Wade Eastwood | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:13Wade, thank you for joining me. thanks for having me tell me who is wade eastwood who is wade eastwood well it's a big question um i think i'm wade eastwood's a frustrated racing driver turned stuntman stunt coordinator and now director pretty much sums it up i love that and a seriously high level high profile right and we'll come to that but big big hollywood films i want to know where it started were you the kid that was jumping off the tent tent step and always trying to do the next day and everything definitely yeah i was um yeah i remember watching superman and trying to fly and putting on my cape and jumping off the top of the car first onto the grass and then off the low roof.

0:49And I landed on a nail that went through my foot and I went to the doctor and got stitches and all those silly little things that you do as a kid. But yeah, I was fascinated by not just stunts, but the film. I just love film. And growing up in South Africa, I used to go to the cinema, like every new movie release, it was my little escape. Is there a film that really inspired you? Was there a film where that kind of almost influenced what you ended up doing? Yeah, I got inspired by, you know, Magnum PI inspired me to be a helicopter pilot. I just wanted to fly a 500, a huge 500 helicopter. And I love that show.

1:18And Airwolf and Blue Thunder and Top Gun inspired me to be a fixed wing pilot. I used to actually ride my little 50cc motorcycle along the side of the runway where the little Cessna 152s would take off. Not exactly a F-14 and a Ninja, 900 Ninja, but it was my version of it at the time with my budget. It's all about being inspired. But you then went on to ultimately be working all the Mission Impossible films, Fast and the Furious. So to link that together for me where the kid that was aspiring to do all that made it happen. Yeah, it was. I mean, I just never took no for an answer. I think that's the biggest, you know, and I heard it from a lot of people that were successful that you can't take no for an answer.

1:55You got to keep pushing, keep pushing because so many give up and then they get so far and they never realize their dream. And I was always, you know, I wanted to be able to do everything. I licensed for every vehicle I wanted to be. I didn't want any sport or anything that I couldn't do, skydiving, scuba diving. So I was always, as a kid, like I just wanted to have my license for everything. I wanted to know how to do everything. And the same applied to film. You know, when I started in film in South Africa, it was low budget films. And I got bored of the low budget. I enjoyed the films because they're great fun.

2:28And we're just action because there wasn't a lot of great acting in them. So it was just nonstop action. But I wanted more. and that's what drove me to UK and then you know California was just to work on these bigger budget films so that I could be creative without restriction and that was the main thing it wasn't you know that I wanted to be the guy in Hollywood doing the big movies I just wanted to be have full creative control and I just wanted to be you know have the budget to be able to be creative and not be restrained I get that but to ultimately get to the top which is what you did there's got to be maybe a sort of lucky break or an opportunity.

3:03What happened there? It's a lot of work, you know, and it's like anything. It's like in Formula One. You know, you might get the wrong team and have the wrong journey and never become a world champion. It depends what team you go through, and there's those drivers that didn't even get the chance and that could have been there. It's the same with film. There's a load of stunned performers out there that probably would have been great and never got the chance, and it's really just about never giving up. I mean, there's no real secret. it was i had so many doors slammed in my face uh so many no's no we're not looking for this at the moment no you know wrong size wrong shape wrong this wrong whatever and it was just i just kept pushing and i'd pitch up to you know castings where i wasn't invited to the casting um when i moved to england i drove trucks for the stunt companies um even though i was you know quite a big stunt coordinator in south africa at the time and you know so you may just you may just have immersed in it and be seen yeah i just annoyed them and i was always there you know i pitched up to go-kart races and i got an in through someone and then you know would you know make make a little name of the go-kart race or do something because that was my passion and i just kept pushing and then once i got the chance to actually do an audition properly then all my training from doing all these stringer b movies which is where you do a lot of good training because you know we don't just come in like on a bond movie or a mission impossible where we need someone to do a hundred foot fall or you know a big fire job yeah which is you might just do that but you haven't really done a lot of the other stuff the fights the falls the general stuff and because that's all i was doing when it came to doing the general stuff my level was quite high so then i impressed and then i got work and i only targeted the best i didn't want to work for any of the sort of average stunt coordinators i only wanted to work for the best i targeted just those people so much to learn from that right you know that you put this you put the time in you put the effort in to be match fit and ready and make the right choices you know you've got to be ready so you've got to be disciplined you've got to be competent so make sure that when you do get the break it's not half-assed um and what was that break well really for me it was um i auditioned on the mummy the first mummy um i was driving the truck there again and i'd annoyed simon crane who's the sun coordinator a lot and and then i remember him walking i was saying what are you doing here i didn't invite you to this audition and i was i'm just driving your truck you know it was only too important to be driving a truck i'm like happy to be here you know and i just stood by the truck i all floated it myself no one helped me i remember it clearly and then he went oh you know it was a bit of like all right south african over here let's see it meant to be quite good on the air ram see what you can do and that was my tool because that's what we did was get blown up out of out of trenches and b movies was you know grenade blast so i had i did it and i was sort of the only one that could complete this backward air ram so i got the job dubbing Brendan Fraser and then the rest was history.

