Stunt performers moving into directing has become an increasing phenomenon in recent years, and we’ve been gifted with the likes of the John Wick franchise and Extraction as a result – but Ric Roman Waugh was way ahead of the curve after making his feature-length debut over two decades ago.
Since then, the filmmaker has carved out a reputation for delivering hard-hitting action thrillers, with his latest Kandahar reuniting him with Gerard Butler for a third time after Angel Has Fallen and Greenland. This time around, the grizzled Scotsman stars as a CIA operative trapped behind enemy lines, who faces a desperate race to safety once his cover is blown.
The film releases in theaters this coming Friday, but before then, We Got This Covered had the chance to speak to Waugh about his latest explosive contribution to the genre. During our chat, we cover Kandahar‘s history-making status, his ongoing partnership with Butler, how he finds the humanity when all guns are blazing, the pressures of following up Cliffhanger and much more, which you can check out below.
Kandahar is the first major American movie to release having shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, so how does it feel to not just have your latest feature on the way, but be making a little bit of history in the process?
Ric Roman Waugh: You know, I think that it’s about just paving your own path, and not worrying about all the noise. It was an extraordinary experience, because I think a lot of the Western world doesn’t know about Vision 2030, and what is happening in the kingdom at this point.
I certainly didn’t know about it until we went and explored it. And for me, selfishly, I got to shoot in regions that really haven’t been shot. Well, they haven’t been shot since Lawrence of Arabia. I mean, that was the last picture to shoot there. When I read the script, I just fell in love with it, and its point of view of the region, I knew I needed to be not in New Mexico, I needed to be in the real thing.
And we had talked about Jordan, and we talked about Abu Dhabi, and Morocco. But they had been shot every which way to Sunday, right? There’s not really much more you can explore there, but to go into an untapped region, and really explore in a different way. And, to get to put my my big boy pants on like David Lean, or John Ford, it was an extraordinary experience.
The spec script Burn Run was initially sold back in June of 2016, so some version of this movie has been on the cards for quite a while, but were you aware of the script before coming aboard, or was it brought to your attention as a potential project for you to direct?
Ric Roman Waugh: I met Mitch LaFortune working on Greenland as a writer. Thunder Road was a big fan of his. Basil Iwanyk – the owner and producer who did Greenland – and Mitch and I really hit it off. I’m a big veteran supporter, and he’s a vet that had worked in the Army Intelligence for over a decade. And Basil one day said, “Have you ever read Burn Run? And I’m like, “What’s that?” He’s like, “It’s the first script that Mitch wrote.”
And it’s based on a lot of his own experiences, but also inspired by true events of a real CIA operator. And when I read it, it just blew me away. So I wasn’t ever aware of the history of it. To me, it was this new and fresh and exciting thing of coming off of Greenland and wondering what’s next.
And also, where does Gerard Butler and I – you know, you’re Scottish, a compatriot there – how do we reinvent what we’re doing? And I think it felt like it took it took the action hero of of Angel has Fallen, and then the mortal man of Greenland, and it was able to turn him into a different person with a special set of skills, but never making them an actual hero, just a man of action that was vulnerable to his own demons, and so forth.
So it felt like the full package, and to Gerry’s credit; a lot of movie stars today are like, “The movie’s right here, don’t be anywhere else!” He really, really embraced the roster and point of view of the movie, where we were meeting all these other characters, and was a huge staunch supporter of making sure that their integrity was kept, versus being minimized and stripped down.
This is obviously your third film with Gerard, and you’d been friends long before you worked together, But on the other side of the coin, people might think they know what to expect when they hear “Gerard Butler starring in an action thriller.” So does that encourage you guys to try and subvert those expectations, because first Greenland and now Kandahar, they don’t necessarily tick the boxes that audiences think they will.
Ric Roman Waugh: Yeah, I don’t think we’re running from any box. You know, I think that we just want to make our own box, right? We want to carve our own path, and be unique and original to whatever the subject matter is that we want to take on. So if that makes us off-center of what they would normally expect, then so be it. I think for me, I’m not really looking like some business model of, “Oh, this is everything that they’re not going to expect. So let’s do this.” It’s much more about how the story speaks to us.
