Turning to one of your other water-cooler moments, with the church fight, how did you nail down the technical aspects of pulling off the scene?
With a lot of prep. I have a brilliant second unit director/fight choreographer, Brad Allan, and we just sat down. I said, Brad, I want it to be a ballet of slaughter. I dont want quick cuts. I want the camera to float around. We looked at lots of references, and he went off and designed the fight. He brings it back to me on video, and we then cut some stuff, changed the order of things. Eventually, it evolves until its all really planned. Then you go off and shoot it. The real work, the real brain sweating is coming up with the idea and figuring out how to do it.
Did you use tricky editing or special effects to string the long takes together?
Its all for real. I didnt want any wirework. Poor Colin was out there for six months training and training and training. Thats why I call it a ballet because in a weird way, fight sequences are just dances. We wanted to do it so that we could make it more hypnotic in the length of it. People say, Oh, its too long. Im going, No, its not too long. Its making a point. Normally, a scene like that youd have one hundred cuts: left, right, and center, shaking the camera around so you have no idea whats going on. Thats why I think people are surprised by it, because you can actually watch whats happening and just follow it as a story.