Jensen Ackles | Stunt School | Men's Health - video Dailymotion

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Jensen Ackles | Stunt School | Men's Health

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00:00A favorite stunt.

00:02I can tell you my least favorite stunt.

00:03My character in Supernatural as Michael the Archangel

00:07is fighting Lucifer.

00:08And instead of fighting on the ground,

00:10we decided to take it to the air.

00:13Big mistake.

00:14We just looked like marionette dolls.

00:20Hey, I'm Jensen Ackles.

00:21In my career, I have fought zombies, killed vampires,

00:25had fights in tuxedos, jumped from moving vehicle

00:28to moving vehicle.

00:29And we are going to go through

00:31some of my most memorable stunts.

00:33Memorable to me because, well, you'll see why.

00:45This is Countdown.

00:48So Countdown actually opens up on my character

00:50in a prison yard.

00:52It was the very first day of filming.

00:55We were shooting out in Palm Desert, north of Los Angeles.

00:59It was summertime.

01:01I believe it got up to 117 degrees that day.

01:04What better environment to shoot a prison yard brawl?

01:07We got into it, got down and dirty.

01:09It's the first time I've ever used weight plates in a fight scene.

01:14I did break an ankle with a weight bar.

01:15That was fun.

01:16Not actually.

01:17It's all smoke and mirrors, people.

01:19But it was disgustingly hot.

01:22I think we did have a crew member go down.

01:24We were all wildly exhausted.

01:26There's an interesting thing that happens between action and cut.

01:29The heat goes away.

01:31The world goes away.

01:32Everything goes away.

01:33And you are simply focused on the dance that is a fight scene.

01:37But man, when they yelled cut, that heat came back real fast.

01:41It set kind of the tone of, like, this isn't going to be a nice and easy air

01:45conditioned show to shoot.

01:47It was an absolute blast to film.

01:49There were a lot of heavy stunt sequences.

01:51So I think everybody knew what they were in for after that first day.

01:54We were like, well, it can't get worse than this.

01:55And it never did.

01:56That was literally, I think, the worst day.

01:59Another really fun sequence, we go undercover in a big consulate party.

02:03Of course, what a better opportunity to get into a massive fight scene than when you're wearing

02:08a ridiculous tuxedo.

02:09I had a big hand-to-hand combat scene with one of the security guards.

02:14Suits are restrictive, just the mobility aspect of it.

02:17I do remember there was a wall that was a drywall that I was supposed to just kind of put

02:23the stunt devil's head through.

02:24And he looked at me just before the take, and he was like, hey, man, send me.

02:28Stunt folks know what that means.

02:30And so I was like, all right.

02:31I tossed him as hard as I could on that wall, and his head didn't go in the wall.

02:35His entire torso went through the wall.

02:37That was a good one.

02:39I've known enough stunt guys to know that they mean it.

02:43They don't feel like they're performing at the caliber that they want to perform at if

02:48they're not getting that extra energy.

02:51You know, a lot of times, some actors can be like, oh, I don't want to hurt the guy.

02:54These guys are oddly indestructible.

02:56They're cut from a different cloth.

02:57They, like, those guys are just wired differently.

03:00They don't feel like they've done the job unless they have felt it.

03:03And these guys take hits all the time.

03:04So in order for them to feel it, they got to go hard.

03:08It's fun working with those guys because it reminds me that I am an actor and not a stunt guy.

03:13Sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm a stunt.

03:14I can do stunt.

03:15I'm like, no, those guys are beautifully crazy.

03:20This is The Boys.

03:22So the end of season three, all the characters get together and all hell breaks loose.

03:29Soldier Boy goes up against Homelander.

03:31Ryan comes in and Soldier Boy hits Ryan.

03:33And then Butcher turns on Soldier Boy.

03:36And now you've got Soldier Boy versus Butcher and Homelander.

03:39You know, we're destroying sets.

03:43One of the coolest things was that we did this practically.

03:46I grab Butcher's collar and I actually throw him up and over my head and slam him into the ground.

03:52There was an actual stunt double on a wire.

03:54And I grab him and this grown man comes up and over my head.

03:59And I just slam him to the ground.

04:01And for the second time, I was like, this poor guy.

04:04You know, it was superhero shit.

