We asked David Leitch to pick one favorite shot from each of his movies. The co-director of John Wick, and director of Deadpool 2, The Fall Guy, and many others breaks down each shot for us and explains what makes each so special to him.
John Wick (2014)
“Man, there are so many great shots in the first John Wick. I think one that's the most impactful is Keanu pulling the dog out of the dog carrier. It's sort of the emotional fuel for the entire series. It represents Helen his wife, his humanity, and that they're going to not let him retain his humanity when the dog is killed.
I think that was also such a provocative thing to do in a film. We were told so many times by the studio and a lot of film friends were like, ‘You can't kill a dog. You can't kill a dog. It'll curse the movie.’ I think we knew in our heart of hearts, that it was the emotional fuel we needed for this character and what we wanted to do on the other side of it. So I think that's really one of the most important shots in the John Wick franchise.”
Atomic Blonde (2017)
“My favorite ‘shot’ in Atomic Blonde is actually made up of a multitude of shots. It's the stairwell fight and it's like an eight-minute one-er with Charlize and the stunt team. This fight feels uncut, but it's been stitched together by multiple takes. What was great about that, was it was like a real sort of science experiment like Kelly, my producer and wife. That was a big movie for us. It was the first time we were really collaborating as creatives together, and she's like, ‘We need to do something bold. We need to do something very original. It's just a small-budget movie. You've been thinking about this idea of a one-er, an action one-er kind of inspired by Children of Men, but instead, the protagonist in Children of Men is walking through the chaos. It's like, can I have the protagonist be the chaos?’
One of the reasons that came to me is I had worked with Roger Deakins, I was a second unit director on In Time, and I had a conversation with him and he's like, ‘I like to shoot things where I never leave the character. I don't want to leave the character. I just want to be with the character. That's why I'm always on a 35mm close-in. I want it to feel like you're with the character.’
That always stuck with me. And really, I think that's part of the reason why it's so compelling. You sit with this character for seven minutes when she goes through the gauntlet of assassins and it doesn't feel like a film anymore because you're not cutting and you're not using this convention that your mind knows. I think the reason it works so well in Atomic Blonde, is that it was a character move. I think it was the time in the movie when she was at her low point, and it allowed the audience to really feel it dramatically.
We have plenty of fights in that film that are cut up and are shot in more conventional fun styles, but when it got serious, we didn't cut. There's no music in that sequence, it's all sound design. It was done for a real distinct story purpose and it works incredibly well, and I'm really proud of that scene.”
Deadpool 2 (2018)
“I mean, there's again, so many great shots. It could be Cable traveling back in time, or it could be Deadpool going back to the afterlife and seeing his wife. But I think my favorite shot in Deadpool is the slow-mo bullet hit when he dives and saves Firefist and we don't know that there's actually the coin in his pocket, we think he's dead. I think setting up the expectation for the audience in a really fun way, in a super melodramatic way for a comic book movie was really fun.
Deadpool, as subversive as it is, it's one of the most emotional characters in the whole universe of Marvel. I think you really feel for him. The moral of that story was always one act of kindness can change the future, and so his act of sacrifice was going to hopefully change Firefist from not being the awful person he was. So it's a really important moment in that film.”
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
“Hobbs and Shaw, I'm also going to pick a sequence, the opening sequence, which is the split screen. This movie is essentially The Odd Couple, right? I wanted to establish these characters in their daily life and see just how much alike they are, but just see how different they are with some nonverbal storytelling. Jason and Dwayne are such great actors, they don't need dialogue to evoke things. And so it was really fun and comedic, but also dramatic at times.
That was just a fun way to set up the characters. And again, I try to approach all of the scenes that I do and the shots that I do, whether they're stylized, there's a purpose for them in terms of building these iconic characters.”
Bullet Train (2022)
“Again, I have so many fun moments that I remember, but I think that the one that crystallizes Ladybug's journey is sort of the impossible train crash at the end of the film. The fact that he could survive this train crash, and we're seeing it in slow motion as all this thing is flying around him, and he's traveling through the train in this long sort of panning shot and actually hits the Momomon character, which is the thing that saves him from a train crash. It's implausible, but also perfect in tone for the story we're telling about fate.
It's one of my favorite shots in the movie, and it's something that came together really late. We were trying to figure out how to do it and I went kind of old-school with it. We put Brad on a rig, and it's really just sort of like a pan where he's sitting in the chair and then we're up against the green screen and we're moving the camera around him and we're creating the rest of the world digitally, and we had already built a model of the train for other purposes. It was something that actually really came together quickly in the last minute, which sometimes your best ideas do.”
The Fall Guy (2024)
“My favorite shot in The Fall Guy is a real one-er, whereas Atomic Blonde was not an actual one-er. The opening scene where he's in the trailer with Jodie and we're establishing their relationship and he walks out and we're on set with this stunt man, and you're kind of feeling like you’re seeing a day in the life of Colt Seavers. I think it really works well in the sense that it sucks you into the story. You're seeing a guy at work, the only thing that's different about him is that he's got to go up an elevator, 10 stories or whatever, and then jump off the building.
But everything else is just a day at the office. That is not unlike any day on set. The crew comes up to you, you're talking, you're chit-chatting, and then to have it arrive at the top and actually have to go right into the stunt was a pretty daunting feat for Ryan and for anybody, I mean. For him to do it in one shot was pretty compelling, yeah.”
Any other film…. Oldboy (2003)
“Because I'm an action guy and maybe this is too expected, but I think the Oldboy hallway sequence is a great one to pick. It's just an inspiring piece of choreography and a bold choice to just stay in this sort of tableau and watch this brutal action take place. And again, the reason it's so impactful is it's this defining moment for this character’s escape and you're rooting for him so much at that moment. But there are so many other things going on. The graphic sensibility, the use of violence that Chan-wook Park does so well. That's probably my favorite...one of my favorite shots. It'd be hard to pick one.”
