When stunt coordinators Tim Connolly and Hank Kingi Jr. first read FX’s “The Old Man” pilot script, they thought its central chase sequence was one of the best-written scenes ever. television. Then their minds were flooded with “a ton of concerns.”
Talk with Variety As Emmy voting draws to a close, Connolly says their challenge was, “How do you pull off such an important scene with a 70-year-old actor and make it real and visceral?”
Jeff Bridges therefore prepared for the stage for more than a month. In the series, he plays Dan, a rogue CIA agent on the run after being discovered by the FBI. The pilot culminates with Dan trying to outrun a tail. He seemingly disappears, but before the agents can react, he comes out of nowhere and crashes his car, avoiding any retaliatory response from the FBI agents pursuing him.
Since Bridges was up against a younger, stronger foe, Kingi Jr. was keen to make the scene believable and creative. Fortunately, they had plenty of time to rehearse and choreograph the sequence. “It was one of the first things we tackled,” says Kingi Jr. Their first conversation with the showrunners was to keep Bridges safe at all costs, while making it look like he was fighting. .
Connolly explains that while they were getting ready, “we brought the camera in and kept it moving. But [Bridges] has back pain and his back was bothering him. That’s typical for a man his age, so we’ve incorporated that into the action. He continues: “We incorporated the wet cloth technique. It’s old man jiu-jitsu, which involves tying up certain body parts and holding them so you can believe that this man is about to take out the younger one. He takes his hits and knocks along the way.
To ensure Bridges is injury-free, the duo worked with him on a warm-up routine focusing on his back and shoulders. Said Connolly, “We relied on his abilities.” However, there were obstacles regarding “taking the weight off the body”, so they had to find a way to modify that.
Bridges had the drive and determination to get the scene right, and he came with plenty of notes, Connelly says. “He pulled out a binder as thick as the script for this episode, and he was so prepared,” Connelly recalled of their first meeting. “He had been thinking about this scene in all directions, from the minute he hits the vehicle, to how he gets out of the vehicle, to how he is going to get out of there. This preparation helped elevate the scene and us, because he brought so much to it.
However, a month of preparation could not protect the scene from the weather. Connolly says they had planned to do one or two takes at most, but “when we went to shoot it was three in the morning, very cold and there were big gusts of wind.”
The strong wind meant it would move the camera out of frame. According to Kingi Jr., “We would lose frame, which meant we had to do another take because the shot just wasn’t there. But Jeff was very understanding about it, and he kept going and we got the hit…Jeff gave 110% every moment of that streak.