Cyrus Langhorne
Reason 4: The Stunts
The fourth reason is because of the stunts. We wanted to create action that would enhance the writing and not come up with action for action’s sake. Things like the bear attack, we wanted to make it really intense and scary and we looked at how we were mapping out what we were going to do in that room when they were all tied to the chairs. Looking at the images and the visual effects and all of the artwork, we saw how massive that bear is and how we could interact with the cast with that bear. Obviously we didn’t have a big bear costume or anything like that. We had a very tall stunt man and he worked on his training and animal work and how bears move and we adapted that to our bear. He had a bear head which was great to use for interacting with the cast. I think that not only helped them with the intensity of the scene but when it came to the action, they had something to react to. The alligator attack was us wanting to create something that was sinister and terrifying and that was by not actually seeing what was in the water to begin with. We had Tessa Thompson and she was phenomenal and she was in that dark, murky water and we had her on lines and wires underneath. We dragged her under and then she came up. Then we dragged her from left to right and she did the rest. She was absolutely brilliant.
