Havoc director Gareth Evans breaks down those 2 epic action scenes: 'I've never taken on a sequence of that scale'

If ever a film earned its title, it's Gareth Evans' Havoc.

The director and master action choreographer, whose seminal work on The Raid and its sequel inspired John Wick and its many copycats, delivers two of the year's wildest, bloodiest action set pieces in his latest movie, Havoc. 

Tom Hardy stars in the neo-noir crime thriller as a corrupt detective named Walker, who shoots, punches, and drop-kicks his way through an entire criminal underworld to rescue the estranged son of dirty politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker). A love letter to the Hong Kong action films of the '80s and '90s, the film features no shortage of violence, but two scenes, in particular, are already being hailed as some of the year's best fight sequences. 

The first comes inside and around a spacious two-story nightclub packed with partygoers. Set to Gesaffelstein's "Obsession," the scene sees Walker battle not only Triad henchmen but his fellow dirty cops (led by Timothy Olyphant's Vincent) as he tries to interrogate the girlfriend of Beaumont's missing son. Metal pipes, cleavers, champagne bottles, and Uzis are all in the mix.

The second notable action scene comes inside, outside, and underneath an isolated fishing shack. The final big clash of the film, the climactic set piece involves even more Triad henchmen and dirty cops, but in a much more confined space. In its most memorable moment, Walker dispatches a particularly vicious henchwoman with a harpoon to the neck. It’s not so much the harpoon that’s unique, but the way her impaled body slowly slides down the wire protruding from her neck. (More on that later!)

Below, Evans breaks down how he crafted those two scenes, what it was like working with Hardy, and whether he has plans for a Havoc sequel.

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Tom Hardy compared working with you to working with Christopher Nolan. How does it feel to hear a compliment like that from an actor of his caliber? 

GARETH EVANS: That's way too big a compliment from Tom, so take that with a nice pinch of salt. A bucket full of it, actually. That's lovely. He's a master, so yeah, being in the same breath is a huge, huge compliment. 

Let’s talk about the two big action set pieces, starting with the club scene. How long did that take to shoot?

That was a while. It took a while. First and foremost, it was a huge undertaking to execute the scene at that scale because there were so many moving parts to it. So we had different levels in terms of being up on the balcony floor, getting down to the ground floor, going into the tunnel, coming back out again, and getting out into the streets. I think that whole sequence, if you count the exterior side of the nightclub as well as the interior, was probably the best part of around about three weeks of shooting.

I've never taken on a sequence of that scale before that required that level of having to sustain the pace and the tension, as well as keeping track of the multiple POVs across the scene.

There’s so much going on in that scene, but spatially, you always feel like you know where you are in the room.

That's the thing with the setup of it, the reason why we did that big, long [shot], which takes us from the car to the nightclub and then all around until he meets with Mia (Quelin Sepulveda). One of the key important ingredients whenever we design an action scene is giving the audience member almost like a subconscious roadmap of the geographical space, so that no matter what happens afterwards, no matter how kinetic, no matter how frenetic the camera angles or the edits are, you're never lost because you've got that subconsciously pegged away in the back of your min.

How do you begin to choreograph an action scene of this size?

It starts very early in the process. It was even before Tom came on board. I'd written the script, and then I got together with my stunt team and Jude Poyer, who is the stunt coordinator. In the script, I never get into details about the action. I always just give a sense of the space, this is the psychology, or the tone of the scene. Is it fast-paced, is it slow, is it fun, or is it scary? And then a few, maybe one or two key moments that are important to plot and character. 

How many pages was the nightclub scene in the script?

I think it’s almost like seven minutes long, six or seven minutes long. That will take up three paragraphs, at most, or maybe four paragraphs on a page. So the “page a minute” thing becomes obsolete with my scripts when it comes to action. And the reason why I don't dictate that is because I have such a healthy working relationship with my stunt team, with the action design team that we will then go into a space, crash mats, cardboard boxes everywhere, and just design it from the ground up, shot by shot, edit by edit, no sense of hierarchy, just scrutinizing whether an idea is a good idea or a bad idea. 

I never shoot wide masters as coverage. I only ever shoot jigsaw pieces of action. So every shot is specific to tell in that section of the action. 

Do you have certain action movements or kill scenarios in mind before you shoot?

Sometimes there'll be a particular weapon or an item that I might think, “Oh, that could make an interesting weapon.” There might be the odd kill here and there, which would present itself as an interesting way to go on screen. And I might have two or three gold ticket items that I want to put into the choreography. But again, in that spirit of collaboration with the team, they only make it into the final sequence if they stand up to scrutiny. 

Do you have a favorite kill in this movie?

I really love the harpoon at the end of the shack sequence. For me, it becomes so absurd, and it's one of those things where if all we did was a harpoon shot and then she dies, it's like, yeah, okay, seen that before. But I remember saying to Matt Flannery, the cinematographer on the film, I was like, “This has to be stretched to the point of incredulity. We need to do a close-up of the harpoon going into this wooden structure, but then slowly travel along the wire, and let the audience take that in." It's not about close-up detail, it's not about seeing the wound in the neck — it's about giving the audience time to take all of that in. 

Which scene took longer to shoot between the fishing shack and the nightclub scene?

The fishing shack was probably the one that took the longest. They were both big sequences, and they're both challenging in different ways. When we did the fishing shack sequence in the cabin, the challenging thing was tracking all the weapons. While we will exaggerate the hell out of how many bullets could fit in a magazine, what we didn't exaggerate was where they could pick up and recycle guns from.

So every time a body would fall, we'd be like, “Okay, what are they carrying? How can we use that, and how can that be the next weapon that gets used so that we would feel this change of ammunition and change of caliber of bullets and weapons throughout that sequence?” But also within it was that thing of it feeling like a mini version of The Raid, where it starts off with guns, becomes sharp objects, and then becomes hand-to-hand. So that was a real challenging set piece, and we had, I think, three different sets built for that sequence alone. It was a huge undertaking by the art department to get that done.

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Does Tom’s martial arts training come in handy?

His physicality definitely comes in handy, [but] not from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which is what he studies. We knew Tom did that, but our approach was like, Walker doesn't [know Jiu-Jitsu]. But what it does give him is the stamina and the strength and the agility to be able to do what's required of him as Walker. That foundational work was paramount in order to get him through the sequences that we were shooting. 

But what's great about Tom is that he's done this enough times now to know when is the right time to step aside and let [his longtime stuntman] Jacob [Tomuri] come in and do a shot for him when it's maybe more physically demanding or an element of safety that's required in order for a seasoned stunt professional to take on the shot.

What's great about Jacob's work as a stunt double for Tom is that it's not purely about, “I need to do this wrist lock or take this kick or take this fall.” It's understanding the way Walker's character is. Jacob is kind of mimicking Tom's performance, so if he needs to walk, the hunch of the shoulders is the same. The way his arms are positioned is the same, so you don't feel like you cut from a shot of Tom Hardy performing his Walker to a stunt double just doing a stunt. It's a performance continuity that runs through so that hopefully the audience can't tell when we've switched between Tom and his stunt double.

Have you thought about a Havoc sequel?

We'll see. It was always intended as a one-and-done, but there's definitely a hell of a lot of intrigue about what happens next with Walker's journey. It's like, well, what happens once the credits roll? Does he end up in the back of a cop car, or does he ride shotgun? Probably not. But yeah, there are a lot of unanswered questions about what the future holds for that character, and so it would be interesting to see where that goes.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.