(You can see the stunt at 1:20 in the above video.)
Luckily for Stahelski, Silver, the Wachowskis, and audiences, he didn’t miss! But man, the stress of trying to pull that stunt off while knowing you only get two takes—two very expensive takes—would have been more than enough to psych most people out, even without getting threatened by a major Hollywood movie producer. So full kudos to Stahelski for pulling it off, since his work on The Matrix helped make it a blockbuster, which led to him starting his own stunt company and eventually becoming a movie director, too.
He’s got some other great anecdotes about making the movie—including how he showed up for his first audition with a bleeding head wound—as well as some enjoyably enthusiastic thoughts about how The Matrix transformed action movies, so the full interview is absolutely worth the read.
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