5:49He took me to a double James Bond and the next one was, you know, the world was not enough and it went on and on and that was the sort of break to be able to survive staying in England and paying my bills and get going and continue my training. And it's something I say to all the people that come from me that I mentor is versatility is value. If you're not versatile, if you're a one-trick pony, you'll only work on those certain movies when they come about. Like if I'm only a driver, there might only be one driving movie every two years. So you have to be versatile. And the B movies, the low budget movies in South Africa made me versatile.

6:22Get on a horse, get in the car, drive that bus, roll that truck. You know, you had to be able to do everything. Did you ever say no to anything? One of the things I was thinking before we were going to talk is that there must be clearly so many things you've done. Have you drawn a line at anything where you've actually genuinely thought, I really could die in that? No, I never said no. I mean, because there's a way to do everything, whether it's adding a wire to it for safety or something there's always a way to do it um and I was very analytical at the time even as a young performer if they were like if the coordinator wasn't necessarily the best you know the b-movie world that was I was always like well could we just you know put a wire on that tree and descend me and just have a little bit of break at the end because it's too high to jump you know naturally into water from 200 foot or something you know we just have a little bit of deset or rig something up so I was always thinking ahead um and yeah that's i think that's what that's interesting because the there could be a perception of someone that does these daredevil stunts as being kind of high risk and and putting yourself in danger but the instant i asked you that you were very i could say it was a calculation no there's a huge amount of thought and engineering and creativity goes into this to then execute it there's a big difference between a daredevil and a stuntman or stunt performer um a daredevil will just do it jump off a bridge into water and hope that there's no spikes sticking up underwater or a low log that's been washed down the river and impale yourself a stunt performer or dive in the water with goggles and search the bottom make sure it's safe check the depth then go up and do the jump it's the same jump visually it looks the same except you don't die or hurt yourself have you had a whole near moment of kind of looking deaf in the face where it's gone wrong i have yeah i've looked death in the face for sure twice um but both were in my personal life uh doing my sports nothing to do with film no i guess the the dopamine if you like the adrenaline you get from what was work for you um what is work for you stunt uh and kind of daredevil stuff there's a big part of that for you in your personal life and i think that's a good link to tom cruise you know he's clearly passionate about doing as many of the stunts as he as he can if you like all the that conversation because you know i mentioned two things how you almost sort of decide when he does and when someone else does it for him and also kind of the fun you guys must have outside of the role yes so that goes back to what i was saying earlier about everything you've got to be competent so no one else ever does stunts for tom so he he does 100 of his own stunts um because he's competent enough to do them uh so there's not it's he enjoys doing it so he wants to learn.

