THE BOURNE LEGACY – Production Notes - I Watch Mike

the stunt coordinators and Dan Bradley were on The
Avengers and the three movies I did back-to-back right
before this movie. Working with them was seamless.
I had learned hand-to-hand combat on Avengers, so I
took that over to this and actually used patterns. I had a
nice running start.”
“Having Dan Bradley involved in the Bourne
movies has been an enormous part of their success,”
Crowley raves. “People love the locations, they love
the characters, but they really love the action. Dan
invented action for these movies that nobody had ever
seen before, and action that people have imitated after
it was done.”
Gilroy is just as effusive in his praise: “Dan’s
the Michelangelo of action. He’s an amazing guy, an
imaginative nut who has found this incredible job for
himself helping out directors like myself to make us
look tougher than we really are. I made sure to get with
him early on, and I told him, ‘Dan, if I’m going to do
this, I need you there with me.’”
Of course, Bradley traveled to Manila months
before shooting began in order to tailor the action
sequences to the locations. “When we looked at the
locations, he was with us, and then he said, ‘I’m going
to stay behind for a week,’” Crowley recalls. “We
waited for Dan to just sit and meditate and come up
with great ideas. He’s come up with some things that
have never been done before.”
Bradley’s biggest task was to choreograph a
motorcycle chase that takes place on the crowded streets
of Manila, much of it filmed with Renner in the rider’s
seat. “When you’re doing something in which there’s
somebody on a motorcycle and they’re not wearing a
helmet, you have to have the principal actor do that,”
says Crowley. “So we had Jeremy very much involved,
and Rachel as well.”
Luckily for the production, Renner is an avid
motorcyclist. “When I first met Jeremy, we were
going to have some practice sessions, and he showed
up on one of the fastest motorcycles in the world,
– 35 –
which was one of 10 that he owned,” remembers
Crowley. “We felt comfortable that we didn’t have to
train him. He has the bones of an action hero. When I
see him, I see that silent strength of Steve McQueen.
When he gets on a motorcycle, then he becomes even
more like him.”
Renner also put Weisz at ease as they worked with
Bradley. “Being on the back of a bike with Jeremy,
I felt completely safe,” she says. “He was doing
wheelies, skids and slides—those kind of stunts that
he’s very good at.”
The filmmakers were also impressed when Weisz
displayed a previously unseen side: that of an action
star. “She’s a great actress and has shown all this
incredible talent playing characters who are typically
not action characters,” says Crowley. But Weisz insisted
on as much rehearsal on the motorcycle as possible
and performed much of the stunt work herself. Laughs
the producer: “Your heart still goes into your throat
when you see her going 45, 50 miles an hour on the
motorcycle with Jeremy.”
Prior to filming in Manila, Bradley’s team spent
several weeks rehearsing the motorcycle stunts, while
special equipment was brought in, including Bradley’s
own “Go Mobile,” a custom-made vehicle upon
which several cameras may be mounted. Bradley
also recruited several expert motorcyclists, including
professional stunt driver JEAN-PIERRE GOY,
arguably one of the best in the world, to double on
the most dangerous stunts. All were pleased to have
an actual Batman on board for the production, as Goy
was the only one able to drive the two-wheeled street
machine called the Bat-Pod for scenes in The Dark
Knight. Indeed, he returned to his key role for this
summer’s The Dark Knight Rises.
Bradley’s team also retrofitted several jeepneys, a
minibus that is the most common form of transportation
in the Philippines. “The jeepneys were our heritage
from World War II,” Juban explains. “When jeeps were
left behind by the Americans, the Filipinos made the