch's favorites is a fall out of a glass building in the 1980s classic _Sharky's Machine_. A stuntman on 2016's _Assassin's Creed_ performed a free fall of 125 feet, the highest jump in a film in 35 years. The height of the fall is determined by factors like the wind, which can pull a jumper away from the airbag he's supposed to hit on the ground. The stunt man on _The Fall Guy_ was able to fall 150 feet. "We had agreed that 120 was the height that felt right, unless the conditions were absolutely perfect that day, and then we'd let him go to 150," says McCormick. "And, and they were, and so we did. He hadn't hit that number in rehearsals. He hadn't hit that height in his life." ## Marrying stunts and romance in _True Lies_ and _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_  Eliza Dushku and Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'True Lies' 1994 20th Century Fox/Courtesy Everett Leitch argues "action shouldn't be done for action's sake." It should always serve the story. "The hardest stunt in the movie was the stunt of falling in love," Leitch says of making _The Fall Guy_. Few films marry romance and action well. But [James Cameron](https://time.com/6255536/james-cameron-interview-avatar-the-way-of-water/) may be the master of striking that balance. "_True Lies_ is such a great movie for action and relationship, right, and the stakes involved in those sequences," says Leitch. He specifically points to the helicopter stunt at the end of the film when Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, hanging out of a helicopter, must grab Jamie Lee Curtis' character from a moving car headed off the edge of a bridge. It solidifies trust within the couple at the end of their journey together. Perhaps in a wink to that film, _The Fall Guy_ features a scene involving a helicopter in which our two protagonists have a conversation about their feelings for one another in the midst of a death-defying chase. McCormick cites another film that melds action and romance, the 2005 Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie action comedy _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_. In that movie, the action scenes often morph into sexually-charged moments of romance. "_Mr. And Mrs. Smith_, the fight in the kitchen and the even the warehouse, it's just so original and about their relationship," McCormick says. "It's really is connective and memorable." Leitch happened to work as Pitt's stuntman on that film. ## Scrappy fights and jumping across vehicles in _Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade_  Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (right) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989. Murray Close—Getty Images Leitch says that the stunts of '80s and '90s action movies are "baked into _The Fall Guy._" Gosling got to pay homage to one of film's greatest action stars—and his old co-star on [_Blade Runner 2049_](https://time.com/4962769/review-blade-runner-2049-gosling/)—Harrison Ford. A long chase sequence involving Gosling hopping across cars and trucks mimics a famous scene in _Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade_. "There's a great truck sequence in that where Indy is trying to transfer from truck to truck, and he's hanging behind it," Leitch says. Just as Indiana Jones gets dragged behind a truck, Gosling's character surfs behind a truck in _The Fall Guy_. "I think we started out there, but then as the guys got into the choreography it started to become our own version of that." Throughout the truck scene, Gosling's character scraps with a goon much larger than him. That fight serves as a callback to just about every Indiana Jones action scene: "He's always overwhelmed and outmatched but somehow figures a clever way out of it." ## Big car jumps in _The Fall Guy_ TV Show, _Smokey and the Bandit_, and _Hooper_  Burt Reynolds (top) in Hooper, 1978 Warner Brothers/Everett Collection Modern audiences may not know that _The Fall Guy_ is based on old IP. _The Fall Guy_ TV show, which aired in the 1980s, starred Lee Majors as a Hollywood stuntman who moonlighted as a bounty hunter. He drove a GMC Sierra and often made jumps over barriers and ponds while pursuing criminals. Gosling's hero, too, finds himself chasing bad guys in a newer GMC Sierra and jumping over partitions to reach them—though in _The Fall Guy_ movie, there's a dog in the passenger's seat, just to up the stakes. The end of _The Fall Guy_ features a car jump across a gigantic canyon. That jump honors jumps in two Burt Reynolds movies, _Smokey and the Bandit_ and _Hooper_. "It was fun to figure out, 'How can we take that to the next level?" says Leitch. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6973939/the-fall-guy-stunts-inspiration/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6973939/the-fall-guy-stunts-inspiration/"},"headline":"Watch the Classic Stunts That Inspired the Action in The Fall Guy","datePublished":"2024-05-03T15:49:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:49:55.146Z","description":"The new action rom-com is a love letter to stunts and the people who do them, paying homage to movies like Casino Royale and True Lies.","url":"https://time.com/6973939/the-fall-guy-stunts-inspiration/","keywords":["movies","video","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32930350351dddd7/698a565c47ca3827a73bd7b9/fall-guy-casino-royale-Indiana-Jones.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Video by Andrew D. 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