8:55So everything we do, he applies himself, whether it's breath holds underwater or speed flying or base jumping. I set up a training program and he trains. And he trains until there's no one better on the planet to do it because he can obviously also act as the character. That brings out the mentoring in you as well, doesn't it? Because I can tell you really like helping people. I love seeing people do well. If you've got a dedicated student, I imagine he is formidable. He's an amazing student because he's so talented and he's such an athlete and he listens and he does and he wants to then do even better so he's not happy with learning something and okay 100 is learning it that's it that's where i'm going to be no i want to i've learned it now i want to master it even more so he doesn't just do it for the movie so when we go on holidays and weekends we're not we're not sitting by a pool you know sipping margaritas we're training we're in the mountains we're speed flying base jumping so we just non-stop which is my kind of holiday anyway and who sets the itinerary is he is he prompting because i'm thinking you're you're going to enjoy this right and it's it's hard it's training but no we just prompt each other he's like is there any win is this good is that good is where they're good here and i'm like uh spain's out i'm always in france is out this is in and we go go go and we just go he's like you know when he's got time he's a busy guy but i just love it because if i'm doing something every day i'm happy yeah i can see that i mentioned that that word trust you're a husband and you're a dad and a lot of what you've been involved in has at times been dangerous and even in your spare time you're not sat around the pool you're off on another adventure how do you manage that you know i take my family everywhere with me um difficult when your kids grow up a little bit the you know daughter's now 16 so school friends and sport and i want to give stability which is why i've been working a lot in the uk to try and keep a bit of stability otherwise it's you know selfish we just travel like a wild circus around the world and expect the family to tag along.

10:46My wife trains all the actors. She's a celebrity trainer, if you like, and does all their food and nutrition. So we work together. She makes them strong and healthy and I train, you know, train them with their ones, they're strong and healthy. Perfect collaboration. So yeah, so she's got a, you know, Sam used to train, she's got a training program and she gets on really well with them all. And it's a, it's a, it's a great collaboration and it works very well for us but I made a decision to just never leave my family for more than two to three weeks depending unless I'm up a mountain somewhere and no one can come with an isolated small crew which is quite rare within two weeks and now I don't travel without traveling with my family.

11:27Has your daughter ever said to you that I want to be a stunt person? No she plays like junior lacrosse UK development squad and stuff she's quite sporty but she's a good balance of both of us she's you know girly girl and she's sporty she's a big a bit of a mix um very switched on very switched on so that's what i keep trying to make sure she is i'm smiling i was imagining that whole like you know if she ever said that at any age you'd be like oh yeah this comes with a risk and it flips the whole risk profile i don't mind me doing it but not you no as long as she trains is competent like i'm pushing a speed fly and do other stuff as long as she trains and she's competent she doesn't try and shortcut something doesn't try and fly or jump or do anything for YouTube fame, you know, to try and get a video out there or do something because I see so many accidents in my sporting life with that.

12:12You've got to do these sports for yourself. Get competent, train, get really, really competent, and then you won't have accidents. There's a lot to learn from that. Is there one kind of movie or one particular stunt that stands out for you as a favorite? Mission 7, when Tom did the base jump on the motorbike, you know, with the bike, that was a lot of training um and a lot of a lot of guts and a lot of balls even though he was competent and we trained him to the you know to the end it still takes a lot to ride a motorbike down a red center line on a very narrow ramp with crosswinds and into the abyss it's just thinking how do you train for that i mean that's yeah so we did a massive training program i mean you know we started off with a motocross bike and he would do we'd train him with just motocross and jumps he could already ride a bike and do do stuff but we just pushed it and every couple of weeks when got better overnight i would extend the jumps just a little bit so we kept extending slowly so we do everything in gradients um so we're not throwing them at the deep end and while that's happening we're doing the skydiving which is a skydiver anyway various you know established skydiver but we started working on tracking and unstable exits and then getting back into a perfect track a lot of body awareness so it was motocross skydiving and then off the skid of the helicopter at the speed the bike would be going, tracking, disturbing him, tracking with camera.

13:28And we just kept months and months of this. And then I set up a big rig with wires where he could actually ride the bike off the exact same ramp. But the bike would fall into boxes and we'd catch him on wires so he could get the right form in the air and how long he could hold the bike. And more importantly, it's how the camera can capture him doing it. If this was a lot of other movies, it would be Tom Cruise rides past camera, cut to stunt double doing a stunt, you know. Maybe a really bad wind tunnel shot of an actor like with, you know, fans blowing him as he foils and talks, which is, you know, we've all seen before, but not with Tom, he won't do that.

