Once upon a time, Gareth Evans was a name unknown to most of the world. Then, the Welsh-born filmmaker directed the martial arts action classics “Merantau”, “The Raid: Redemption”, and “The Raid 2”, and became one of the most respected action filmmakers of all time. After a seven-year break from movies (during which he moved into the TV world with the British series “Gangs of London”), Gareth returns with his new high-octane action-cop movie “Havoc” on Netflix. Of course, you don’t get the Gareth Evans-pedigree of action without a top tier stunt coordinator on-board, and “Havoc” has exactly that in Jude Poyer.
Hailing from the U.K., Jude has brought his decades of experiences in martial arts to his work in stunts and fight choreography in both Hong Kong movies and Western action films. His credits as either stunt performer, stunt coordinator, or fight choreographer include “Knock Off”, “The Medallion”, “Gen-Y Cops”, “So Close” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, “Ip Man 4: The Finale”, “Mayhem!” “The Turtle & the Sea”, the aforementioned “Gangs of London”, and many others. With these and other projects, Jude has had the chance to work alongside the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, the late Corey Yuen, Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Shifu Yan Lei of Shaolin Temple UK, and Gareth Evans himself, with Jude consistently bringing his fortitude as a martial artist and keen eye for stunts and fight choreography.
Today, Jude sits down with KFK to talk about the making of “Havoc”, working alongside director Gareth Evans and leading man Tom Hardy, and bringing aboard MMA great Michelle “The Karate Hottie” Waterson as the movie’s show-stealing, butt-kicking assassin!
Hi Jude, hope you’re doing well and welcome to Kung Fu Kingdom!
Hi Brad, thanks for heaving me today. I’m familiar with the site, so we’ll probably get a bit geeky and Hong Kong-focused today!
Thanks Jude, that’s great to hear and we definitely will! Well, let’s go ahead and dive in on how you came aboard “Havoc” as the movie’s action designer and stunt coordinator?
Well, I’ve been working with Gareth Evans for quite a few years. The first time was on “Apostle”, which was the first project that Gareth made after his movies in Indonesia. That was a folk-lore horror film, but it had some moments of fighting and action, and he wanted somebody as a fight coordinator who understood his references and his way of shooting, because Gareth films much more like a Hong Kong filmmaker, in that every shot and every edit is specific and basically thought out ahead of time. We don’t just do some choreography, and then on the day, point a bunch of cameras at it, and then figure months later the rhythms of the sequence.
So, we worked very well together on “Apostle”, and our next project together was the first season of “Gangs of London”, and that was much more involving. Much more action, much more stunts, and we worked very comfortably together with my action design team. It’s a very collaborative process where we’re not just looking at what choreography is cool and what stunts might be exciting to watch, but storytelling through action, motivation, character, and also how to make it look good and find the rhythms and the musicality within those sequences, because Gareth is very particular about the rhythms of the sequences.
What would you say was the most complex action scene or stunt to orchestrate on “Havoc”?
A lot of them were complicated. There wasn’t any sequence where we were like “Oh, this is easy” or “This doesn’t need any time or thought process.” We tried to give equal care to all the sequences and the same level of interrogation. What’s great is that for “Gangs of London” and for “Havoc”, we had months of choreography and pre-viz way before pre-production. So, that’s Gareth, myself, and a very talented team of stunt performers in a studio, building our sets out of cardboard boxes, riffing on ideas, exploring ideas, and then we choreograph the sequences, Gareth shoots them, he edits them, and then we have a very clear, mapped out blueprint, shot-by-shot, edit-by-edit of what we’re going to try to achieve when we go into production. That tool is great for us as filmmakers, because we find the rhythms, we find the shots, but also, it’s super useful in terms of the safety side. Special effects, visual effects, armory, stunt rigging, it can all be considered based on the pre-viz on a shot-by-shot basis.
So, what are some memorable experiences you can share from the making of “Havoc” with Gareth Evans, famed director of “The Raid” movies, and big stars like Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker?
For me, a couple of things that made “Havoc” very special is when Gareth and I talked about the project months before I did any work on it, we talked about paying homage to Hong Kong heroic bloodshed films. We talked about “Hard Boiled” and “The Killer”, Ringo Lam, Johnny To, and we knew there would be a Triad element to this film. So, it gave us a canvas from which to play, where we could do action that wouldn’t belong in some other projects. Like, we can have Asian martial artists doing martial arts in “Havoc”, which if we had that in “Gangs of London” or “Apostle”, it would pull the audience out of the story and feel self-indulgent. We were able to indulge ourselves by doing more stylized action at times, which absolutely references classic Hong Kong cinema because of the world that Gareth created in the movie.
