Craig Macrae, a distinguished action director and stunt coordinator with over two decades of experience, has made a mark in both Hollywood and Bollywood. He worked on Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) as a stunt double and performer and in Bollywood, he has served as an action director in Pathaan (2023), Jawan (2023), Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (2024), etc. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama, Craig spoke about his experience of working with Shah Rukh Khan in Pathaan and Jawan.
EXCLUSIVE: Craig Macrae talks about choreographing action in Pathaan and Jawan: “Shah Rukh Khan BLEW me away as he’s an amazing person; He can deliver at a MOMENT’s notice”
Craig Macrae began by saying, “Pathaan was an incredible experience. The team at YRF (Yash Raj Films) was very awesome. Adi sir (Aditya Chopra) was very trusting of me as I had worked in his films before as a fight choreographer and a stunt coordinator. I did most of the action scenes in the film. It was my first experience working with Shah Rukh Khan and what an incredible experience it was! He blew me away as he’s an amazing person. He’s always very well prepared and diligent about being on set on time. He gives his project his all.”
He continued, “The Pathaan experience was especially incredible as we had free reign to do as much action as we wanted to and to be as creative as we’d like. That’s fairly rare; usually, we are kept controlled by the producers who make sure that they don’t spend too much. But on Pathaan, we got a lot of time to develop action and hence, the overall experience was amazing.”
When asked how different Jawan was from Pathaan, he replied, “It was very different because it was my first time working with a South director (Atlee). He’s also an incredible guy. He has a very creative and strong vision in mind on what he wants to produce. It was a very high-paced film and we worked in a very demanding environment. We had to deliver a lot in a short span of time. This made it challenging. Nevertheless, we developed really cool stuff and very big action. It was on a grand scale.”
He further praised Shah Rukh Khan saying, “Yet again, working with Shah Rukh sir was an absolute breeze. He knows what he’s there to do. He’s never confused about his role or what is expected from him. He can deliver at a moment’s notice. If you ask him for a change or a little bit of a tweak in the action choreography, he’s okay with it and ensures that it works for the character. Physically, he’s able to absorb new notes and build into his physicality and performance on a moment’s notice, which is very unique.”
When asked about his journey in Bollywood in a nutshell, Craig Macrae said, “The journey has been insane. I love working here. It’s a high-paced, high-energy environment with a lot of passionate and dedicated people. Hence, my journey has been like a whirlwind. Things happen quickly but they also happen with a lot of energy. All the films which we had done had a lot of strong stories and compelling characters. Hence, the experience has been quite fun.”
The VFX has changed the ball game for action. Actors don’t need to perform action the way they did in the past. On this, he revealed, “The VFX and I have been changing the industry constantly. It is literally changing things by the month. We need to keep up with those changes and innovations as best we can. We collaborate with a lot of people in our industry. A lot of them are in the VFX department, so that we can try and stay abreast of these new techniques and the things that they would require from us. Some elements do not have to be practical anymore. It’s sad as being a stuntman and coming from that stable, we enjoyed doing things on our own. I worked on Mad Max: Fury Road back in the day. The emphasis on that movie was that we did everything as practically as possible. They wanted to avoid using too much VFX. That was a lot of fun though it was also quite challenging. There are still many elements that we still do practically and try to make the audience realize that it’s as real as possible. Hence, it’s a bit of a balancing act – setting the new techniques and using them and at the same time ensuring that we don’t lose our roots and start doing the practical things that we know the audiences love.”
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