14:07So we need to capture it. So to get cameras that close, we need to know the exact trajectory, exactly what's happening. So we do months and months of flying drones and helicopters close by and know exactly what is ARC is within a metre every single time at that speed in those conditions. And then I just packed the ramp up and built it in Norway. So much effort and work and probably a massive team behind all that. Massive team. I mean, the film industry, you're only as good as your team. Why is there no Oscar award for stunts? Apparently it's coming. I heard. I don't know. It's one hell of a skill.

14:44It's a lot more than, you know, we see the finished, it's the classic tip of the ice. Maybe it's to keep the illusion. I don't know. I mean, everyone else gets an award. I don't know. Yeah, I really don't know. Apparently it's coming out now. I think awards are great, but they're also very political. And I think, you know, I'm not sure. I just hope that some people don't start doing stunts to get an award. um it's like again like people pushing boundaries that go beyond to get on youtube and do the youtube video you know it's like do your job do it really well be passionate about it and reward will come don't don't do it for reward you mentioned that versatility earlier which you exude we are living in a in a completely kind of evolving time now with ai and i was thinking about this conversation before today where are we living in a time where these incredible stunts are quite simply not going to need all the engineering, the expertise, because they can all be done through AI.

15:47I hope not. You know, I mean, motion capture and things like that have always been around as well, but you need really good performers doing it. So if you've got an actor that wants to, you know, call it in, if you like, and use AI, like sells his face, you think one of these actors gets whatever they get, 50 million a year, and they think, all right, I can have, I'll do this movie for 10 million, but it's only going to take a week. I'll sell you the license for my face, and I'll do a little bit of ADR on the microphone for voices and I can do it at home and I can do 12 movies a year if I want.

16:17So I can make five times my income. But I feel it's slightly selling your soul. I think the stunt people will still work because you'll need a body to do the movement to capture, whether it's mocap or whatever it is, in a volume. You'll have to capture the movement like the video games. Those are all stunt people and are capturing that movement. Maybe we have enough movement captured that we can eventually take over without a body at all. I don't know. I hope audiences, I feel with movies like Maverick, Top Gun Maverick, that I feel personally that audiences have had enough of these massive visual overstimulation movies of these other worlds that don't exist.

16:53I think that proved the amount of money it took that people want a good, strong story, you know, a love story, a happy story. Authenticity. That authenticity and that sort of that 80s, 90s movie feel where you came out the movie house and you felt good about yourself or you you had a you know or you felt in a weird place for a week but it really affected you in some sort of way rather than just come and go i'm fully adrenals and stimulated for the next hour and then back on my phone swiping because i need more stimulation and i think we're going slightly more analog i agree i'm interested to see how that works though and actually there was a whole when maverick was delayed there was um sort of the making of it with the pilots and the uh the actors that were being trained to to cope with the g-force and That was fascinating.

17:37And actually, that whole leads into you wanting to watch the film rather than just knowing it's all being done through AI. I can't imagine that. And that's the same when we subjectively shoot. We stay connected to the character. We don't cut to a big objective wide shot, which you see on YouTube of some stunt double, because now you're like, who am I watching? I don't see any emotion. This is emotion. That's stunts. So you have to capture emotion. So what are you doing now? So I'm prepping at the moment for my directorial debut. I'm shooting a movie. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, called Mister.

18:15We're about to announce the actor this week, so I can't say yet, but he's a very big Hollywood star and a very respected Hollywood star, and he's going to be amazing in this movie. I'm casting the rest of the characters at the moment. We start shooting in January, and that's going to be great fun. So I'm interested to piece the journey together. Was that an ambition that you've had for a while? Or was that, again, just piecing together your sort of life's journey? You're really good at pivoting. You're really good at being versatile. Is that something that sort of came to you? Or is this something that you wanted to do?

18:49Yeah, I like challenges. I want full creativity. So being a second-year director is great. But I'm shooting someone else's vision. And I want to shoot my vision. Because I've been a fan of film. I've been doing the action side of it for 34 years now. And I work a lot with actors. I have a lot of actors on my unit and enjoy directing an actor. I really enjoy their craft. I mean, it's like a really good racing driver, again, to give that comparison. But when you really push an actor, it's incredible what they can do. And I really want to see what these actors can do. And it's a story with a lot of heart, a lot of emotion, and a lot of current affairs.

