Speaker 1: Lad with.
Speaker 2: Levin k left behind a decorated military career in the
Speaker 2: Black Ops to live a simple life working construction. But
Speaker 2: when his boss's daughter, who was like family to him,
Speaker 2: is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her
Speaker 2: home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he
Speaker 2: could have imagined. So sets the stage for the new
Speaker 2: movie A Working Man starring Jason Statham, now in theaters.
Speaker 3: You should have put to the left and be dead.
Speaker 3: Oh you dead, you'd be dead.
Speaker 1: From the director of The Beekeeper, a nineteen year old
Speaker 1: cost Kidnam.
Speaker 3: She's a good kid. She's a great kid. She's like
Speaker 3: family to me.
Speaker 4: Come went back to five and this is you have a.
Speaker 1: Trafficking I'm gonna find a better go for long? How
Speaker 1: do they get to work?
Speaker 3: To work? So it cuts you around heart, Good luck,
Speaker 3: get the work, Jason Statha, Oh that is not doing.
Speaker 1: People whose mommy dressesn't funny.
Speaker 2: Work.
Speaker 3: Look at those bricks. You're a working man. That's right.
Speaker 3: Let's play.
Speaker 2: And i'd so please to be joined by its writer
Speaker 2: and director David Ayir. David a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming on tonight.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me, David, You.
Speaker 2: Along with Sylvester Stallone, wrote A working Man, and given that,
Speaker 2: I've seen The beat Keeper also with Jason Statham, I've
Speaker 2: also seen Suicide Squad that you directed. I've seen Training
Speaker 2: Day squat The Fast and Furious that you wrote. I
Speaker 2: say all that to say, you know a little something
Speaker 2: about action movies and what works. What are some of
Speaker 2: the rules that you swear by in making a good
Speaker 2: action movie.
Speaker 4: I think it's also having a lot of heart in it.
Speaker 4: It's having great characters, you know, so that when the
Speaker 4: action kicks off, we care about who's doing it and
Speaker 4: why it's happening. And in this case, you know, Jason's
Speaker 4: really the king of the genre. I mean, he's his
Speaker 4: own action genre. And just giving him the opportunity to
Speaker 4: show up as an actor and really have some love
Speaker 4: on screen and really give him a righteous mission, I
Speaker 4: think is what sets this film apart.
Speaker 2: In watching A working Man, and you kind of hinted
Speaker 2: at it right there, I'm reminded of this rapport that
Speaker 2: you have with Jason Stathan, but also Michael Penia. What
Speaker 2: is it that you like about working with them individually
Speaker 2: or even collectively.
Speaker 4: You know, if Jason it's this is a guy that
Speaker 4: does his own stunts. This is a guy that has
Speaker 4: an encyclopedic knowledge of action. He's been doing this a
Speaker 4: long time and he's really good at it. And the
Speaker 4: thing that I've learned is just how good of an
Speaker 4: actor he is and how much heart and soul he has.
Speaker 4: And it was a great thing to team him up
Speaker 4: with such a strong actor like Michael Penya, who is
Speaker 4: just an incredible actor, really strong. He can take a
Speaker 4: room over, take the scene over, and he just grounds everything.
Speaker 4: So anytime I can put actors like that together, you
Speaker 4: know you can see the result.
Speaker 3: Jenny's missing, What do you mean missing?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: Friends?
Speaker 4: On fri.
Speaker 3: Saturday, we were worried, so we called the cops. And
Speaker 3: then that's on the.
Speaker 4: She had a piano.
Speaker 3: Side on something like we invited half our family.
Speaker 2: My cousin Degnor is a police captain in Philly, and
Speaker 2: she says, they don't work these cases.
Speaker 3: They take a report and forget about it. Can you
Speaker 3: help us, like and keep you sut of running swool?
Speaker 3: No help us find Jack? My dad was green Bray.
Speaker 1: Come.
Speaker 3: I can see you guys coming a mile away. You
Speaker 3: want bad guys? You bought the planes you get those
Speaker 3: bad guys? How much different person?
Speaker 2: Now, since you mentioned Jason Statham and how he does
Speaker 2: his own stunts, how does an idea for an action scene,
Speaker 2: be it in A Working Man or any other movie?
