No matter how hard you try, you can’t break up with your past.
This Valentine’s Day, Oscar® winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki) rockets into his first major leading man role as an unlikely hero, a seemingly mild-mannered realtor with a dark secret that he is desperate to leave behind. Spoiler alert: He won’t.
With the brand new trailer for Love Hurts releasing online, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the films director, Jonathon Eusebio, about his journey from a stunt co-ordinator to directing, working with Ke Huy Quan, and remembering the first film he co-ordinated the fights for.
Nick: Jonathon, it’s such a pleasure to meet you! How are you today?
Jonathon Eusebio: I’m good! How are you?
Nick: I’m doing very well! I don’t know whether you can see this on the call or not, but in my hands I’m currently holding my DVD copy of Never Back Down…
Jonathon Eusebio: Oh, wow!
Nick: This is a movie I grew up on. I have watched it maybe 100 times. That’s no word of a lie.
Jonathon Eusebio: That makes me so happy. I can tell you I’ve got a big smile on my face right now. That movie was the first time I was ever a fight coordinator. I mean, I also played Dak Ho in it, but yeah, it was the first time I ever got to actually choreographed fights for a movie. And it also starred Cam Gigadent, who’s also in Love Hurts!
Nick: It’s a full circle moment! Well, the trailer for Love Hurts is crazy. It looks so action packed and funny. But, being a directorial debut for yourself, I’m curious to know how your relationship with the camera as a stuntman and fight coordinator helps you make decisions about how you want to shoot action scenes?
Jonathon Eusebio: For me, it’s always about how I can use the choreography to tell the story. Whether it’s like a fight scene, or even a big shootout, I want to use the physicality to tell the audience what’s going on.
I’ve been lucky to work with so many different directors, but I’ve also done second unit directing with these sort of large action set pieces. And a lot of that is focused on making sure we capture everything we need to make the action look good. So I think what I really wanted to focus on with this film was how I could use that action to tell even more of the story.
Nick: What did using action and choreography to tell the story look like on this set?
Jonathon Eusebio: A lot of it was the collaboration with Ke [Huy Quan]. That guy is a legend, and is just so professional. But he wanted to really tell Martin’s story, or at least the evolution of Martin’s story. Ke really wanted the audience to feel early on that this is just an everyday guy, but as the story goes on and it starts getting more and more intense, that he has a past. And the only way to show that was through the action.
But, another big thing for me is that even though the movie and the action is intense, there is still a lot of comedy in there too. That’s another thing that Ke and I really worked on together, that the action feels like it has stakes, and looks cool, but there are some really great physical comedy moments.
Ke just has so much experience in this industry, and on sets. He always would come to set excited and ready to really give it his all, not just as an actor, but as someone who really was excited to make this movie.
Nick: I think you absolutely feel that in the trailer. That comedy also came through Marshawn Lynch, who I thought was hilarious in Bottoms recently. How did he come on board this film?
Jonathon Eusebio: Oh, man, Marshawn is great. He has this natural instinct for comedy that I was looking for in that character. And I knew from day one that he had that instinct just in the way he understood the tone of the movie, and just wasn’t afraid to show that comedic side.
But he’s definitely also got the physicality. He’s a big guy and to have him go up against Ke’s character works again for both the gritty intensity and the comedy. He really is a natural comedian though and he was awesome to work with.
Nick: One of the highlights of the trailer is obviously seeing the action play out to the rhythm and tune of Celine Dion. Is that something we can expect to see in the film too?
Jonathon Eusebio: That song and playing it to the beats of the trailer was completely done by the trailer and marketing people. And it’s great, I think it really sells what kind of movie we made. But I can’t take credit for that.
There is a sort of rhythm to the choreography in general though. I guess, like, fight choreography is really similar to choreographing a dance number or routine. You have to work with your stunt team and actors to step through each movement and basically time it out to a rhythm. And it’s not just for everyone’s safety, but you kind of want the action to flow in a certain way too.
With the music for Love Hurts, the score is really used to heighten everything that is happening on screen. I love the idea of collaborating with our music team to take what we’ve already shot and put together for a fight scene, and see how they can make it even more intense and visceral through their score. Music is just as important when it comes to action.
Nick: I’d love to close out on this, and talk about your journey as a filmmaker so far. Can you take me back to the first time someone yelled action to you as a stunt-man, and compare that to calling action for the first time as a feature film director?
Jonathon Eusebio: Oh, man. The one thing I really remember from those days is that we would film on film. And there was this pressure of having to really get it right the first time so we wouldn’t run out of film. Or if there was a huge stunt, or we were destroying something, only having a finite amount of tries to do it. Now with digital, we can reset and do things more frequently and tinker things to get them right.
But the biggest thing for me was when I heard the film cameras turn on, and you can hear the whirring of the film in the camera. That was the sound you would hear when you know things are about to get real, and I would just focus in so hard once I heard that sound.
Nick: Would you love to direct something on film one day?
Jonathon Eusebio: For sure! It’s just so expensive and with the kind of action we’re doing these days, it’s a bit easier on digital!
Nick: Jonathon, thank you so much for your time. I was so keen to chat with you today because I’m a huge fan of the work you’ve done, especially on Never Back Down. I’ll make sure I keep it handy for when we get to chat face to face one day!
Jonathon Eusebio: Thank you so much, Nick. You really brought a smile to my face with that!
Thank you to Jonathon for his time, and to Universal Pictures for organising the interview. Love Hurts is in Australian cinemas February 6, 2025.
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