Ambulance director Michael Bay is spilling the secret to delivering kick-ass chase scenes in his films: Schmoozing with the cops. While promoting his latest adrenaline shot, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Bay couldn’t help but brag about how cops love his productions and are always game to help the director out when he’s on location.
“Listen, one great skill I have is talking to cops,” Bay told Polygon. “Cops love my movies around the world. I mean from Italy to Paris, whatever. They would give me a lot.”
Apparently, the trick is to make himself available to charm the pants off the local police, which Bay absolutely does. He’s not even shy about it.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, I would love to put you in the movie. When you guys do a chase, what do you do? What if you’re chasing an ambulance?’” Bay said. “And then they — well, first they wanted pictures. Second, they said they’d love to be in the movie. They literally would block the freeway for me and do a rolling block. We hauled ass at 90 miles an hour down an open freeway. That would have cost a normal movie 350,000 bucks and take two months of planning. It looks real because it is on a real freeway, and we are going that fast. So that’s, like, free stuff.”
Bay also recently revealed that he would have a lot of “fun” directing an episode of his favorite show Yellowstone should the opportunity arise. Couple that information with Bay’s skills as a cop-whisperer, and there’s only one way this can be heading: Michael Bay must let a horse drive a car. It’s happening, people.
(Via Polygon)