Along with its dark, raunchy humor and proud disregard for the constraints of traditional superhero movies, one of the main selling points of Marvel’s fabulously successful Deadpool was its blistering, breakneck action sequences. As Rolling Stone found out recently, the film was a dream come true for fight coordinator and stuntman Philip J. Silvera, whose rock ‘em sock ‘em resume includes such titles as The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3, X-Men: First Class, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Basically, when Hollywood wants to make a movie about violence-prone people running around in form-fitting jumpsuits, Silvera is the man they have on speed dial. The experimental action sequences in Deadpool have been in the planning stages for years. “This is something I always wanted to do,” Silvera says, “but didn’t know how to go about it.” The movie combines the fight coordinator’s three loves: comic books, martial arts, and storytelling.
The son of a boxer and a martial artist in his own right, Silvera says that it was crucial that the action scenes in Deadpool be motivated by the plot and the characters, rather than the other way around. He didn’t want to do stunts involving wires, for instance, just because they look cool. Storytelling was key. This particular project afforded Silvera and his colleagues the opportunity to try bold new things, however, because of the nature of the title character. Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool experiences pain and has to be somewhat smart about the moves he makes, but he doesn’t die. That gives him a confidence factor in fight scenes that allows him to walk right up to opponents without fear of reprisal. As Silvera puts it: “There is that ‘I don’t give a fuck’ type element to it.”
[via Laughing Squid]