Speaker 2: For you completely that sophisticated fight choreography? How does it
Speaker 2: go from the page to the Do you just leave
Speaker 2: the section blank and say, okay, insert Jason fight choreography
Speaker 2: or is it more sophisticated? What type of direction do
Speaker 2: you give?
Speaker 4: You know, you try and create kind of the atmosphere
Speaker 4: and tone in the script itself, but then it always
Speaker 4: takes on a life of its own. And I don't
Speaker 4: think people understand how much work goes into these things.
Speaker 4: You know, the stunt team gets together early on in
Speaker 4: the process before you shoot, and they'll just experiment and
Speaker 4: they'll videotape it and they'll cut things together, and you
Speaker 4: go and you watch and you give notes, and everybody
Speaker 4: has ideas and you know, maybe we can throw a
Speaker 4: bag of cement at this guy. Why don't we throw
Speaker 4: a bucket of nails? So everyone's kind of adding to it.
Speaker 4: And then once you're on set, that's where it really
Speaker 4: comes to life, and that's where the challenge is because
Speaker 4: it's it's hard, you know, you shoot this stuff over days.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of punches, a lot of repeats, and
Speaker 4: there's Jason in the middle of it doing everything.
Speaker 2: Anyone who's seen your work or knows your work knows
Speaker 2: that there's going to be a lot of action, as
Speaker 2: I talked about. Anyone who's seen ad Jason state Atham's
Speaker 2: work knows that there's a lot of action. But a
Speaker 2: working man. Although it is definitely an action movie, tell
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, I would say it's equally about family.
Speaker 2: Not to say that it's a family movie, but the
Speaker 2: theme of family is ever present, is it not.
Speaker 4: That's exactly it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Jason is this you know, troubled guy with the past
Speaker 4: who gets adopted by this loving family that takes him
Speaker 4: in and gives him opportunity and helps him rebuild himself.
Speaker 4: And we love them for that. So when it comes
Speaker 4: his turn to help them, we're really rooting for that
Speaker 4: to happen. We're really rooting for him to bring their
Speaker 4: daughter back, you know, who is like his daughter. And
Speaker 4: even the bad guys have their families and their relationships
Speaker 4: and their history and their rules and their traditions, and
Speaker 4: I think that's just part of the human side of things.
Speaker 4: And when you can bring that to a film and
Speaker 4: have some incredible action, I think you're going to get
Speaker 4: a really satisfying experience for the audience.
Speaker 2: Dodible action, no doubt. And there was a lot of
Speaker 2: heartfelt moments in the movie which actually surprised me. But
Speaker 2: was there anything which surprised you either in the writing,
Speaker 2: creation or the filming of the movie which you said, well,
Speaker 2: I thought I had what idea going in, but now
Speaker 2: it's something else.
Speaker 4: I would say. It's Ariana Reeves, who plays Jenny, the
Speaker 4: girl that gets kidnapped. I always saw Jenny as a fighter,
Speaker 4: as someone that could fight back, but Ariana brought this
Speaker 4: level of humor and presence in spirit to the role
Speaker 4: that I wasn't expecting, and by the end of it,
Speaker 4: you almost believe that she could rescue Jason.
Speaker 2: How do you know when you are screen testing actors
Speaker 2: beyond those you've worked with that someone has that special
Speaker 2: quality or can deliver a particular scene in your mind,
Speaker 2: or they're just reading some sides. But how do you
Speaker 2: know you have the right actor or actress?
Speaker 4: You know it's it's something you know when you see it,
Speaker 4: I really feel. And it's one of the toughest parts
Speaker 4: of the process is casting, because there's all these incredible
Speaker 4: people and they really put their heart and soul in it,
Speaker 4: and you have to narrow it down to a few
Speaker 4: choices and then ultimately one choice. But it's every role
Speaker 4: requires this own special thing and sometimes you don't know
Speaker 4: what that is until you actually see it and you go, Okay,
Speaker 4: there it is. That's the person, and that's what happened
Speaker 4: with Adriana.
Speaker 2: He is David Ayer, writer and director for the new
Speaker 2: movie A Working Man starring Jason Statham, now in theaters. David,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on tonight and I
Speaker 2: can't wait for everyone else to see it as well.
Speaker 3: It's a good one.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: You're listening too.
Speaker 2: Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six
Speaker 2: forty