The new Road House remake ended up being a fun flick, but it definitely wasn’t a perfect movie. Director Doug Liman has said that this is his best movie, but I’m not so sure about that. He’s made better films!
Conor McGregor plays the crazed villain in the movie, and he’s amusingly ridiculous. He goes so over the top the way he struts around talking smack. Well, it turns out that during the fight scenes in the movie, McGregor instinctively kept trying to really punch Jake Gyllenhaal in the face.
So, Gyllenhaal and McGregor had to come up with a routine before shooting every take so that McGregor would remember not to hit him. While a guest on the Smartless podcast, Gyllenhaal said McGregor was “amazing” and credited him for coaching him through their fight scenes. He went on to recall:
“Every time, we’d have to say to Conor, they’d be like, ‘We’re rolling, OK, marker,’ and then it’d be like, I’d have to say — even two months into shooting — ‘Remember, don’t hit me in the face. Like, remember that.’ And he’d be like, ‘Oh yeah, right right right.’ It was that every time, before every take.”
I wonder how many times Gyllenhaal got punched in the face up until they point they started doing that! It’s pretty funny that Gyllenhaal had to go though that routine with the fighter months into shooting. I get it, though! I wouldn’t want to be punched by McGregor either!