There’s a lot of different genre elements at play throughout, whether it’s action, thriller, conspiracy, espionage, chase movie, even a bit of the road trip buddy movie, but does it present a challenge at all to thread so many needles both in writing and production without allowing one to overpower the rest?
Ric Roman Waugh: Yeah, it’s a delicate balance of telling a tremendous amount of story. Keeping it at a running time that doesn’t put people to sleep in the theater at three and a half hours. Trying to make a two-hour picture that can be a big action ride, but also allow time to really delve into the characters.
One of my biggest mantras when it comes to action is that it’s never about what the action is itself. It’s how I’m getting there. And what’s the emotional attachment I’m trying to give the audience to. I want them to be scared, thrilled, excited, on the edge of the seat, but that doesn’t happen unless you give time for characters to develop, and the audience to kind of connect to them in a way, where then the action is not just action for the sake of action, but there’s an emotional response to it.
I’m always curious to know a filmmaker’s process when it comes to designing action sequences, because I’ve gotten a few different answers. Do you work on the script without thinking of any budgetary or logistical issues and work back from there, or are you always considering the resources you’ll ultimately end up having at your disposal?
Ric Roman Waugh: No, I have a policy just to write and envision. I think people know, with my movies, I’m always looking for authenticity, even if it’s heightened. And so I’m always gonna have that lens in mind. But for me, it’s about what tells the story first. And then, yeah, my background in stunts is always going to come into play, where I’m going to understand how I’m going to execute it.
So the earlier drafts are much more about the story and the actors understanding where we’re going, then the script evolves into what I call the blueprint. It’s the blueprint of how we’re going to execute the movie. And it becomes a little bit more mechanical in the actual sequences, that has to get the the crew to understand how we’re going to make it.
Outside of Angel Has Fallen – where the action is virtually obligated to be the major selling point and driving force – your movies set in the same genre space like Snitch, Greenland, and Kandahar always focus on the human element first and foremost, is that something you always make a point to never lose sight of, even when you’re getting to play with bigger budgets and effects?
Ric Roman Waugh: I just think it’s whatever speaks to me. But it also… I feel like if it has a unique point of view, or has something to say in a way that doesn’t try to give an opinion or try to be some big message movie, what I try to do is have a movie that’s a big action ride, or some big thrilling thing, or takes you into a world that we haven’t really explored before, or a world that we think we know.
But it does it in a different, unique way. And you come out of the theater, hopefully with a smile, and wiping the sweat off your brow, but you’re talking about what it was about. And that’s all I want. If we can have something that’s a little bit more informative of not an opinion, but give you a different lens of the Middle East, give you something about prisons – what my prison movies, were about – even dropping a comment on the earth of what life and death means.
Will we be selfish or selfless, when it’s life or death? And to see a pandemic unfold right after that, and watch everybody steal the toilet paper out of stores, I love to kind of push morality and see how people dance when they’re backed into a corner, where there’s no reverse.
The majority of your films – whether it’s Felon, Snitch, Fallen, Greenland, and now Kandahar – always have something to say about a major real-world issue without ever being too on-the-nose or even obvious about it, is that something you always try and work into your movies, or is it more a case of the story driving the thematics as opposed to the other way around?
Ric Roman Waugh: I don’t know, I think maybe in another life I would have been a journalist, you know? I would have been an investigative reporter. I’m just fascinated by going into stories, fiction or not, and trying to understand the way that I love to be able to take a fictional story, but put them in a very factual world, if that makes sense.
But do it in a way that I think is kind of hurting us right now in our news media cycle, where it’s all becoming propaganda, and it’s all becoming an opinion. Like, it’s an op-ed now on the nightly news. Just give me the facts! So for me, that’s what I’m trying to do; is create a fictional story, but put it in a backdrop that has authenticity and some facts to it that inform you in a way of letting you take your own opinion of what you think the subject matter’s trying to say.
Stunt performers evolving into action directors is becoming a more regular occurrence, but you were a long way ahead of the curve in making that jump, so what is it that gives people with a background in that arena an advantage when it comes to making those types of movies outside of having the experience dealing in set pieces?
