00:00 He quit the week before and he goes, "I can't do this."
00:03 I'm like, "Dwayne, you're my secret weapon on this movie."
00:06 And I wrote him this long letter of all the actors I worked with.
00:09 They said they were scared to do something and how it turned out.
00:12 I'm sorry, brother.
00:14 I'm sorry that I brought you into this.
00:18 I just wanted things to be the way they used to be.
00:27 And I wanted to do this small movie, Ambulance, because what I wanted to do
00:30 wasn't about the action, it was about the study of tension.
00:33 So we shot it very fast and a great cast.
00:37 It's fun to watch it with a big audience because it's an intense movie and you just
00:42 see their body language. When they're still, that means they're into it.
00:45 Tension, yeah.
00:46 I mean, it's also just so intimate inside of the ambulance,
00:50 but of course you also bring the mayhem all around it, everything that's going on.
00:54 I did not make up that word, by the way. That was my crew.
00:56 That was probably on the press. That's why we'll take that.
00:58 I've trademarked that name, by the way.
01:00 Most of this movie has you guys within an ambulance.
01:05 Did you ever get kind of the long road trip feel of,
01:08 God, I got to just get the hell out of this car?
01:10 I would say it's easy to want to get out of that space, but also it's easy to just say,
01:15 you know what, this is my little corner and I'm just going to rest here.
01:19 Because as soon as you get out, you got to get right back in.
01:22 You know what I mean?
01:23 It's interesting.
01:24 Sometimes you get frustrated with it and then other times it's like,
01:28 look, this is just where I am for the day and for the rest of the day.
01:31 So this is just my own space.
01:34 I mean, in truth, I think being in that small space and then trying to act in that space,
01:38 making it, it's pretty difficult.
01:40 You just start realizing about the people who actually do real job in that space,
01:44 saving people's lives.
01:46 We were shooting the movie in the middle of the second wave in Los Angeles.
01:52 And everyone was, you know, talking about first responders and EMTs.
01:56 And we were in this ambulance shooting these sort of crazy scenes.
01:59 I just thought, what an extraordinary job to get what they get done in that small space.
02:05 I mean, we could hardly act in it, let alone get anywhere close to saving someone's life.
02:09 Saving someone's lives, yeah.
02:10 Yeah.
02:10 There's a life-saving surgery in the ambulance that was completely real,
02:15 set up by two trauma doctors.
02:16 I'm FaceTiming with an anatomically correct dummy body.
02:20 Every part is real anatomically.
02:23 How far she has to do, and I'm not going to be graphic, but what's going down,
02:27 that's what will go down because they were, they're FaceTiming.
02:30 These are guys, these are doctors that have worked with trauma bullet surgeries.
02:34 And I said, this is the tools they have.
02:37 What would happen?
02:37 And it's intense.
02:38 It's an intense moment.
02:39 And believe it or not, those two guys talking, the doctors, those are the real doctors.
02:43 Those are the real doctors.
02:44 That's awesome.
02:45 That's honestly one of my favorite moments in the movie.
02:47 It was so cool to do because, you know, prepping for it and educating myself on
02:54 what that looked like and what that process was,
02:56 and really speaking to professionals and educating me on the process.
03:00 And then being there and they had a real dummy with every single piece of,
03:04 you know, insides that I needed.
03:06 And it was so real.
03:08 And I mean, there was a moment that I was hyperventilating because she's going through
03:12 so much emotions at once, not only because of the surgery,
03:14 because she's doing what she's been wanting to do her entire life.
03:17 And so it's a roller coaster of emotions.
03:19 And I remember at a moment I hyperventilated so much and my hands cramped up.
03:25 I could, I had gollum claws.
03:27 On panic attack.
03:28 Yeah.
03:28 From a panic attack, from hyperventilating, from the breathing and the nerves.
03:32 And those moments become so real.
03:34 It's like those things that you push yourself and you really feel it on your body.
03:38 But when you see it on screen, it really works.
03:40 You know, I am really having a panic attack in that scene.
03:43 What do you want?
03:46 Just gonna borrow it.
03:46 I got a cop shot.
03:47 I got to get him to the hospital.
03:48 I'm going to need you to help us.
03:49 Why don't you help us?
03:50 We're doing hostages now.
03:51 This one, you get pretty, you get real self-referential with actual quotes from The Rock.
03:56 Because the younger generation can quote my movies now better than me.
03:59 Sure.
04:00 Bad Boys has sort of become cultish.
04:01 And I was, we were making fun of Dwayne Johnson, who I know I've worked with.
04:06 I think I put that in the script.
04:08 Sean had just, Sean Connery had just passed.
04:11 And so he meant a lot to me, my career.
04:14 Sure.
04:14 Yeah.
04:15 I mean, do you think that you're at a point in your career?
