Joe Rogan Experience #1995 - Chad Stahelski

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. NANarrator0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Get out. Chad, just get ... take ... oh.

   4. CSChad Stahelski0:16

      Is that how we're gonna start the show?

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Take a hit of that. Take a hit of that. We'll start the show. Just get in there.

   6. CSChad Stahelski0:20

      Oh, geez.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      (laughs)

   8. CSChad Stahelski0:22

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      And that's, that's not even a fresh one.

   10. CSChad Stahelski0:25

       Okay.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       When they're fresh, they's a little-

   12. CSChad Stahelski0:26

       I just wanted to do it twice to make sure that was real.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       Shout out to, uh, how do you say his name? Pre- Jujimufu?

   14. CSChad Stahelski0:31

       Jujimufu.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       Jujimufu for his-

   16. CSChad Stahelski0:33

       Ugh.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       ... smelling salts.

   18. CSChad Stahelski0:34

       Because it was fresh. He couldn't do that twice.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Do it, it's fresh. If it's fresh, you get, like, that close. And you're just like ...

   20. CSChad Stahelski0:40

       Yeah, no, I'm awake.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       That was a good one, though. Whoo!

   22. CSChad Stahelski0:42

       Definitely awake.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       I'm gonna bring these to the comedy mothership.

   24. NANarrator0:45

       All right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       I'm gonna see. I'm gonna see.

   26. CSChad Stahelski0:47

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a big blast right before I go on stage. It's supposed to wake up your central nervous system or something.

   28. CSChad Stahelski0:53

       Yeah, it sucks.

   29. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       I don't even know if there's any science to it.

   30. CSChad Stahelski0:55

       No, it just sucks.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CSChad Stahelski15:00

      the training mentality-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CSChad Stahelski15:01

      ... and just th- the combative alacrity that these guys have.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:05

      Yes.

   5. CSChad Stahelski15:05

      The ability to, to, to... I mean, they're insane athletes, number one, but to kick, punch, shoot-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:10

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CSChad Stahelski15:10

      ... and grapple and not miss a beat and get right back up. Like, you just watch them. I- i- i- it's almost choreography. That's how good they're, they're being trained. I mean, their, their zero-range d-... You know, before it used to be like jab, jab, jab till you can shoot it.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:21

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CSChad Stahelski15:21

      Now it's like they can change ranges on the fly. They're so good at it.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:25

       And they're, they're switching levels on you, like they're, they're doing one thing to set up a takedown, they're using takedowns to set up strikes. I mean, it's, it's amazing.

   11. CSChad Stahelski15:34

       It's mental.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:36

       It's so mental.

   13. CSChad Stahelski15:36

       It's scary how good it is.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       It really is because it's so much different than any other version of martial arts that existed before the UFC came along.

   15. CSChad Stahelski15:43

       Right. I think we have become so divided.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CSChad Stahelski15:46

       You know, you were just the kicker, you were just the puncher.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       Right.

   19. CSChad Stahelski15:49

       I- it was almost a stylistic civil war going on, like, "My Kung Fu can beat your Kung Fu." Or-

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:54

       Well, yeah.

   21. CSChad Stahelski15:55

       ... "My kicking will beat your punching," or my- like, you're like, "What?" (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:57

       What did you start training in?

   23. CSChad Stahelski15:59

       I was originally a kr- uh, judo first. I was... Did a lot of judo back when I... Just, like, when I was 10 to, like, 16, then I started karate. It was like a Kyokushinkai, Koko Kondo karate, and j- and Japanese Jujitsu.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       Mm.

   25. CSChad Stahelski16:10

       Did that all the way till I came to... I went to school at USC, um, from Massachusetts, and I got here and I bumped into this guy, Bert Richardson, who was a big student under Dan Inosanto.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       Sure. Yeah.

   27. CSChad Stahelski16:20

       And Bert was teaching, like, a... Just a Kali class, Kali and, and-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       Mm.

   29. CSChad Stahelski16:23

       ... and Silat over at USC, and I met him and I was a big fan of Dan Inosanto, you know, from all the-

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       Sure.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. CSChad Stahelski30:00

      we got Keanu Reeves, right? I know we're a first-time stunt guys, but it's a, it's an action movie, right?" And they say, "Okay." And, uh, but, "And we're g- he's gonna shoot all this stuff. And so his wife dies of natural causes." Like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bad guys don't kill her." Like, "No, no, no, no." "But they kill his puppy." I'm like, "Yeah." "And he kills all the people because of the puppy, but not the ... What?" Like, they're like, "Well, what happens next?" I'm like, "No, that's it. The next 45 minutes are like just, you know, rampage." And yeah, yeah, no, we didn't, we didn't sell it very, very much. (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      (laughs)

   3. CSChad Stahelski30:28

      So-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      But they must be kicking themselves now.