Ric Roman Waugh: I think the sports world does the same thing. It pigeonholes people, right? If you’re used to a certain thing, when you want a stunt man – in my case – it’s not to transfer over to writing or directing. You’re gonna want them to do the bigger, faster, more expensive stuff, right? You’re gonna want them to do that.
And I think that the biggest thing that happened to me, that was the most defining thing, was meeting Tony Scott and having him as a mentor. Because, Tony – you know what a Tony Scott movie is when you see it – and it’s because he lived and died by his own sword. He knew that he was never trying to emulate others, he was trying to be his own brand.
And for me, I think, for better for worse, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to emulate anybody else. I’m not trying to one-up the action of some other filmmaker that’s doing the same action sequence, I’m literally just trying to be true to the story that I’m making, and how I want to portray my brand.
I would presume you’ll be working with Gerard again sooner rather than later, but will that be happening in Night Has Fallen, Greenland: Migration, or possibly something else altogether?
Ric Roman Waugh: We are in heavy talks right now of doing the sequel to Greenland, which will be the continuation of the story that you obviously know, the first movie took you up to the impact and the extinction event. The next movie will be about what happened afterwards, and how did the journey continue, and did humanity survive it, and how do we rebuild the Earth? And I’m also involved with the continuation of Cliffhanger, you know, what’s the next evolution of Cliffhanger? So we’re gonna see how all this kind of plays out. It’ll be one of those two movies most likely next.
I was going to ask about Cliffhanger, and the elephant in the room. Do you have any ideas in mind for the set pieces already, because there’s got to be a lot of pressure when the opening scene of the original has become so firmly embedded in pop culture?
Ric Roman Waugh: It’s a little bit top secret, so I can’t tell you too much. But let’s just say somebody could be hanging on the side of a cliff, no pun intended.
National Champions was a change of pace for you genre-wise as a sports drama, but are there any other storytelling avenues you haven’t been down yet that you’re hoping to check off the bucket list?
Ric Roman Waugh: I appreciate that, National Champions is a little tiny movie that a lot of people got behind for no money – including JK Simmons – to do a story, to tell a story about what we’re all looking at with big money, and how kids are being used in that, or what is your point of view of it?
I’m very fascinated by the sci fi world, I’ve been really trying to find my space in that. And I think that at the end of the day, it’s not about how big the dragon is I’m going to slay, it’s about who or what the dragon is. And so it doesn’t really matter to me about budget level, it’s what is really speaking to me. I’m gonna do my own version of horror someday as well. And these are… there’s different genres that I want to play in.
But it’s always about what is the cool clean angle in, and what allows me to do a performance-driven movie. For me, again, hopefully you never see me do an action movie that doesn’t have some type of emotional attachment to it and emotional core, it’s always about what is my emotional thrust in it. How am I going to carry the audience? I was such a massive fan of Top Gun: Maverick, of just a movie that evolved after so many, many years. And yet it evolved the story in a way that was pulling the heartstrings all the way through, while we were flying by the seat of our pants, literally, with action, real-live action flying.
And those are the kinds of stories that I want to do. I want to be able to do things and have the big action ride and have all the big thrills and why we want to go to movie theaters still, but also have a way that they definitely have an emotional arc and emotional thrust to them.
If you could make any project of your choosing without restrictions – as in, you can start tomorrow without a care in the world – what would it be and why would it be that?
Ric Roman Waugh: Man! I’m still, like, Kandahar was a very special movie. And we use a little bit of reminisces of Lawrence of Arabia, but I really want to make an epic. I want to make a historical epic. And it’s something I’ve never done before. There’s a lot of different ones. I mean, you know, Ridley Scott just did Napoleon. There’s been a lot of different ones.
The one thing that I also loved about Kandahar was the fact that it was in six different languages. And it made me want to go look at doing movies in different countries, in different regions of the world, and their own native language and so forth, but I think the one that we’re talking about here for me, it’s going to be a historical.
Kandahar releases in theaters this Friday, May 26, and be sure to check out our interview with star Ali Fazal.