04:17 This is also coming after your awesome cameo in Bad Boys for life.
04:20 Right.
04:20 Like, do you think you're at a point in your career where you're kind of just like,
04:22 I know who I am in pop culture.
04:24 Oh, yeah.
04:24 I mean, yeah.
04:25 And I can make fun of myself and have no problem making fun of other people.
04:30 And making a movie has got to be fun.
04:32 Sure, sure.
04:33 You know, and it's intense.
04:35 It's a war.
04:36 But it's, to me, I love shooting.
04:40 When you, when you get the chance to work with the type of actors that Michael got in this film,
04:45 I think that it's really cool when you have actors that have input and have a very clear
04:51 sense of what they're really trying to bring to the table.
04:54 Sometimes, you know, it depends on the project, the director dictates what it's going to be like.
04:59 But once in a blue moon, you get really proactive actors that are like, I very, very much feel like
05:05 this is the way that I should go.
05:07 And that allows for a creative powwow, you know, and I, it was fun because I really wanted to make
05:15 sure that Cam felt a bit more, even more than it was already on script, layered and nuanced and,
05:26 and to have less of like, I'm in a panic and I'm caught up in an ambulance and more emotion.
05:31 And yeah, we expanded a lot of her stuff and really built onto that.
05:35 And, and Michael really added a lot.
05:38 I mean, a lot of the end scenes are added to the movie and he really cared that scene with
05:43 the little girl was added afterwards.
05:45 And he really cared about making her the heart of the movie.
05:48 And I'm just really grateful that he cared that much.
05:50 You're going and making choices and you're running and gunning the whole time.
05:54 You know, you're giving him everything.
05:57 I mean, as an actor, it's like, you're giving him all different choices of all different levels.
06:00 You know, when I watch the character that he created, that I sort of threw choices at him.
06:05 I realized that guy yells a lot, you know, and a lot of that's just him going,
06:09 try this, try that, yell that, you know, and it's, it's sort of very ordered chaos,
06:15 you know, but that energy that he gives you is all in the movie.
06:19 But yeah, definitely my character does a lot of yelling.
06:23 I mean, I think that also shows how Mike, Michael, he has a, he has a structure,
06:27 structure that was given to us by Chris Fetick.
06:30 And, you know, it's a, it's a really tight structure and he knows the vision enough to
06:34 let us play and improv and, you know, improvise and improve upon the relationships and on the
06:41 scenario. So it was all within a, you know, a pretty known tight structure.
06:47 I've gotten to shed this ultimate fear of the concept of feeling like you don't belong there
06:54 and sort of owning why you're there and the confidence of why you're there.
06:58 And I feel when you really achieve that, then you become more open to play with a director
07:05 and let someone direct you. And I sort of let go of control.
07:09 And I think that that's sort of where I'm at. You know, I learned my lines.
07:13 I learned what backstory I want or I think, or it feels honest to my performance and my heart.
07:18 And then I get to set and I let someone else's input and their outside perspective and their
07:23 eyes show me something I haven't seen before. And that always allows you to become,
07:28 I think that the greatest actors do that. And that's what really brings
07:31 different traits to them onto characters because the director seeing stuff that we don't do.
07:36 And we tend to go to what's comfortable for us. So I really enjoy that.
07:40 Hey, don't you move.
07:43 You think you're so tough with that gun?
07:47 No, daddy, relax.
07:48 I gotta get back to my wife and my son.
07:53 Does your wife know you're a Banks?
07:56 One of my favorite movie was Pain and Gain. And I love that movie so much.
08:00 And a huge part of it is just the performance that you get out of Dwayne Johnson is phenomenal.
08:03 I mean, it's my favorite of his.
08:04 He literally, he literally, he quit the week before and he goes, I can't do this.
08:10 I'm like, Dwayne, you're my secret weapon on this movie.
08:13 And I wrote him this long letter of all the actors I worked with.
08:16 They said they were scared to do something and how it turned out.
08:19 And he goes, OK, OK, all right.
08:22 He was brilliant in that movie. And it really is an amazing performance.
08:26 That movie was always a, you know, I read the story.
08:29 It's a very long, screwed up crime.
08:31 And it was always like a passion project of mine.
08:33 I made it for $22 million. We did it all around my house in Miami.
08:36 I would drive a moped to the set. That's how close it was.
08:40 I mean, we would do things because all the cops know us in Miami.
08:43 Mark Wahlberg, we get in a van.
08:44 I got Dwayne. We got a dead body.
08:46 We got like Anthony Mackie.
08:48 And I got a camera and just a sound man.
08:50 We are laughing at Marcus is driving illegally through the city.
08:53 All right. And then like a cop would see him.
08:55 He goes, oh, hey, sweetheart.
08:56 I mean, that's fun. That's guerrilla filmmaking.
09:01 And I had a great time doing that.
