"Ambulance" director Michael Bay and stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza González discuss the making of their new action film. They talk about the intimate nature of shooting an action movie like "Ambulance," working with an intense director like Michael Bay, and more.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00He quit the week before and he goes, uh, I can't do this. I'm like Duane
00:04You're my secret weapon on this movie
00:06And I wrote in this long letter of all the actors I worked with they said they were scared to do something
00:11And how it turned out
00:13I'm, sorry, brother
00:16I'm, sorry that I brought you into this. I just wanted things to be the way they used to be
00:20So
00:27And I wanted to do this small movie ambulance because what I wanted to do
00:30Wasn't about the action. It's about the study of tension
00:33So we shot it very fast and uh a great cast
00:37it's fun to watch it with a with a big audience because it's
00:40It's an intense movie and uh, you just see their body language when they're like still that means it's like they're they're into it tension
00:46Yeah, I mean it's also just I mean so but the thing is like it's also so intimate inside of the ambulance
00:50But of course you also bring the bayhem all around it. Everything is going right
00:54I did not make up that word. By the way, that was my crew. That was my crew
00:57That's why we'll take it. We'll take that i've trademarked that name, by the way
01:02Most of this movie has you guys within an ambulance
01:05Did you ever get kind of the long road trip feel of god?
01:08I gotta just get the hell out of this car. I would say it's easy to
01:12To want to get out of that space, but also it's easy to just say, you know what?
01:16This is my my little corner
01:18And i'm just gonna rest here because as soon as as soon as you get out you got to get right back in you know
01:22what I mean, so
01:23It's interesting. Sometimes you just find sometimes you get frustrated with it and then other times like look
01:28This is just where I am for the day and for the rest of the day
01:31So this is this is just my own my own space
01:34I mean in truth, I think being in that small space and then trying to act in that space making it it's pretty difficult
01:40You just start realizing about you know, the people who actually do real job in that space
01:45Saving people's lives
01:46and you know, we were shooting the movie in a in the middle of the second wave in los angeles and
01:53Everyone was you know
01:55Talking about first responders and emts and we were in this ambulance shooting these sort of crazy scenes. I just thought
02:00What an extraordinary job
02:02To get what they get done in that small space
02:05I mean we could hardly act in it let alone get anywhere close to saving someone's lives. Yeah
02:10Yeah, there's a there's a life-saving surgery in the ambulance that was completely real set up by two trauma doctors
02:16I'm facetiming with a anatomically correct dummy body
02:20Every part is is real anatomically how far she has to do and i'm not going to be graphic
02:26But what's going down?
02:27That's what will go down because they were they're facetiming
02:30These are guys these are doctors that have worked with trauma bullet surgeries
02:35Uh, and I said this is the tools they have what would happen and it's intense
02:38It's an intense moment and believe it or not those two guys talking the doctors. Those are the real doctors
02:43Those are the real doctors. That's awesome. That's super cool. That's honestly one of my favorite moments in the movie
02:47it was so cool to do because
02:50You know prepping for it and educating myself on
02:54What that looked like and what that process was and really speaking to professionals and educating me on the process
03:00and then being there and they had a real dummy with every single piece of you know insides that I needed and
03:07It was so real and I mean there was a moment that I was hyperventilating because she's going through so much emotions at once
03:13not only because of the surgery because she's doing what she's been wanting to do her entire life and
03:18So it's a roller coaster of emotions and I remember at a moment. I hyperventilated so much and my hands cramped up
03:25I could I had golem claws
03:27And panic attack. Yeah from a panic attack from hyperventilating for
03:31The breathing and the nerves and and those moments become so real
03:34It's like those things that you push yourself and you really feel it on your body
03:38But when you see it on screen, it really works, you know, I you I am really having a panic attack in that scene
03:45What do you want i'm just gonna borrow it I got a cop shot I gotta get him to the hospital
03:48I'm gonna need you to help us. Why don't you help us? We're doing hostages, isn't it?
03:51This one you get pretty you get real
03:53Self-referential with guys who like quotes from the rock because the younger generation can quote my movies now better than me
03:59Sure bad boys has sort of become cultish. Uh,
04:02Uh, and I was we were making fun of dwayne johnson who I know i've worked with. Uh, I think I put that in the script
04:09Sean had just sean connery had just passed and so, uh, he meant a lot to me my career. Sure
04:14Yeah, I mean, do you think that you're at a point in your career?
