How Atomic Blonde’s Amazing Stairwell Fight Came Together

Whether as an actor, stuntman, or director, David Leitch has been the architect behind some of the most captivating recent fight scenes in film.

His catalog of work spans some of the biggest action movies of the last twenty years, including the last two films in “The Matrix Trilogy,” “300,” and “Deadpool 2.”Although it was in Leitch’s directorial debut, “John Wick,” where he developed his signature for boldly executed action sequences that both captivate and drive the plot forward, he perfected his process on his second project, “Atomic Blonde.”One scene stands out in particular: the brutal 10-minute stairwell fight Charlize Theron’s character, MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, engages in near the end of the film.

Inspired by the stitched-together long takes of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men,” Leitch admitted in a GQ interview he’d long had the idea to do something similar, but had never been able to implement it.

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