You were just working on Iron Man 2 as Mickey Rourkes lead stunt double. Whats it like to do stunts for Mickey Rourke?
Ive doubled Mickey Rourke since 1996, with the exception of the movie The Wrestler. I was actually working on Avatar at the time so I wasnt able to get away to do it. Mickey is one of the greatest guys not only to work with, but double for. Hes always on the side of saying, Please, let the stuntman do it. If the stunt guy can do it better, let him do it.
Ive always made it a point to not just go up there and perform a stunt, but to try and emulate Mickey Rourke as much as possible. I think he loves that. I watch his idiosyncrasies how he holds his hand up to his mouth, and how he places his right hand on his hip.
So you guys are a package deal.
Every time hes done a movie, he says, Garrett Warren is my stunt double and please try to work it out and hire him. Iron Man 2 had a double-whip sequence, and I am a whip specialist. Theres not very many of us in Hollywood that do double-whips. On top of that you had Mickey Rourke saying, Please get this guy. So of course production and the stunt coordinator thought I was the perfect choice.
When you say double-whip, what does that mean exactly? What is required of his character? I saw the footage at Comic-Con, but its still not entirely clear to me how Whiplash reaps his damage.
Well, double-whip basically means that you have two whips in your hands. I had brought two whips with me that are made of kangaroo hide that are incredibly well made. You can perform all sorts of tricks and cracks with them. In the movie, you wont see those whips. Theyll digitally replace it with other types of whips. I dont know if Im at liberty to say what the whips will look like, but theyre going to be these super whips that have an awful lot of power. They can cut through cars, they can do an awful lot of damage. And when the movie comes out, youll see that he doesnt do just whip-cracks and grabbing people. He lays waste to an awful lot of vehicles and street pieces and other things.
So will it be you well be seeing in a lot of these sequences?
[Laughs] Any time you see some stunt where someone might have gotten hurt, then yes. At one point, Whiplash had to get hit by a car, and Mickey did the lead up to the stunt, and I did the stunt where the car came in and hit me and took me to the fence. So yes, youll see a combination of Mickey and myself. And when it comes to the whip routine, I have to admit, Mickey Rourke did a really good job with the whips. However, the suit was very painful at times. It was this big metal piece that wasnt very comfortable, so he didnt always want to do the whip routines every take. So Id go in and do the whip routines.
Does the suit covers the whole body, because in the footage I saw Whiplash is mostly shirtless?
It covers the whole body in metal rods, but you are shirtless [underneath]. That was the part that was hard. When you move, it was metal digging into skin, cutting your shoulders, wrists and back and so forth.
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