The Last Action Director

On this week’s episode, I’m very pleased to be joined by Ric Roman Waugh, the director of the new film Shelter, starring Jason Statham. We talked a lot about making that movie and how he best utilized Statham’s skills as opposed to Dwayne Johnson’s in the movie Snitch or Gerard Butler’s in the Greenland films, Kandahar, and Angel Has Fallen. Shelter, which is in theaters now, is a little more meditative than some of Statham’s recent work, though no less effective for it. We discussed why Statham was attracted to the part and how his fatherhood helped inform his role as the protector of an orphaned young girl.

Then we discussed making the transition from stuntman to director: Waugh worked with Tony Scott on a number of pictures, and had some interesting insights into the methods of the great action director. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to practically restrain myself from just doing 30 minutes on Waugh’s Shot Caller, a gritty prison drama.oo