The Fall Guy Director Explains How Brad Pitt Caused Him to Crash During a Stunt on The Mexican

Director David Leitch once managed to crash a stunt car after becoming a little too excited at the fact he was doubling for Brad Pitt. Before stepping behind the camera, Lietch worked as a stuntman in numerous movies, including the 2001 movie The Mexican, which starred Pitt and Julia Roberts.

While Leitch has since worked with Pitt on several movies, including Bullet Train – which he directed – twenty years ago, he was a little more starstruck by the presence of the Hollywood A-lister, and it probably caused him to lose his job on the movie. While speaking at Collider’s Directors on Directing panel at WonderCon, Leitch recalled:

“I talked a little bit about this on the Bullet Train premiere. On The Mexican, doubling Brad [Pitt] when I crashed. We had two El Caminos… I accidentally crashed the one El Camino into the other El Camino.

“I was really just supposed to drive through [the] stoplight, but I got really excited because, ‘I’m doubling Brad Pitt!’ I hit the brake and I hit some dirt and I lost control of the car, and one direction was video village where everyone was getting out of the way, and the other direction, in slow motion, was the El Camino. I was just like, ‘ I guess I’m gonna wreck the El Camino.’ [Laughs] But I remember the stunt coordinator coming up to me, and he’s like, ‘The one mistake you did was when you got out of the car, you should’ve yelled at transpo, ‘This thing doesn’t have any brakes!’ But I didn’t do that. I think I was let go from that film pretty quickly after that.”

David Leitch Goes Back to His Roots with The Fall Guy

Not everyone sticks with the same career in Hollywood, and Lietch is no exception. Before directing several popular box office success stories, he was on the lens side of the camera, risking his safety so the elite actors of the business could go about their work without risking it damaging their looks.

With over 80 credits to his name – as well as a number of uncredited scenes – Leitch’s stunt work ranged from TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to dramas like Fight Club, and to blockbuster films like The Matrix Reloaded. After getting a taste for working behind the camera as co-director of John Wick, Leitch has gone on to direct Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw among others. However, his latest movie, The Fall Guy, takes him right back to his roots in the world of film stunts.

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Ryan Gosling’s The Fall Guy Met With Rave Reviews, Lands Promising Rotten Tomatoes Score

The Fall Guy has debuted at SXSW, and it sounds like the action rom-com audiences have been waiting for.

As his love letter to the industry that made him, The Fall Guy stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with Gosling playing a retired stuntman who replaces a missing actor in a new film, only to find that things aren’t as simple as he expected. During the filming of the movie, the production managed to break a world record for the most cannon rolls in a car during one scene.