Rob Marshall Quotes

Coming from an action background, I always approach the action sequences in any script as kind of placeholders.

An action choreographer is kind of like a dance choreographer. You choreograph the moves and you let the director, cinematographer take into positioning their cameras.

I was a stuntman for over fifteen years.

Everyone who shoots dance sequences does it in a different way. Everyone who shoots fight sequences does it in a different way.

I personally think a fight scene is the most cinematic thing you can witness because all the elements of filmmaking come together, you know, with the camera speed changes, editing, make up effects and general smoke and mirrors of trying to make it look like you are hitting someone when you're not. It's filmmaking in it's purest form, I think.

What really helps a guy to become an action hero today is the directing of the movie. All those fast cuts.

In Hong Kong, particularly, we craft this art for decades. The action choreographer actually is the action director. He takes over and he choreographs with - by himself or with his team, and place the camera where he feels cinematic effect to bring out that choreography.

Since very early in my career, I have always did my own stunt fighting.

But I loved doing the physical stuff for 'Dredd.' I have to give a shout-out to the stunt team that I worked with.

In the stunt world, fights and vehicles are often two different disciplines.

My son, Tony Vincent, is a stuntman. He doubles for Jim Caviezel on 'Person of Interest.' He works really hard.

Jen Murray, my stunt person, is totally comfortable getting thrown into a cabinet and onto the ground or getting hit by a car. I, on the other hand, am not. Nor would it look great on film, so she does it.

Shooting a fight is like shooting any other scene. You have to tell a story using a very specific choreography.

Stunts have to be meticulously arranged. Choreographed. You could take a fight scene and set it to music.

In 'The Matrix,' you see the fight between Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburne. It's an amazing fight. But I know that they've rehearsed it for months beforehand. Because in some of the moves you can see them anticipating blocks before they actually happen.

Almost always, when we have fights in movies, they're done in these strange rooms where nothing gets broken. It's almost like they're in padded cells.

With John Wick we wanted to do something like that. So rather than punching, kicks - and for the kind of way we wanted to shoot it, which is longer takes - our initial instinct was let's go with a throwing or grappling arm.

Car chases are as painstaking to make as they are fun to watch. They take a lot of time, and you have to keep the energy up.

Anytime you get action legends together, it has to be a classic.

I would love to do my own stunts, but stunts are not something I have a lot of experience with.

On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!'

I want to be able to do more of my own stunts and really be proficient with my weapons.

I always loved stage combat at drama school so I can't wait to get on set and kick some evil monsters into the next dimension!

For action to work, you need an awful lot of coverage. Because if you do a fight sequence, you really need to be able to creed the energy in the edit or augment the energy in the edit. So you need to really, really cover it.

There's never enough time to shoot battle scenes or fight scenes. It always feels rushed. Anytime horses are involved, it eats up time like crazy.