In new action movie Fall Guy, Ryan Gosling was dragged across the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 30mph
Exclusive: Ryan Gosling and David Leitch talk that big Sydney Harbour Bridge stunt
The Fall Guy centers on a Hollywood stunt performer, so it's no surprise that the movie features some ambitious action. One such scene even saw Ryan Gosling, who plays main character Colt Seavers, dragged across the Sydney Harbour Bridge at a whopping 30 miles per hour.
"That was not something you could really practice, obviously, because we couldn't get access to the bridge, and we only had access for like an hour," Gosling tells Total Film in our new issue out on Thursday March 28, which features The Fall Guy on the cover. "It was really smartly scheduled, because it was at 6:30 in the morning or something. So I was barely awake. And I showed up, and just got dragged across the bridge a few times, and then went back to my trailer to sleep. And I thought, 'That was a weird dream I was having. Or was it a nightmare?' [laughs]"
Another big-ticket stunt – which takes place right at the start of the film, and leads to an injury that puts Colt out of action – features a vertiginous fall in a descender (an abseiling-like rig that allows the performer to fall at speed before braking).
"Ryan was game, obviously, to do a lot of things," says director David Leitch. "We dragged him across the Harbour Bridge at 30 miles an hour. We put him on top of a truck, and drove through the streets of Sydney. He was really game to do these stunts. But what was even fresher was that he understood the big picture, and was also really gracious in celebrating the doubles that were making him look good, and wanting to celebrate them in the movie itself. He did some really big stuff. That opening descender, to be candid, was no joke... It's 180ft, I think, or 185ft. It's just pretty intimidating."
The Fall Guy is released on May 2. And you can read more about it and a whole lot else besides in the new issue of Total Film when it hits shelves and digital newsstands on Thursday, March 28.
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I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at 12DOVE, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.