19:31So it covers everything. It's not just an action movie. No, I can tell. yeah there's a there's a real sense of leadership i've used that word mentorship already that comes from you and a lot of that is is based on probably the the experiences that you've had but also how you've looked after yourself to be able to look after other people tell me what you you sort of swear by if you like to look after yourself both mentally and physically fit because i can see that's important to you but what are the things that really work for you now i'm very old school it's um i've spoken to a lot of like high caliber athletes and you know big stars that have had you know issues with things you know coming through this tough business uh and i was brought up very tough and very old school my dad's 98 my mom's you know 84 so i've got old parents and they were always just very simple nobody owes you anything in life have the courage of your convictions and just get on with it if you moan they're like shush just get on with it man off yeah and it was just like just get on with it and you didn't have a choice you come and moan all you want like josh get on with it and you sort of have to you know if you sit there bleating on you know it's just get on with it make a plan make a plan and and do something else and i was yeah that so that's my method obviously i keep fit i do my sports a lot of sports a lot of running in the mountains hiking in the mountains and jumping and you know i don't think i would hike and jump run if i didn't have i wasn't going to jump as an end result because i would get bored of just doing so there's always almost like a challenge at the end of it so like So are you a gym guy?

20:59Definitely not. That's where I'm going. So there's no kind of morning routine. This is the next. Everything builds up to jumping off something or having a challenge. Yeah, I do a workout at home. I do a pool workout. So it's underwater. So it's like big wave breath hold training. So I do a lot of breath work, try and push my breath hold. So again, it's a challenge. And then how fast I can do the sort of water workout side of it. I do a bit of that. But more I'm happier in the mountains or surfing or climbing. I do indoor climbing gym at home, so I do a lot of this stuff. There's got to be a small element of risk.

