Film Fights With Friends

In this episode of Film Fights with Friends Steve and Paul share some of the crazier stories from their stunt careers including getting trolled after an appearance on a notorious Saturday Night Live sketch, improv gone wrong on The Punisher, calling out the leaker of Ray Donovan fight footage, a cautionary tale about working on friends’ passion projects and more! MENTIONS: SNL Safelite Sketch: htt...

 Joining Film Fights with Friends is Dr. Paul Heinzelmann, a physician, former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and Producer/Director of Safe Sets: Dying to Work in the Film Industry - a feature length exploration of systemic issues impacting the health and wellbeing of film workers. This critically important documentary weaves together candid interviews with technicians, union repre...

Mark Stanton-Kelly is a London based fight coordinator, stunt performer and lead stunt double with all round onset experience and skills. Mark is experienced and known for his ability to shoot and edit previz for feature films and television. He has a varied background in martial arts, is experienced in actor training and teaching fight choreography. Among the numerous productions Mark has coordin...

Avaah Blackwell is a multilingual actor and versatile stunt performer. Classically trained in Europe, Blackwell began her career as a performer after graduating from Prague Film School's "Acting for Film" program at the top of her class. She has appeared in such productions as The Handmaid’s Tale , What We Do in the Shadows , 12 Monkeys and The Umbrella Academy . Avaah is most noted for her contin...

Tom Denier Jr. is a five-time IATSE Make Up and Hair Stylist Guild Award and four-time Emmy Award nominee. He has taken home two guild awards for his work on Saturday Night Live. Tom has worked on such noted productions as FX’s Pose, which garnered him a 2021 Emmy nod, Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), The Holdovers (2023), Werewolves Within (2021) and You Were Never Really Here (2017). Perhaps som...

Tim Gallin began his quest to perform in feature films and TV after attending CW Post College on Long Island, NY. His first professional job came by way of the Gong Show in August of 1978. He was a contestant on an Elvis Presley special because Chuck Barris was a fan of The King. After seeing his old high school football coach, Vic Magnotta performing in Taxi Driver, Tim picked up the phone and ga...

Riley Stearns is an American Filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His film balance on the edge of real and surreal, often focusing upon darker characteristics of the teacher – student relationship. Riley has written and directed Faults (2014), Dual (2022) and his most noted feature The Art of Self Defense (2019) starring Jesse Eisenberg. Riley is a long-time martial artist himself who holds a Black Bel...

In this bonus episode, we look at set safety and whether the historically ‘cowboy’ culture of film sets truly permits a culture of safety. All through our first season, guests from various television and film departments repeatedly raised concerns about set safety. We dove into issues ranging from stunts, rigging, child performers, general safety, and firearms. One common thread that appeared agai...

In the season one finale of Film Fights with Friends, Steve and Paul sit down to review the best moments from their first 25 shows. The plan suddenly changes when episode 2 guest Joshua Todd James (screenwriter - Take Cover, Pound of Flesh) returns to crash the party and turn the spotlight on our hosts. Joshua assumes the host chair and probes our co-hosts with a revealing interview you won’t want...

Military historian and weapons and armor expert Scott Boyett joins Film Fights with Friends for a comparative analysis of three films, depicting different time periods, from historic, tactical, technical, and theatrical perspectives. On the dissecting table are LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992), WAY OF THE GUN (2000), and MOSUL (2019). Scott is a consultant for the film, television, and gaming industrie...

As a stunt double for Taryn Manning in the slasher horror film BLOODLINE KILLER (2024), Kristen Murphy joined an incredible stunt team to brought some complicated fights to the screen. Kristen is a professional dancer turned stunt performer. She began working in TV and film at a young age, since being signed for commercial dance at 18 years old. A native New Yorker, born and raised in Long Island,...

Actor turned Comedian turned Stuntman turned Circus Rigger turned Stunt Rigger. Born in Ortonville, Michigan, in 1971. A former school wrestling champion, Brett has since trained in swordplay, film fighting, knife throwing, bullwhip, and as an escape artist. Throughout his career, Brett has earned a plastic bone that holds his left eye in place and has fractured his femur, the largest bone in the...

Rocco Nisivoccia Jr. is a Director, Producer, and Production Manager who, after film school, landed his first Production Assistant gig on  Spider-Man 2 (2004)  with one of the most creative pitches we have ever heard. Working his way up in the industry working through Locations ( Emergence, The Sopranos, Daredevil, Jessica Jones ) and Production Management ( Wu-Tang: An American Saga ),...

