The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Winston Duke, Aaron Taylor Johnson, and so many more hits the UK cinemas on May 2nd.
Sitting down with Winston Duke, who plays Dan Tucker in the film, he shares a different perspective of the film, opening up new meanings that could be lost through the excitement of its surroundings.
At some point in all of our lives, we will come face to face with grief, whether it's the loss of a person or the loss of someone we once were. Winston unfortunately lost someone very close to him in 2022, his mother. Soon after that, he had to participate in the press tour for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, where the cast was still working through the grief of losing Chadwick Boseman. And not too soon after that, he was on set filming The Fall Guy.
“I was in a space where that was really a big thing at the time. I was coming off of a major loss and I'm still dealing with it, the major grief from losing a parent and a movie like this was something really refreshing at the time because it was comedy." Winston shared "I could attach myself to something that felt real, right? (Dan) is helping his friend, he's helping his friend get better. It was just something that I could laugh with while we were playing and get my mind off of some deeper things. Getting to work with Ryan and Emily and David Leitch was just exciting.”
Winston shared that he thought attaching himself to a comedy role would be the distraction that he needed, he then realised through this period of grief that his role in the film was one of a healer and as he connected with the character, it assisted him in his own healing journey. “Dan's role when it comes to Colt, it was like, how do I get this man back on the horse? How do I heal this character? How do I heal this guy? And that felt really refreshing for me. It felt really good for me.”
“I got to learn what it means to carry some of the really big mistakes of people in the past. A lot of them have a story of losing a friend. A lot of them have a story of when one of the stunts didn't go well. And as a result, they carry that with them every single day.” Winston continued “When it came to giving reason and meaning to the role, it wasn't very hard for me to find that because every single day on set I got to really interrogate the real people whose lives are lived doing this thing. You know it’s not every day you get to find a real Wakandan’
Winston Duke is no stranger to working with stunt people, from Black Panther, Us and even playing an American football player in Modern Family, stunt people are on almost every set. They risk their lives every day while they’re filming and are rarely credited for it. “We're, we're distracted by the muscularity of the, of the stunt people and we forget that it is elevated to an art form when you do it at this level” Winston expressed “You can’t lie. If you lie, people don’t go home. If you lie, it’s really life or death. – I didn’t realise the extent they have to go through on set.”
