Team xXx
“Kick some ass, get the girl and look dope while doing it.”
Samuel L. Jackson as Gibbons, “RXC”
Marke’s attempt to lure Xander Cage out of hiding is anything but a normal conversation. Once she brings him out of the shadows only learning of the sheer devastating power of Pandora’s Box and skillfulness of Xiang’s team, does Xander agree to accept this mission impossible. After both teams meet up, things are not as they seem and we learn the real mission of both teams and the latest instalment of the ‘xXx’ franchise is re-born.
First on the team is Adele Wolff, a sniper and assassin extraordinaire, played by “Orange is the New Black’s,” magnetic Ruby Rose. Rose was drawn to the film for a number of reasons. “First I read the script and I thought it was very funny and I loved some of these characters that I haven’t seen before. I love Vin Diesel and knowing that Joe Roth was going to have such a big hand in producing it, I was like how could you say ‘no’ to that?” says Rose. “A lot of girls watched Vin growing up saying ‘oh I wish he was my boyfriend, I love him, he’s so hot.’ And I just wanted to be Vin Diesel. Like, that’s all I wanted to do was be Vin Diesel. And, now it’s like the next best thing, being in a film with Vin and having him be my best friend,” says Rose.
“Ruby and I have just such a unique and rich relationship in this movie that it’s bled over to real life,” says Diesel. “There are going to be a lot a people in the audience that will wish to have that camaraderie that Adele and Xander have. It’s something that people will enjoy on film and look for in their lives,” he says. “Adele is really Xander’s kind of best buddy and watchdog. And anybody who gets too close, she’s going to protect him…there’s nobody too big to fight,” said Kirschenbaum of Rose’s character. “Adele is the type of character that evens out the playing field for the ones that can’t do it themselves,” says Rose. “She has heart in that sense but outside of animals and outside of Xander, I don’t think that she really has a family, she doesn’t have friends, she doesn’t trust anybody,” describes Rose. “But, if you are on the right side of her, she’ll do anything for you and she joins Xander’s new team because she just doesn’t really know how to say no to Xander. She’s out in the Serengeti charging this phone for five years and Xander is the only one with the number. Although he’s reported to be dead, she’s held out hope for his call all these years,” explains Rose. Rose continues, “then he bats his eyelashes, and she’s on a plane.”
Second up on team Xander is Tennyson Torch, a conspiracy theorist, slightly insane stunt driver played by Scottish-born actor Rory McCann, most famously known as “The Hound” from “Game of Thrones.” “When Vin Diesel gets in touch you and asks if you want to be part of XXX, it’s a no-brainer,” says McCann. “I worked with boats back home nearly every day of my life and when I knew I was going to be the boat driver, never mind the car driver, I didn’t have a choice…I had to do it,” says McCann.
“Tennyson Torch is an interesting addition to this rebel-with-a-cause team of daredevils,” says McCann. “He’s an ex-stuntman that’s been hit in the head a bit too much. He’s slightly crazy, a bit of a conspiracy theorist but there is an intelligence to him. You almost feel there’s no action required kind a thing. But he’s good in a crisis and he’s good at lifting big heavy things. Just like me in real life,” explains McCann with a wink.
Third up to bat on Team Xander is Nicks played by Kris Wu, another global superstar. Wu, who got his start as a professional basketball player in China then became a pop music superstar. “Kris Wu is so multitalented…his rabid fan base is not by accident. He’s recorded a track for the film with Designer. He’s amazing, and probably the humblest person you would never know,” says Kirschenbaum about Wu. “Vin was very much a big brother to Kris, so Kris was helping him with Chinese and Vin was helping him with his swag. The two of them were a good mix,” said Kirschenbaum.
What drew Wu to the role was a combination of the character and the stunts, a perfect match for “RXC” and Wu’s debut Hollywood film. “This is my first time in a Hollywood movie and everything’s new to me,” says Wu, “but Nicks, the character himself, is really pretty cool. He’s not really a big action kind of guy but I liked Nicks a lot," said Wu of his role. “You instantly love Kris Wu, who is this amazing DJ who you're like, “What’s his special skill?” And Xander’s like, “He’s fun to have around and he is. And he’s more than that, he’s a bit of everything” said Kirschenbaum.
Also on this off-beat, highly skilled team Xander is Becky, the gadget and weapons expert and tech queen of the crew played by Nina Dobrev. “Becky is a nerdy tech crushing on Xander a little bit,” says Dobrev. “But, she’s actually totally in love with Xander and she’s always talking and never knows when to stop. It was cool to play this smart girl in glasses.” “Nina is really hilarious in this movie and that was so refreshing. We knew she was gorgeous, we knew she was this tremendous actor, but her comedic timing literally has the audience laughing before she even says anything. Because they're so tuned in every time she comes on, they know something hilarious is going to happen, says Kirschenbaum.
Action Unlimited: Let the Showdown Begin
What separates “RXC” from the other xXx films is this compelling showdown between Team Xiang and Team Xander. While the first film is all about Xander, this film is really about the team element how Xander has grown into a leader. “In the first “xXx” there was no artifice to Xander Cage,” says Diesel. “He was true to himself, all the time and there’s something we see in this new iteration of xXx that celebrates individuality. It almost proposes that by accepting your individuality it allows you to create a team,” explains Diesel of this new xXx franchise.
