Joseph Gordon-Levitt Dodges Traffic in ‘Premium Rush’
New York Times, August 16, 2012
It took a lot of nerve for the director David Koepp to include a chase under an elevated New York City train in “Premium Rush” about a bike messenger’s frantic race to deliver a package from one end of Manhattan to the other.
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Mr. Koepp’s vision was confirmed early on when George Aguilar, a seasoned assistant director and stunt coordinator, asked one of the stunt doubles, a real-life bike messenger, Austin Horse, to “ride as fast as you can.”
“Really?” Mr. Horse replied in Mr. Aguilar’s retelling, “I’m pretty fast.”
With camera rolling, Mr. Aguilar said, he was stunned at how fast Mr. Horse accelerated from a standstill to a winding weave in deep traffic. When he showed the footage to Mr. Koepp, Mr. Aguilar said, “Now we know what this movie is about.” (Danny MacAskill, a Scottish street stunt cyclist whose jaw-dropping YouTube videos garner millions of views, is another double.)
