See the films that inspired The Fall Guy’s most epic stunts

Bbefore driving Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2or Bullet train, David Leitch was one of Hollywood’s most prolific stuntmen. He doubled for Brad Pitt in fight club It is Troy. He performed stunts in two of the Headquarters films and one of Bourne installments. He is an action film scholar and told TIME about his latest film, The fallen guy, is a “love letter to action movies.”

The film centers on a stuntman, played by Ryan Gosling. He had a brief romance with an aspiring director (Emily Blunt) but turned her into a ghost after a serious injury. When she finally gets her first big break, the star of her new movie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) disappears, so the stuntman goes in search of him and saves the photo of his true love (and perhaps wins her back in the process). The fallen guy It depicts the meticulous preparation required to perform stunts, as well as the fantastic feats themselves. And the film broke the world record for the number of cannon shots – or car rollovers – in one film.

The fallen guy it also nods to the dozens of action films that came before it. “I wanted to pay homage to the history of stunts and do really fun scenes in the spirit of some of the classics,” says Leitch. When dreaming up stunts for his various films, Leitch and his executive producer and wife Kelly McCormick keep a TV on in the background of their brainstorming meetings that plays everything from Buster Keaton’s jumps to Bollywood battle scenes.

TIME asked Leitch and McCormick to talk about classic action scenes in films like Royal Casino, True liesIt is Indiana Jones that inspired the stunts in The fallen guy.

O Royal Casino Cannon Roll

A cannon shot is a classic maneuver that involves placing a cannon-like contraption underneath a car. When the car reaches a specific speed, the device is activated and propels the car through a series of rotations. Before The fallen guythe 2006 James Bond film Royal Casino held the record with seven rolls.

“David challenged the team to break the world record,” says McCormick. “He really put that into the script.” Leitch’s team eventually managed eight and a half cannon launches.

The feat is even more impressive considering that Casino Royale’The cannon shots were fired with the car rolling down the hill and gravity working in its favor. The fallen guy fired its cannonballs at a flat, sandy surface. As McCormick explains: “Sand is hard because the cannon hits a surface, and the harder the surface, the easier it is to roll.” Sand, on the other hand, has a lot of elasticity.

The high falls in Sharky Machine & Assassin’s Creed

High drops are another familiar, if tricky, feat. One of Leitch’s favorites is the falling glass building in the 1980s classic Sharky Machine. A stuntman in 2016 Assassin’s Creed performed a 125-foot free fall, the highest film jump in 35 years.

The height of the fall is determined by factors such as wind, which can move the jumper away from the airbag that should hit the ground. The stunt double in The fallen guy was able to fall 150 feet.

“We had agreed that 120 was the right time unless the conditions were absolutely perfect that day, and then we would let it go to 150,” says McCormick. “And they were, and so we did. He didn’t reach that number in rehearsals. He didn’t reach that level in his life.”

Marrying acrobatics and romance in True lies It is Mr. AND MRS. SMITH

Leitch argues that “action should not be done for action’s sake.” It must always serve the story. “The most difficult feat in the film was falling in love,” says Leitch about making The fallen guy.

Few films combine romance and action well. But James Cameron may be the master of achieving that balance. “True lies It’s a great action and relationship movie, right, and the risks involved in those sequences,” says Leitch. He specifically points to the helicopter stunt at the end of the film, when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, dangling from a helicopter, must grab Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in a moving car off the edge of a bridge. This solidifies the couple’s trust at the end of their journey together.

Maybe in a wink to that movie, The fallen guy features a scene involving a helicopter in which our two protagonists talk about their feelings for each other in the middle of a death-defying chase.

McCormick cites another film that mixes action and romance, the 2005 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie action comedy Mr. AND MRS. SMITH. In this film, action scenes often turn into sexually charged moments of romance. “Mr. AND MRS. SMITHthe fight in the kitchen and even in the warehouse, it’s so original and about their relationship,” says McCormick. “It’s really connective and memorable.” Leitch worked as Pitt’s stunt double in that film.

Disjointed fights and jumps between vehicles in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Leitch says that action scenes from 80s and 90s action movies are “embodied in The fall guy.” Gosling paid tribute to one of cinema’s biggest action stars – and his former co-star in Blade Runner 2049-Harrison Ford. A long chase sequence involving Gosling jumping between cars and trucks mimics a famous scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

“There’s a great truck sequence where Indy is trying to transfer from one truck to another, and he gets behind it,” says Leitch. At the moment Indiana Jones is dragged by a truck, Gosling’s character surfs behind a truck in The fallen guy. “I think we started there, but then as the guys got into the choreography, it started to become our own version of it.”

Throughout the truck scene, Gosling’s character fights with a henchman much larger than him. This fight serves as a callback to almost every Indiana Jones action scene: “He’s always overwhelmed and outmatched, but somehow finds a clever way out of it.”

A big car enters The fallen guy TV program, Smokey and the BanditIt is Hooper

Modern audiences may not know this The fallen guy it is based on old IP. The fallen guy The TV show, which aired in the 1980s, starred Lee Majors as a Hollywood stuntman working as a bounty hunter. He drove a GMC Sierra and frequently jumped barriers and ponds while chasing criminals. Gosling’s hero also finds himself chasing bad guys in a new GMC Sierra and jumping partitions to catch up to them – albeit in The fallen guy movie, there’s a dog in the passenger seat, just to raise the stakes.

The end of The fallen guy features a car jump through a gigantic gorge. This jump pays homage to jumps in two Burt Reynolds films, Smokey and the Bandit It is Hooper. “It was fun figuring out, ‘How can we take this to the next level?” says Leitch.