Rebel Ridge Stunts Are Unlike Anything You're Used to
Co-stunt coordinators Cory DeMeyers and Keith Woulard on crafting tense battles in Netflix hit.
Welcome to the wild and wonderful era of Emmy Awards: Phase 1, a time before nomination voting when the arbitrary rules governing what is timely are set aside, and we can discuss projects that were released weeks or months earlier and deserve to be top of mind again. Rebel Ridge premiered on Netflix September 6, 2024.
Things get heated in Rebel Ridge, Jeremy Saulnier’s Netflix action movie about corrupt Southern cops and the tough, taciturn loner who takes them on. Since the production filmed during summer in New Orleans, things were also heated off-camera, not that it affected the riveting action sequences a whit.
“It makes you really nervous, 'cause you know you're gonna be in police uniforms,” stunt coordinator Cory DeMeyers says of the Southern temps. “ But that's gonna be what it's gonna be. We're gonna make what works, regardless. There's definitely a photo floating around of our friend Jordan Thoma, who is doubling Emory Cohen. And he's carrying a fan he bought at Home Depot with a battery on it, and he had that between every single take because it was so hot.” (For his part, star Aaron Pierre said the “pressure cooker” heat only aided his performance and his stunt work.)
Pierre took on quite a few of his own stunts, something DeMeyers and co-stunt coordinator Keith Woulard were in favor of. “Personally, if the actor can do it and they can do it safely, it's always gonna be better for the picture,” DeMeyers says. “And in Aaron's case, he's a fricking rockstar athlete. That dude is so badass.” Exhibit A: The scene in which Pierre climbs onto an overpass from the top of his truck without rope.
DeMeyers and Woulard had about three weeks with Pierre to train for Rebel Ridge, which finds its action fairly evenly split between hand-to-hand combat (DeMeyers’ forte) and gunfight sequences (Woulard’s background). That was all in Saulnier’s script; he even suggested a few moves to DeMeyers and Woulard. A director chiming in on action choreography? How did that go over?
“He's a very cool dude, but at first I'm like, ‘Eh, OK, we'll see,’” DeMeyers says with a laugh. “But he really did know what he was talking about.”
“He did,” Woulard adds. “ And it helped, because Jeremy is a filmmaker, and filmmakers watch a lot of films, so they get things from other films, but then they have their own thoughts. And when you put your own thoughts to it and then you get guys like Cory and myself and put it all together, then it's a new thing.”
What’s most striking about Rebel Ridge (and a likely contributor to its massive streaming success) is how unlike anything else its action sequences are. This isn’t a riff on whatever was popular two years ago; Saulnier relied on DeMeyers and Woulard to come up with something fresh, giving them the freedom to do so.
As for Saulnier’s contributions, one of the biggest was Pierre unloading guns one-handed, a badass skill that silently conveys his somewhat specific abilities and training. It also serves another, more subtle purpose.
“Cory comes from a world of fighting. I come from a world of shooting,” Woulard says while discussing the film’s epic shootout that combines both in surprising ways. “When Aaron comes around with the shotgun and he dumps the shotgun shells, if you think about it, anybody else and their mama saved that last round and just went, boom. But what did he do? He emptied it, and then the dude comes around the corner, and [Pierre] just throws it at him.”
“ You still have the gun fighting, but Aaron's not killing anybody,” DeMeyers says. “He shoots no one with anything lethal. That’s him just continuing to show you, ‘I'm not a bad guy. Oh man, there's a threat. I guess I'll just throw my gun at him.’”
Cory DeMeyers’ stunt coordinator credits include Emmy-nominated work on The Righteous Gemstones, Halloween Ends, and Cop Shop. He received a SAG Award as a member of the stunt ensemble in Top Gun: Maverick, and he and Woulard earned an NAACP Award for the Rebel Ridge stunts. Keith Woulard’s stunt coordinator credits include Black Hawk Down and Sicario. He won a SAG Award as part of the Lone Survivor stunt ensemble. DeMeyers says his craft services go-to is “ LaCroix. And I just got off a show, I was eating a lot of jerky and Pop-Tarts.” As for Woulard? “ I'm a tuna freak. I always make friends with crafty and say, ‘Hey bro, make sure you got some tuna for me. All right? Don't put a lot of mayonnaise in it.’”