Rules of engagement

CHAD STAHELSKI IS a man of action. Literally. This is a guy who started off as a stuntman, became one of the best in the business and is the sort of person who can nonchalantly drop a sentence like, ‘“I’ve been in a lot of environments where you see actual violence, and it’s brutal,” into casual conversation. He’s walked the walk, talked the talk, jumped the jump, exploded the explosion.

And now he’s channelling all those years of experience into becoming one of the best action directors around. He’s directed three movies so far, but those movies just happen to be the John Wick trilogy, in which Stahelski and his creative partner, one Keanu Reeves, seek to elevate the modern American action movie into a hybrid of influences and styles with the aim of being much, much more than the sum of its parts.

“You’ve all seen a knife fight. How do I make it different?” he muses. “You’ve all seen amovie. How do I make a movie better?”