   5. CSChad Stahelski30:30

      Yeah, well, uh, Lionsgate bought us internationally, and then they sold us to domestic. And, um, since then, you know, we've gone through a couple regime changes at Lionsgate, but now, like, the last one was really cool. Like, everyone's on board, like Joe Drake, Nathan Cahane, Matt Leonetti, um, you know, um, Adam Fogelson. Everybody that's part of the regime, they really pushed this last one. They, they knew John Wick was cool, they loved the third one, and they got on board. But for the first, first round, it w- we had ... Once we sold it, the movie came out. Before it even came out, there was like this lag. They bought it, and then there's like six months before we hit theaters. I think Dave went off and did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 9 or whatever it was. I went off and did like The Grimsby Brothers, or Brothers Grimsby, Sacha Baron Cohen movie, second unit down in South Africa for like five months because I was broke. Um, it was pretty funny. Yeah, we, we thought we'd never direct again, so we were like, "We better go find some stunt jobs." (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:19

      (laughs)

   7. CSChad Stahelski31:20

      And then it worked out. And then, um, like, uh, not even a month after it had opened, Keanu called up and he go, "Hey, uh, they called me about doing number two, but I'll only do it with, with you guys. You in?" And I was like, "Are you kidding? Yes. Uh, fuck, we're in. Whatever it takes."

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:34

      Wow.

   9. CSChad Stahelski31:35

      Yeah. It was-

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:35

       That's awesome.

   11. CSChad Stahelski31:35

       ... completely nutty, man.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:37

       Yeah. And number two just picks up right where number one left off.

   13. CSChad Stahelski31:40

       Yeah. And we just were like, "Okay."

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       And right off the jump, like, opening scene.

   15. CSChad Stahelski31:43

       Yeah. We had no idea what to do.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       Yeah.

   17. CSChad Stahelski31:44

       I was, like, trying to figure out ideas for that. We're like, "Ah." You know, it's like the, the sensory deprivation tank. It was just go into a room and not, not leave till we came up with an idea. (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:54

       (laughs) So you decided just the, the hunt for his car?

   19. CSChad Stahelski31:56

       Yeah. Well, no, it was funny-

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:57

       And then he destroys it. (laughs)

   21. CSChad Stahelski31:57

       ... I was sitting with my, with my now partner, Alex Young. We, we were doing a second unit gig. We were doing Agent 47, the second one, whatever that was called. I think it was Agent 47. Right? In Berlin. And we're sitting there, and we had got the call to, to, "Okay, we gotta come up with an idea." And my partner at the time, or, or my partner now, um, Alex Young was sitting there. And he's like, "You gotta get the car back, man. He lost his fucking car." I'm like, "No one's gonna care about the car." I'm like-

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:22

       (laughs)

   23. CSChad Stahelski32:22

       ... "Dude." He was like, he was like... He fucking total loves muscle cars. He's like, "You gotta put the car. Every guy he kills, he's gonna get a piece of the car back. He's getting his fucking car back." (laughs) I'm like, "That's a great opening. He's gonna get the car back."

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:33

       Yeah.

   25. CSChad Stahelski32:34

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:34

       No, when he sits in the car, and he's, like, touching the steering wheel-

   27. CSChad Stahelski32:36

       And he's just, you could tell. He's like, "Ah."

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:38

       ... and he gets the keys.

   29. CSChad Stahelski32:38

       But that's Keanu. Like, Keanu bring... Like, that's not just John, that's Keanu. Keanu loves cars. He loves bikes. He loves the discipline of it. He loves... Like, that's why he's got Arch Motorcycles, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:48

       Mm-hmm.
4. 45:00 – 59:14

   On his beard. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

   2. CSChad Stahelski45:00

      On his beard.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      It's such a crazy scene.

   4. CSChad Stahelski45:02

      Come on. That's a real beard there, by the way. That's his real beard.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:04

      Yeah, that's his real beard.

   6. CSChad Stahelski45:06

      He's awesome.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:08

      Oh.

