by “Mayday”, action film staged by French Jean-François Richet, is broadcast this evening on TMC. The opportunity to return to the most striking combat scene in the film, which was not easy for Gerard Butler.
Released in theaters on January 25, 2023, Mayday presents a commercial pilot, Brodie Torrance, played by Gerard Butler. The latter succeeded in landing his plane damaged by a storm on firm land. He will discover that he was deposited in an area of war. He and the passengers find himself taken hostage …
To make this action film, the Lionsgate studio went to find a specialist of the genre, Jean-François Richet. This is not the first time that the filmmaker has led a large international star, since he worked with Ethan Hawke on Assaut on the Central 13 and with Mel Gibson on Blood Father. He will be back soon with Mutiny, worn by Jason Statham.
We met the director on the occasion of the release of Mayday in 2023 and the latter evoked with us the realization of a difficult scene, in which Gerard Butler must fight a pirate. Intense and brutal, the sequence is the most impressive of the film with regard to the combat with bare hands.
A character who is off the beaten track
“It is atypical because the character of Gerard Butler is practically an average character. He is not a soldier, he is not a mercenary, he is not a killer or a cop, but a simple pilot. I like this process of identification. And Gerard Butler is one of the last actors who can camp a hero” of the working class “, a” working class Hero “in English” in English “in English” in English “in English” in English “in English” in English “in English” in English “in English”first recalled Jean-François Richet.
“He's a bit like Stallone In Rockywhen he gets up in the morning, he is tired, he takes his eggs, he will run, he will type on the bidoche. He's a bit at the Mel Gibson too. We can all identify with him and he has a fairly wide potential sympathy. It's old, but on the good side of the old one. And then we are not going to lie, cinema is the art of subterfuge which works a lot on identification “said the director.
Richet then evokes the filming of the famous combat scene between Torrance and the pirate, which asked for weeks of intensive preparation. “I tell teams what I want as blows, the combat style I want, I remind them that the character is not a superhero. After there is a choreography that is created, I withdraw things, I add others …”exhibits the director.
Lionsgate
A trying sequence plan
“And then the staging, for me, is not the camera. This is how I make an actor move in a given space. And especially why. Who is dominant, which is dominated, etc. The camera is there to amplify the movement and motivation of the actor.”
“We made this scene in sequence plan, it was rather hard. It was the 2nd day of filming and I only had 3 days to do this scene. I did it in half a day. Gerard Butler made the first catch, it fored after a third party and he was already exhausted. It was very physical and we were shooting in Porto Rico, he was sweating with 40 degrees.”
It's very physical and we were shooting in Puerto Rico, he sweated large drops by 40 degrees.
“I'm going to see him and I tell her: I planned to cut her in 3 but my dream is to do it in 1. I give you a chance otherwise I will waste too much time and the 3 days will not be enough. He said OK and he succeeded in one time. We then went to see the instructor, it's the 2nd day of filming, the producer is there, nobody really knows himself.”
“The producer is archi excited, he finds it great, butler too. And he realizes that the producer is not aware that we did it in one plan. The actor, the executive, the leader and I were the only ones aware. The producer tells us, but you will cut into the scene? And there I tell him no. And Gerard leans me: this kind of scene, this kind of scene, Hollywood. “
It's out of the question, this kind of scene in a plan, it was never done in Hollywood.
“Gerard said to me: I have to see that it is me who is fighting me, it is a sequence that will mark. And he was right. And I thank the producer for having followed us because he thought that the studio was going to kill us. And it went. The producer took the risk because he is mandated by the studio but it is not him who puts the money. And he has accounts.said Jean-François Richet.