Two things that particularly made “Havoc” special for me was able to work with 18 stunt performers that we brought over from Hong Kong. We used a lot of East Asian stunt performers that are based in the U.K., but to make up the numbers, we needed those Hong Kong stunt performers, and they bring a level of work ethic, camera awareness, and flavor that is just unmatched. They are incredible performers, and some of them are new up-and-comers that I didn’t know personally before the project, but also there were a few who I worked with when I was a stunt performer in Hong Kong. I also didn’t just want all the members of the Triad gangs to be in their twenties and thirties. I lived in Hong Kong for eight years, I knew people in that world, and some of those people that fight are in their fifties. So, we had stunt performers who were formerly from Sammo Hung’s team, and that was great to work with them, and to work with some of them again after having not worked with them for years.
The next highlight for me was the involvement of Michelle Waterson. When Gareth was talking about story ideas and the fact that we were going to pay homage to Hong Kong films, I remember specifically a conversation where I said to Gareth “Do you remember in those classic ‘80s and ‘90s movies, you would often have a henchman or henchwoman who wasn’t the main villain of the piece, but they were the main fighting villain? People played by Dick Wei, Billy Chow, and Ken Lo?”, and I said “What if Mother has somebody like that?” And in my head, I was already thinking of Michelle Waterson. I first saw Michelle fighting in the Invicta Championship back in I think 2014, and I saw this woman with incredible charisma, incredible toughness, but at the same time, she had beautiful technique and I was like “Who is this person?!” I did a bit of searching, and it turned out she’d studied karate, which explains a certain amount of her kicking ability, but also, before that, she’d studied Wushu, which as I’m sure you know is not a combat art, it’s a performance art. And I remember thinking, “When she transitions out of professional fighting, that lady belongs on the screen either as an action actress or as a stunt performer.”
So, Michelle was always the only person we had in our minds to play that role, and when we did our action design period, the cast wasn’t yet locked, but we choreographed her fights with Michelle in mind. So, my team and I were specifically thinking “Michelle will look good doing this, Michelle will be comfortable doing that.” Ruby Plenson, who is an incredible stuntwoman and martial artist and a member of our team, she comes from a high-level XMA performance background, and she’s a brilliant stuntwoman, but myself and my assistant choreographer Chris Webb would often say “Ruby, that’s great, but we need you to kick a bit more like this, because that’s how Michelle would do it”, and Ruby, of course, rose to the challenge. Then when Michelle joined us for shooting, she took to the choreography like a duck to water, and she owns it. For me, when it came time to shoot and it was the first take, she just unleashed everything, it felt like something that had been manifesting for about eight years, since the first moment I saw her fighting in Invicta.
And speaking of Michelle’s outstanding skill as a martial artist, “Havoc” also includes a very show-stopping fight scene between her and Tom Hardy. What can you share about choreographing this incredible fight scene? How were Michelle’s skills in different martial arts disciplines and Tom’s background in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu incorporated into the fight scene?
Well, Tom practices Jiu-Jitsu, but that doesn’t mean that his character Walker practices Jiu-Jitsu. Walker has his way of fighting, and it’s quite brawly, it’s quite direct, it’s quite brutal. It would have been a bit boring if he’d just gone into full mount, so it was more of a case of choreographing for the Walker character. But for the Assassin character, she’s an assassin, she’s come from Hong Kong potentially, so she can fight with an eclectic East Asian martial arts style.
What was great was that, because of Tom’s Jiu-Jitsu background, he appreciated Michelle so much, and even though Michelle is super fierce on-screen and in the cage, she is the sweetest, kindest, most loving person you could meet. It’s impossible to not like her. For me, she is the true embodiment of a martial artist, in that she can be strong, she can be brave, but she is gentle and she is loving, and she is all about her family. So, Tom and Michelle got on really, really well, and there was a respect and a trust between them, and by the time we came to filming that fight, there was a familiarity, and when you have the trust and respect, you can act like you’re trying to kick ten kinds of s—t out of each other!
Well, that definitely all comes across in their fight scene during the larger finale of “Havoc”! Well, as we prepare to sign off Jude, what other projects do you have in the works after the release of “Havoc”?
I’m attached to two projects at the moment, but unfortunately, I’m under NDA, so I can’t speak about those. But coming out fairly soon, I did a project with Scott Adkins towards the end of last year, [“Reckless”], and that was a great experience. It was the complete antithesis of “Havoc” in terms of we didn’t have a lot of time, we didn’t have a lot of money, but Scott and I, we first worked together on “The Medallion” with Jackie Chan, and then we worked together again on “The Brothers Grimsby”. Scott and I have wanted to work together, not as performers, but him as an actor and me as a choreographer and we’ve talked about it for a long time, but schedules have never aligned, and that was an opportunity, and it was great working with Scott, hopefully the first of several projects we do together, so that’s something you may want to look out for!
Sounds great, Jude, we look forward to seeing that! Thank you so much for your time today, Jude! It’s been a real pleasure, and good luck with all of your upcoming action projects after the release of “Havoc”!
Thank you Brad, and thanks for having me here on Kung Fu Kingdom!
Jude brings the power of fire to designing action!