“When we thought about bringing Xander Cage back it was really important for him to be part of this multicultural global group,” explains Kirschenbaum. “So what you'll see now is that he has really kind of wrapped his arms around not only one xXx team but two,” explains Kirschenbaum. “This is the dynamic that really fuels the movie and also captivates the audience. We’ve got two badass teams vying for Pandora’s Box; two teams that are equally skilled, equally fun-loving and equally rebellious.
On top of being two badass teams, what really elevates the movie to the next level is the never-before-seen action and it is made more credible by the fact that every single epic feat is actually within the realm of the physical possibilities. The stunt crew was led by Bobby Brown, Supervising Stunt Coordinator, who has worked with both Vin Diesel and director Caruso in the past.
“A lot of the stunt guys that I worked with on the first “xXx” I still work with today,” says Diesel. “Back then I loved them because they let me do all the crazy stunts. Everyone on the set would call me Air Diesel because I was always jumping something,” he says. “The stunts in “RXC” aren’t just stunts for the sake of being stunts. They speak to a characteristic of Xander and working with Australian extreme athlete Robbie Maddison, we were able to create a new fighting style called MXMA, motocross martial arts and it’s just so fun,” says an excited Diesel. “Robbie Maddison came in and helped us create these stunts that you've never seen before, and I think that really set the bar for the movie, which was, how do we do something that audiences haven’t seen before? And that is really the promise of Xander Cage,” says Kirschenbaum.
Add Diesel’s extensive fight and stunt experience to the unique and acclaimed fighting styles of Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa and “RXC” has effectively taken fight scenes to a whole new level. “You’ve got Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa, Michael Bisping - these fighters with all different styles and Vin who has a history of fighting a certain way – talk about incorporating all these unique styles of these renowned talents into one scene” says stunt supervisor Brown. “It’s a bit intimidating because they all have their own world around them. Donnie Yen is a legendary guy. So is Tony Jaa in what he does. And then you throw football great Tony Gonzalez into the mix – all these incredibly talented people all fighting Vin,” says Brown. Needless to say, “RXC” pulls out all the stops to push this movie over the top in terms of fight creativity and stunt authenticity.
“I’ve never seen people move so fast. But they move in very, very different ways, and have very, very different styles,” says director of photography Russell Carpenter, “So their fights are designed with them in mind. Especially with Tony Jaa - he’ll turn around and he’ll do something so fast you can barely see his hands move. I remember sometimes saying like ‘Hey, slow down a little bit so at least the viewer can see what you did, otherwise they may miss just how fantastic this is,” said Carpenter. “We’re talking about fighters here that are so fast they had to be shot in slo-mo or with a high speed camera.”
Overall, there was a very collaborative approach to working out the stunts. Donnie Yen came with his team and rehearsals began months ahead of filming. There is a particular scene at the start of the movie when Yen crashes through a huge glass window and at an angle where the stunt crew couldn’t use the typical sugar glass. “The jump alone is very tough to do, to come up from that high and come through a window and land on the floor and roll out, so we rehearsed it big time,” says Brown. “The special effects guy has to press a button to fire these charges to blow the real tempered glass, but if he’s a little late on blowing the window, it’ll slow up this guy’s trajectory and he’ll drop straight down…and that would have been a really bad thing,” Brown describes. “The jump itself was about 30 feet start to finish, with only a little help from the stunt riggers which serves as the perfect example of just how committed and how bad-ass this cast and crew really were.”
The crew also had some help from other pros. Jon Valera and 87Eleven, who is a premier fight team, helped with the fight sequences. “We found Jack Fields, who does nutty stuff on a trials bike, and incorporated it into the whole thing and It just kind a developed on its own right in front of our eyes,” says Brown. Corbin Fox, who also worked on “Chronicles of Riddick” with Diesel in 2004, led the rigging team which at times could include up to 17 riggers. “I just got all these creative people together and we did a bunch of different tests until we got a look that D.J. Caruso really liked.
Riding the Waves
Perhaps one of the most impressive feats in the movie is the bike surfing sequence. As Diesel says “It’s going to blow people’s minds.” The sequence was shot in the Dominican Republic with the cast and crew overcoming daunting natural elements to make the sequence as believable as possible.
“The water represented some of the hardest stuff we shot,” explains Diesel, “because water can be very unforgiving when you’re twenty-five feet below the surface, fully clothed and waiting for the word ‘action.’ You’re playing by seconds there and you have to do a whole stunt sequence down there,” he says. A portion of the sequence was actually shot in an elaborate and huge underwater tank at Pinewood Studios Dominican Republic with real motorcycles equipped with jet skis.
“We had a lot of overhead rigging to spot the actors and the special effects stuff that they had to do to make all that work,” says stunt coordinator Bobby Brown. “It’s thousands and thousands of gallons of water that has to be running all the time and you also have Vin Diesel flying off the back of a the bike and jumping up like he’s barefoot skiing and getting back on the bike. So you’ve constantly got to have him safe. And with actors like Donnie and Vin, who love to do their own stunts, not only was it incredibly challenging to shoot, the personal challenge was felt by everyone,” says Brown. “The hardest stuff was actually swimming fully clothed with boots and jewelry and jackets in a turbulent ocean,” says Diesel, with a wicked grin.
Another of the impressive action scenes is the Zero Gravity sequence in the cargo plane where the crew would have up to five actors suspended in the air at one time. Brown explains: “The rigging effort was huge and having Tony Gonzalez and Vin – two huge guys – fighting in this limited space was an incredible challenge.”