   8. CSChad Stahelski45:08

      Yeah. No, super fun. I mean, that's always the trick. But like, if you get the, the people you like around you, they kind of give you a hand. So we had a lot of... We called in a lot of favors and a lot of friends. And, you know, they all know it's your first time, like the crew and the cast. Like Ian McShane, every- everybody kind of knew. Keanu had gone out. Keanu had one day off on John Wick 1. And, you know, New York City base camp is like blocks away from the set. So me and my partner, Dave Leitch, um, it's Ian McShane's first day on set. So we're, it's like 4:00 in the morning. We're gonna walk over to his trailer, introduce ourselves, say, "Hi, how you doing?" I mean, it's kind of a big deal for us. Keanu's sitting outside his trailer at like 4:30 in the morning, it's his one day off, and we're like, "What are you doing here?" He's like, "I just thought he'd come in early and talk to Ian and, you know, warm up for you a little bit." (laughs) And we're like, "That's what kind of guy he is." So he kind of greased the wheels for us. So he walks in, and, you know, Ian's like, "So I hear it's your first movie." (laughs) Uh, "Don't worry, we'll get you through it." You know, everybody was so cool, 'cause we just kind of admitted we didn't know what we were doing, and we wanted to learn, and, and get our thing going. (clears throat)

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:09

      How difficult is it to take the dailies and then edit it down to a film? Like the editing process?

   10. CSChad Stahelski46:16

       You know, to put the assembly together, to actually just put clips together, it's, it's not that hard. I mean, good, bad, you know, we could take a couple shots at it. It's to... And you don't know this until you try it a couple times. It's like, where's the actual ... Like, how much can you take away? It's like chipping away at the, at the statue, right? It's not adding things, it's taking away things to really shine what's good. You know, lose some of the good to get to the great. So y- you don't want to cut your action, you don't want to cut any scenes, but then you watch the movie as a whole. And this is what I'd say to any other editor or directors out there that are just getting started. If you just edit a scene or you just edit a sequence or you just edit, like, a, an act, and then watch it and go, "I got it, I got it," um, you still haven't got it, 'cause there's this thing, we've all felt it in movies, about pacing, right? There's a way a three-hour movie can feel like two hours, there's a way a one-hour movie can feel like three hours. It's all about the pacing, right? So, what, what I learned from it is, you gotta sit, and every time you make... When you're in that place where you can just make these one-minute or two-minute changes, you gotta take the time to sit back and watch the whole thing. No pee breaks, no phone calls.

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:18

       Hmm.

   12. CSChad Stahelski47:18

       No Th- And that's what we did on Wick 4 a lot, was like, everyone kept telling me, "It's too long, it's too..." Like, "I know, but let's just watch it." And my editorial would hate me, 'cause like twice a week, we're like, everybody's watching it.

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:27

       Hmm.

   14. CSChad Stahelski47:27

       You know, like, we're watching this. And you'd have to sit and get through the two and a half hours of it. And that's the only way you know. And then you're like, still, "W- we're not there. This is too fast, this is..."

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:35

       But is it hard to, when you're in the middle of it, is it hard to see it?

   16. CSChad Stahelski47:40

       Yeah. I, I-

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:41

       Because you've seen it so many times, is it hard to see it the way another person's gonna see it?

   18. CSChad Stahelski47:45

       It's like, it's like knowing you're lost, but also not being nervous by it. It's being lost in a good way, 'cause you can feel it, right? You can feel there's something cool there, and you can feel like ... I just go back to being an audience member. What do I wish I had seen in Star Wars? Which-

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:00

       Push that microphone up to your face.

   20. CSChad Stahelski48:01

       Sorry.

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:02

       That's okay.

   22. CSChad Stahelski48:02

       Uh, you know, you, you're trying to, trying to figure it out, right? And that's, that's the exciting part. You know there's something tingly there, you know there's something good, but what is it? Um, it's kind of, you can't be afraid to try, 'cause, uh, now, digitally, we can go back and forth and have 20 versions of the movie. Like, it's not like the old days-

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       Right.

   24. CSChad Stahelski48:18

       ... where you cut film and glue it. (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:20

       Yeah.

   26. CSChad Stahelski48:21

       So, we would always make a new ... We, we'd try ... I, I've always had good editors. I've always had young, hungry, great, great editors that wanted to experiment. And you, they swing big. So let's just, uh, "Can we do this movie an hour and 20 minutes?" And they'll do a version of it. "Can we do this hour ... Can we do this an hour and 45? What's the version of it?" And you'll start to see things that you obviously hate, but you'll also see choices that you could make to tighten things up. It's, and I'm sure everybody you talk to will have a different process, but like, I think it's both terrifying and exciting. And, uh, again, it's hard to explain. You can feel like you're on the right path even though you don't know it. Does that make sense?

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:56

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CSChad Stahelski48:57

       And you just have to keep trying till you watch it in the room with the sound, and you're like, "That's it. That, that's the movie I wanna see."

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:04

       Did you bring in people that hadn't seen it before-

   30. CSChad Stahelski49:06

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:05:06