Open Post: Hosted By Elizabeth Olsen Saying Doing Her Own Stunts Is “A Waste Of Everyone’s Time”
Last night, Elizabeth Olsen went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote her new show, Love & Death, the second limited series about axe murderer Candy Montgomery in under a year (Hulu’s version starred Jessica Biel). During the interview, Elizabeth gabbed about making Marvel movies, and she told Stephen Colbert that it’s “ridiculous” that she does most of her stunts. She adds that “it’s a waste of everyone’s time,” cuz stunt doubles do it “so much better.” Elisabeth, stop wasting our time and say what you really mean: fuck Tom Cruise!
Variety reports that Elizabeth says she doesn’t always love doing her own stunts. She says her stomach “leaves” her when she gets hoisted into the air, and sometimes that funny feeling makes her laugh:
“It’s like, I guess, the joy people get on roller coasters, which I don’t get, but people love that feeling,” Olsen said about doing her own stunts. “I’ve definitely recovered from my giddiness. Sometimes I’m just like, ‘Okay, how many more of these do you want? I can do this all day’ kind of thing. But sometimes I get a little freaked out.”
Olsen continued, “There is one in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ where I had to be dropped from 30 feet up and land. They wanted to drop me pretty quickly so that it looked like it had an impact, but I kept landing like Peter Pan, kind of like fencing? I was like, ‘Just use the double. This is so ridiculous — there is a double for a reason. Like, face replace…’ They do it all the time.”
Elizabeth says the filmmakers ended up using her Peter Pan-style landing, which surprised her:
“It’s ridiculous. And, we’ve had so much technology grow through these movies, and they just chose to really use me for every stunt… I didn’t do all of them, but I did most of them, which is a waste of everyone’s time, because a stunt double does so much better.”
Here’s Elizabeth’s interview. The stunt stuff is around the 3:20 mark:
I asked my partner, who works in film, what he thinks of all this, and he went into full nerd mode and really broke it down. He says it’s always better to use the “realies” (the real actors), because then they don’t have to try to frame the stunt double’s face out of the shot. Also, replacing the actor’s face digitally is expensive and doesn’t always look great. However, he says that when actors insist on doing dangerous stunts, it’s a bitch, cuz if they injure themselves, everybody’s jobs are in danger. See: the production of Mission: Impossible 6 being forced to go on hiatus because Tom Cruise broke his ankle doing a jump. He says that, in that case, the crew was probably pissed at Tom for fucking with their time and money. Or maybe Tommy only hires his Scientologist disciples, and they weren’t even getting a salary. “The Messiah acknowledging our existence is payment enough! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to scrub toilets with a toothbrush…”
Pic: Marvel