#1995 - Chad Stahelski

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Chad Stahelski (0:15)

Is that how we're gonna start the show?

Joe Rogan (0:17)

Take a hit of that, we'll start the show. Just get in there.

And that's not even a fresh one. When they're fresh, they're brutal.

Chad Stahelski (0:26)

I just wanted to do it twice to make sure that was real.

Joe Rogan (0:28)

Shout out to, how do you say his name, Juju Mufu? Juju Mufu. For his smelling salts.

It's fresh. If it's fresh, you get like that close. And you're just like...

Chad Stahelski (0:39)

Yeah, no, I'm awake.

Joe Rogan (0:41)

That was a good one, though.

I'm gonna bring these to the comedy mothership. I'm gonna see. I'm gonna take a big blast right before I go on stage. Supposed to wake up your central nervous system or something. I don't even know if there's any science to it.

Chad Stahelski (0:54)

No, it just sucks.

Joe Rogan (0:55)

It might be just a bunch of psychos who just like freaking their brain out with smelling salts.

Anyway, man, congrats on the movie. Looks awesome. It's very exciting.

Chad Stahelski (1:06)

Very nice to be here. Big fan.

Joe Rogan (1:07)

Thank you. My pleasure.

Boy, Jesus Christ, is it over the top.

Chad Stahelski (1:13)

This fucking deal is so crazy.

Joe Rogan (1:15)

It's so crazy. I saw a thing online of the amount of people that John Wick has killed compared to like Michael Myers and Jason.

Chad Stahelski (1:25)

Oh yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:26)

By a long straw.

Chad Stahelski (1:27)

I think we beat Rambo too.

Joe Rogan (1:28)

Yeah, I think you beat everybody.

Chad Stahelski (1:29)

But I think we had more deaths than Keanu spoke words in the movie.

Joe Rogan (1:32)

Oh, for sure.

Chad Stahelski (1:33)

100%. What everybody's bringing up to me. I think he spoke 308 words in the movie or something. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:39)

Well, listen, it works. It's perfect.

Chad Stahelski (1:41)

Yeah, something fun. Something for the guys and the action fans and everybody out there.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

Oh yeah. It's murder porn.

Chad Stahelski (1:50)

Hopefully, it's artistic murder porn.

Joe Rogan (1:52)

It's artistic. It is. It's interesting how they're all so different too.

The fourth one is almost like a comic book movie. It's so over the top and crazy.

Chad Stahelski (2:02)

Graphic anime. I think it's probably the best story that we've told, but it's definitely wrapped up in the hyper real world. We get bored, so we want to go somewhere and do something. It's always like, how do we start these things? What do we do? We never start with a concept. It's usually we're done, we're done, we're never going to do one again. And then Japan gets released like six months after the rest of the world. So we're usually doing a press tour in Japan, and we're sitting in the Imperial Hotel. They have an amazing Scotch bar.

And we start off with the first drink, and thank God it's done. God, we survived, and by like the fifth Scotch, we're like, hey, man, I got a great fucking idea. Let's have them fight ninjas.

And then that's how it starts, and it's been that way for the last three.

Joe Rogan (2:39)

So you started off as a stuntman.

Chad Stahelski (2:42)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:43)

And how did you transition to becoming a director? Because that's like, there's got to be a lot of barriers that are in the way.

Chad Stahelski (2:51)

I think different time for sure, you know, before before cell phones, before that stuff. We started as a stunt guy before all the streamers.

You know, I was working for this guy Ernie Ersadi way back in the day, brilliant stunt corps and second year director on television. And I was working on I don't know if you remember the old show like Pretender.

He could be anything that. And I was doing a gig on that. I just done a car hit. I think I was on like 24, I split my head off on the windshield. It was a mess. And then he comes to me as I'm holding the ice pack on my head. He's like, hey, they're having auditions for the sci fi film in Burbank. You know, you're off. If you hurry, you can make it. I'm in jeans and a t-shirt. I'm bleeding. And I'm like, all right. Yeah, sure. I'll go make it. It's for that Keanu Reeves guy. You know, speeded.

Keanu Reeves. I'll go see him. Sure. So you go up there and it was an audition for The Matrix.

And you know, at the time you remember back in the day, there weren't a lot of martial art movies at a big budget level. It was like Steven Seagal or Van Damme or, you know, Mark Dacascos, all those guys at the time. And martial arts, you know, they didn't do them in big budget films. It was considered low budget, you know, action porn kind of thing.