John Wick Director Lent a Hand With Birds of Prey Action Sequences

Birds of Prey got a bit of an assist from John Wick’s Chad Stahelski in shooting the action sequences for the film. Director Cathy Yan spoke with ReelBlend discussing the DC film that releases on Friday and discussed how she reached out to Stahelski, who was an action coordinator before he teamed with David Leitch to direct John Wick, after she realized that she was looking for a similar style of action to the Keanu Reeves franchise.

“We had been working with [Stahelski’s] 87eleven from the get go,” Yan said. “That was the style that I wanted for the movie. It just felt right. It was that mix of practical but also heightened, like where it felt really real, but they’re also kind of having fun with it. And I like the way it’s shot. I liked that it wasn’t too ‘cutty,’ like all of his work beforehand.”

Yan continued, “During production, I was working mostly with [stunt coordinator] Jonathan Eusebio on that. He’s just a delight. He choreographed some really amazing fight sequences. And then when it came to reshoots, it was like, ‘Let’s add more action. Let’s lean into this. It’s working. Let’s make it even more cool and badass.’ And at that time, I think, Chad was just available. So it was like, ‘Cool! We got the best of the best.’”

The film stars Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain/Batgirl, Ewan McGregor as Black Mask, and Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya. Ali Wong, Robert Catrini, Chris Messina, Steven Williams and Derek Wilson are also appearing in the film, which releases this weekend.