In this Film Ireland Podcast, Paul Farren talks to Allan Graf, one of Hollywood's premier 2nd unit directors and stunt coordinators.
Graf worked as a stunt player for several years on a variety of projects, notably Walter Hill's "Southern Comfort," "The Driver" and "The Long Riders," John Carpenter's "They Live," Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall," "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," "Raising Arizona," "Action Jackson," "S.W.A.T.," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Independence Day" and, most recently, "Captain America: The First Avenger."
He has coordinated stunts on several other projects, including "Punch Drunk Love," "Domestic Disturbance," "Broken Arrow," "Wayne's World,""The Hangover, Part II" (the highest-grossing, R-rated comedy of all time), and several of director Hill's actioners, including "Supernova," "Geronimo: An American Legend" and "Wild Bill," on which he also directed the films' 2nd unit. On Hill's 1990 sequel, "Another 48 Hrs.," Graf, as the film's 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator, was the very first stuntman to cannon roll a bus at 60 mph. He subsequently flipped a bus again on the Jean-Claude Van Damme actioner "Nowhere to Run," cannon rolling a 40-foot bus underneath a 60-foot wide freeway overpass