2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How ‘Ballerina' Set People on Fire
When Chad Stahelski, best known as the driving force behind the 'John Wick' franchise, was in high school he volunteered with his local fire department. Over the years the images from that experience stuck in his head, and the former stuntman started to dream up an action sequence involving lots and lots of fire.
'I'm like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I combined fire and water, and we had a flamethrower fight?' Stahelski, a producer of 'From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,' said in a video interview. 'Two guys with flamethrowers and they are going to shoot each other.' Watching an early cut of 'Ballerina' he realized he had the ideal vehicle for his fire dreams: It would be a showstopper for the star assassin, Eve, played by Ana de Armas.
'How do I make her look smart? How do I make her look badass? It wasn't about fighting more guys,' he said. 'It's like, OK, let's give her something that really shows a skill set. And that's when we went to fire.'
The result is a bravura third-act set piece in which Eve torches her enemies in an Alpine village, going flamethrower to flamethrower with a massive villainous henchman named Dex (Robert Maaser). Instead of using digital flames, 'Ballerina,' directed by Len Wiseman, mostly went for the real thing. According to Stahelski, 90 to 95 percent of the fires onscreen are 'unenhanced real burns.'
To accomplish this, Stahelski called in an expert in the world of movie fire, the stuntman Jayson Dumenigo, who developed a long-lasting protective burn gel for stunt performers that recently won him an honor from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Even Dumenigo was skeptical they could accomplish what Stahelski had in mind when he first heard the pitch.
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