21:32I guess someone pointed out to me that you could drown doing a breath hold, you could fall doing a climb. I guess it's the little bit of risk that I enjoy and then having the competency to not fall or not drown is making sure that you stay sharp in your mind. It goes back to the discipline, doesn't it? It really does. Something the other day I was running, a friend of mine, Art Matthews, who's this amazing singer from South Africa, and he's staying with me. and he was doing the breath hold challenge with me and on day one we had a really chill day and we did this breath hold challenge in the pool and we both surpassed our levels the day next day we had a lot going on he was traveling you know his girlfriend's I had lots going on as well as packing up for the surf trip and mountain trip I'm doing on Thursday and we get half what we did the day before just mentally we were too preoccupied we couldn't switch off to just do the training and that's with everything if you you really have to learn to control the mind and everything you know work you could go on film set you'd be worried about what that person might say with that but you have to shut out all the white noise and you have to selfishly just think about your direction your focus and get it done especially for me i've got other people's lives in my hands so i have to make sure i'm 100 that's fascinating actually that but back to you in that leadership role that that's um kind of the person that's really supervising and organizing events in a in a busy film set where there is distraction or people having extracurricular things going on ahead can you recognize that have you ever had to kind of almost remove a hundred percent someone whether it's the actor or someone that's that's performing the stunt and just have a whole you're not ready i've called this i've called the action off um especially to recognize that yeah it's also having that goes back to having the courage of your convictions which my you know my dad taught me because it's like no one especially in hollywood that no one wants to put their hand up and say not even the big time is money time is money and they're like probably should say something but and that's my job but i'm not going to in case i'm wrong or i get shouted at it's like you have to have the courage they're paying you in that position to look after that person so everyone can do their job to their maximum so the actor can be as creative as they want and do their job to the max and push themselves beyond 100 and we have to push ourselves because everyone has to push themselves otherwise you're working average which is not an option the movies that we do so they push themselves 100 relying and trusting that you're watching them 100 so i do talk up i'm very vocal if i see something i don't like or it's an hour after wrap we've gone over time are we going to just set up a big sun i'm not definitely not if we're not 100 it was not well rested someone at a heavyweight late the night before i pull the plug and it's it's done i love that and i think there's a responsibility that you embrace with that and actually i can imagine the tom cruises of this world will massively respect you for that because they know at any one time you've stood up and you've i mean i care about people who actor or otherwise a stunt person anyone and so you're still a human being we're still made of you know flesh and you know celebrity status doesn't mean we we don't hit the ground and bounce or you know not ourselves so i just care about the person they have to be okay motor racing so i missed the festival of speed at goodwoods you were there charging up the hill in all sorts of cars so that frustrated racing driver where's that where's the ambition there now because you know you told me talking off camera that you joined all the 16 year olds in formula 3 and won five races and so on you're clearly very very skillful driver what can you still achieve there what's your goal nothing really i'm too old now i mean i could still do gt i could do le mans i could do a lot of races it's just um this is the guy that when he applies himself oh no i i 100 believe truly in my heart that i could win any race i entered in the right equipment otherwise i wouldn't enter i mean endurance suits you down to the ground you're right at le mans yeah i've done a couple don't even need a co-driver no i love it i even we did a four-hour stint we went and i do more and i said if we had I would have done the whole race 12 hours in one go I'd love to push my body to that um and yeah I still believe you've got to believe no racer goes in believing they're going to get a podium or 10th you've got to go and believing you'd win so yeah if opportunity comes up I love Goodwood I love Festival of Speed I drive for Lanzanti a lot I'm taking all sorts of cars up the hill I love doing big I lived through my Goodwood experience through your socials it was awesome what you put up there yeah it was nice yeah a bit of drifting with Terry Garn you know all that stuff it's great i like keeping my hand and i like teaching a lot i like coaching like i took a friend of mine with singer and porsche i like teaching drifting to the actors and yeah it's still fun i still love it it's still very natural to me um and yeah the right opportunity came up and the right equipment i don't want to i don't want to come last you heard it here no no not at all well on the basis of the track record of what you you've told me i mean you you're clearly you can clearly pedal but i just i was that's where i was leaning to the le mans side of things feels like that endurance i mean you're made for it you've got the mindset you've got the physical fitness 100 i'm a i'm a fast bronze driver i'm ready to go race license and ready to go but there's so many other things i could ask you about i'm conscious of time but i want to i want to kind of with that sort of experience and perspective you've got with that incredibly diverse career and then still moving into new passes of the directing role what advice would you give your younger self i mean i think i've been pretty balanced the whole way through my life and the more I get on in life at a higher level, the more I see how unbalanced most people are.

27:01They far too, most of them, 99, very rarely are they far too family-based. They're mostly far too work-driven. And you have to be, because it's cutthroat, you have to be really focused and you have to, because if you miss a little bit, someone else is in your spot. So it is very much like that. But when you're at work, be 400%. But when you're at home, be 400%. don't come home tired exhausted with problems and when you have got downtime don't spend that being around your work colleagues spend your downtime just escaping i turn the phone off i have no phone holidays no phones allowed turn the phone off go to feed you a little island go surfing or go camping i'm 100 with my family if i have two or three busy weeks i'm like right this weekend we're going or you know you have to do so for me i've always maintained a balance and i find that I help more and more people that I'm mentoring.

27:56It's not just about the work ethic. It's about having a balance in their life. I love that. And actually, that balance, you can feel that coming from you where you've obviously got that right. You've put that focus of being present and committed where you need to be. And a lot of people would say that's successful. You, yourself, and a lot of people you spent a lot of time with have been very successful. Sitting here now, how would you define success? having time to enjoy the success uh i leave on thursday to go camping surfing and speed flying you know having the time because time is the most precious thing in the world it doesn't matter how much money you've got if you haven't got time you can't enjoy it so i think just again you've got to have a balance and you've got to have time to do it and those people sell manana i'll do it after the next movie and the next movie keeps pushing do it now well you made time for me today to have a chat which I was looking forward to and I so enjoyed it I hope you did I loved it yeah it was an absolute pleasure it's gone too quick but wait yeah thank you so much no worries