04:05So that's what you're going to do.

04:07There was just a lot of rehearsal and a lot of work filming that particular sequence.

04:12We might have shot that for two weeks.

04:14It was a lot of fun.

04:14I mean, there was some wire work at the end.

04:16And Queen Mae comes and hits me and we go flying out the window.

04:21And it had all the elements.

04:22And I was somehow managed to be in the center of the madness.

04:27It was epic for sure.

04:29When you're destroying furniture and sets and breaking, you know, walls and things are crashing all around you,

04:36they will have, you know, a double or a triple of a desk or a chair or an area that they can,

04:44if something bad happens, they can go in and try to, like,

04:47patch it back together or put another chair in or whatever.

04:51And we would do that, you know, just even if we nailed it on the first take,

04:55every actor's favorite word, let's go again for safety.

04:58I guess that's a sentence, not a word.

05:00So they do have doubles of a lot.

05:02I mean, I can't talk about season five right now.

05:05There are some big ones in season five.

05:06I will say that.

05:07But to talk about the ones that I can't talk about.

05:10Herogasm.

05:12That episode was also another one that took an extensive amount of rehearsal.

05:17It was the first real, I think the first real big fight between Homelander and Butcher.

05:21Obviously, I was there getting in the mix, again, destroying the set.

05:24That place was just rubble by the time we were done with it.

05:27John Koyama, our stunt coordinator, who won an Emmy for his work that season.

05:32A brilliant man, brilliant mind, and has an incredible team behind him.

05:36They put together just stellar sequences.

05:39So getting to work with him, getting to work alongside those guys, collaborating.

05:43They'll come up with the choreography.

05:44They'll shoot a video of it, and then they'll send it to me.

05:48I'll take a look at my part of it and just kind of, I won't do this in public because I look like

05:53I've lost my mind, but I'll kind of go through the motion and just kind of feel if there's something

05:58that doesn't feel right.

05:59Instead of, like, two rights, it feels better to go right, left, right, or adding a cape pull.

06:06The stunt guys are just total pros, and they're like, yeah, sure, we'll add a left.

06:10So a lot of that stuff, I was encouraged to, like, give feedback on.

06:13Not wanting to be like, oh, this sucks.

06:16I wouldn't take a hit like that.

06:17No.

06:17I want to try to serve their vision as much as I possibly can, just like a director.

06:22And so whatever I can do to kind of facilitate that, but also kind of make it my own,

06:27that's really where the collaboration comes in.

06:31This is Supernatural.

06:35There's a lot to choose from.

06:36Stunt-wise, with that show, we did just about everything.

06:39We did from hand-to-hand combat to wire work, weapons training.

06:43There was a lot.

06:44I was a bit younger then and felt maybe a little invincible.

06:48And so I was throwing myself and throwing myself into things and doing all the things

06:53that a young, excited actor would probably want to do.

06:56I'm like, ah, I'm young enough, I'll heal.

06:58As the show progressed, I started taking a little bit more of an interest in how the stunts were

07:03choreographed and how they were designed and what exactly my body was going to be going through.

07:08But it wasn't just out of, like, self-preservation.

07:11I wanted to make it even more cinematic.

07:14There was an episode called Atomic Monster where I got really involved in designing the whole

07:19opening sequence.

07:20Kind of took some inspiration from the John Wick films that were out at that time and

07:25maybe stole a few things.

07:26But hey, if you're going to steal, steal from the best, right?

07:28We tried to do the whole thing in one shot.

07:31Usually they'll break it up.

07:32Like if you see a long fight scene, it's usually broken up into sections.

07:36And you can shoot that little section.

07:38Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

07:39Make sure you got it right.

07:40Move on to the next section.

07:41So that was one of those where you couldn't break it up.

07:43So that's why it still resonates in my head.

07:46You know, I'm grabbing guys and basically shooting them in their chin.

07:50Taking out guys down the hall.

07:51There were some somersaults.

07:53There were some flips.

07:54There was some hand-to-hand knocking.

07:56Give me a long stunt day any day.

07:57I'll take it.

07:58That's stunts for me.

08:00And I've got many more.

08:02Stay tuned.

08:06Stay tuned.

Jensen Ackles | Stunt School | Men's Health

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