04:17This is also coming after your awesome cameo in bad boys for life, right?
04:20like do you think you're at a point in your career where you're kind of just like
04:23I I know who I am in pop culture. Oh, yeah
04:25and I can make fun of myself and uh
04:28I have no problem making fun of other people and I just making a movie's got to be fun. Sure. Sure, you know, and uh,
04:34There it's intense. It's a war but it's it's uh,
04:37uh to me, I love shooting when you when you get the chance to work with um,
04:43the type of actors that michael got in this film, I think that
04:47It's really cool when you have actors that have input and have a very clear sense of what they're really trying to bring to the table
04:54Um sometimes, you know, it depends on the project the director dictates what's going to be like but once in a blue moon
05:01You get really proactive actors that are like I very very much feel like this is the way that I should go
05:07and that allows for a creative powwow, you know, and I um
05:12It was fun because I really wanted to make sure
05:16Um that cam felt a bit more, uh, even more than it was already on script. Uh
05:23Layered and and nuanced and and to have less of like i'm in a panic and i'm caught up in an ambulance and more emotion and
05:31yeah, we expanded a lot of her stuff and really built onto that and and
05:36Michael really added a lot
05:38I mean a lot of the end scenes are added to the movie and he really cared that scene with the little girl was added
05:45Afterwards and he really cared about making her the heart of the movie and i'm just really grateful that he cared that much
05:50you're going and
05:52Making choices and you're running and gunning the whole time
05:55You know, you're giving him everything. I mean as an actor
05:57It's like you're giving him all different choices of all different levels, you know
06:00When I watch the character that he created that I sort of threw choices at him
06:05I realized that guy yells a lot, you know
06:07And and a lot of that's just him going try this try that yell that you know, and it's it's a sort of
06:13Very ordered chaos, you know, but that energy that he gives you is all in the movie
06:19Um, but yeah, definitely my character does a lot of yelling. I mean, I think that also shows how mike michael
06:25He has a he has a structure, uh structure that was given to us by chris fettick
06:30Uh, and you know, it's a it's a really tight structure and he knows the vision enough to let us
06:36Play and improv, uh, and you know improvise and improve upon the relationships and and on the scenario
06:42So it was all within a you know
06:44a pretty uh
06:46Known tight structure i've gotten to
06:49Shed this ultimate fear of the concept of feeling like you don't belong there and sort of owning
06:56Why you're there and the confidence of why you're there and I feel when you really achieve that then you become more open
07:03to play with a director and let someone direct you and I sort of
07:08Let go of control and I think that that's sort of where i'm at. You know, I learn my lines. I learn what
07:14Backstory I want or I think or it feels honest to my performance and my heart and then I get to set and I let
07:21Someone else's input and their outside perspective and their eyes show me something
07:24I haven't seen before
07:26And that always allows you to become I think that the greatest actors do that and that's what really brings different
07:32Traits to them onto characters because the director seeing stuff that we don't do and we tend to go to what's comfortable for us
07:39So I I really enjoy that
07:41Don't you move
07:45You think you're so tough with that gun no daddy relax
07:51I gotta get back to my wife and my son. Does your wife know you're all banks?
07:56One of I don't think my favorite movie yours is pain and gain and I love that movie so much and a huge part
08:00Of it is just the performance that you get out of dwayne johnson is phenomenal. I mean, it's my favorite of his he he literally he literally
08:06Uh, he quit the week before and he goes, uh, I can't do this. I'm like dwayne
08:11You're my secret weapon on this movie and I wrote in this long letter of all the actors
08:15I worked with they said they were scared to do something and how it turned out and he goes. Okay. Okay. All right
08:22He was brilliant in that movie and it really is an amazing performance. That movie was always a uh, you know
08:28I I read the story. He's a very long screwed up crime and uh, it was always like a passion project of mine
08:33I made it for 22 million dollars. We did it all around my house in miami
08:36I would drive a moped to the set. That's how close it was
08:40I mean we would do things because all the cops know us in miami
08:43And mark walbert we get in a van and I got dwayne. We got a dead body
08:46We got like, uh, anthony mackie and I got a camera and just a sound man
08:50We are laughing mark is just driving illegally through the city. All right, and then like a cop would see him
08:55He goes. Oh, hey, sweetheart
08:58I mean, that's fun. That's guerrilla filmmaking and uh,
09:01Uh, I had a great time doing that