Larry Rosenthal is a SAG/AFTRA award winner and four-time nominated stunt coordinator/performer. He won for Best Stunt Ensemble on the television show 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland. He has been stunt performing for over 25 years and coordinating for 15. Among his coordinating credits are Austin & Ally (Disney), Pretty Freaking Scary (Disney), and Warped (Nickelodeon). Stunt coordinating young...

Critics universally panned Wayne Kramer’s box office flop Running Scared (2006). Top critics on Rotton Tomatoes rate the film at bleak 27% while fans give the film a superior 79% rating. On IMDB, it is Kramer’s highest-rated film, with a respectable 7.3 stars. With standout performances by Paul Walker (The Fast and the Furious), Vera Farmiga (Up In the Air, The Departed), then unknown Cameron Brig...

Singaporean actor, director, martial artist, stuntman and fight choreographer Sunny Pang has appeared is such films as The Night Comes for Us (2018), Buffalo Boys (2018), Diamond Dogs (2017), The Collector (2012), Exiled: The Chosen Ones (2024), and the upcoming Havoc; written and directed by Gareth Evans and starring Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker. Sunny’s career in action film s...

Preston Thomas is a lifelong martial artist and cinephile. Film Jitsu is his second feature film as a director and his first documentary. It is about the crossover between the worlds of martial arts, grappling, filmmaking, and stunts. The project’s journey has taken Preston from 87 North in Los Angeles to Breakfall Studios in New York City. He’s interviewed and trained with martial artists and stu...

Paul and Steve dive into the listener mailbag to answer the question, “What is your favorite movie with terrible action and a terrible movie with great action?” On the dissection table are classic action films Ong Bak: Thai Warrior (2003); Star Wars Episode 1: Phantom Menace (1999); and two Burt Reynolds films - Heat (1986) and Shamus (1973). Which film was which? In a surprising twist, Steve and...

Happy Anderson is an actor with an extensive body of work in television and film. On the feature film side, Happy co-starred opposite Will Smith and Edgar Ramirez in David Ayer's Bright (Netflix), opposite Robert DeNiro in Taylor Hackford's The Comedian (Sony Pictures), opposite Sandra Bullock in Suzanne Bier's Birdbox (Netflix), opposite Julia Roberts and Clive Owen in Tony Gilroy's Duplicity (Un...

Cliff Moylan was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to an Irish father from County Clare and an Irish-American mother from County Detroit. He is best known for his portrayal of real-life hero Sergeant John MacLellan in the Peter Berg directed film Patriots Day (2017). Longtime friends Steve and Paul sit with Cliff to break down his experience playing Sergeant MacLellan, the epic Waterto...

Originally from New Orleans, Andy Young is a Film & TV editor based in Los Angeles who specializes in comedy. He has experience in both animation & live-action projects working for studios like Warner Bros, Netflix, and HBO. His work has premiered at major film festivals like SXSW, won Webby Awards, and earned +850 million views online. As a writer for Moviemaker Magazine, Andy has intervi...

Steve and Paul sit down with Cinder Chou (Writer/Director) and Kerry Lacy (actor) about their feature film Artist Unknown. Cinder Chou is a Taiwanese American writer, director, and producer originally from the oft-maligned state of New Jersey and currently resides in Brooklyn. An early love for comic books turned into a passion for visual storytelling. Her work explores themes of otherness through...

Jasper Joyner is a Michigan-born stunt performer who has shared the screen with action legends such as Scott Atkins and Ray Park. Since 2014, Jasper has been Michael Jai White’s stunt double, working on such productions as Accident Man (2018), Never Back Down: No Surrender (2016), As Good As Dead (2022), The Commando (2022), Falcon Rising (2014), Chain of Command (2015), and more. Jasper, Paul, an...

Our first Star Trek episode! Sonequa Martin-Green's fight double Sherry Rene, beams up to the Fights With Friends studio to chat with us redshirts! Our interview with Sherry Rene begins with a breakdown of the ‘Burnham vs Burnham’ fight from season 5, episode 4 of Star Trek Discovery. Star Trek has a long history of characters having to face themselves on different timelines and parallel universes...

Steve and Paul share stories from their lives as stunt performers and discuss some insights regarding shooting fights for fun, training and on professional jobs. They dive deep into the development of the ‘Kenton vs Anton’ fight from Season 1, episode 2 of Alex Garland’s DEVS (2020), where Steve stunt doubled Zach Grenier. Beyond simply fight building they talk about training and doubling actors,...