How Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne pulled off the epic airplane fight in 'The Old Guard' without stunt doubles

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How Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne pulled off the epic airplane fight in 'The Old Guard' without stunt doubles
The plane fight scene in "The Old Guard" between Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne.Aimee Spikes/Netflix
  • "The Old Guard" fight coordinator Danny Hernandez told Insider how the wild airplane fight scene was pulled off.
  • Hernandez worked with stars Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne for four months getting them ready for the movie.
  • For the airplane fight, he broke it up into small segments that both had to master.
  • In the beginning, the two would train on their own, often getting the moves down by doing them repeatedly in front of a mirror.
  • Then they moved on to working with a stunt partner.
  • And finally, before filming the scene, Theron and Layne did the scene multiple times in a day to build up their cardio for when they had to do it for real on the day.
  • Watch how the finished fight turned out at the end of this story.
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In Charlize Theron's latest action movie, "The Old Guard" (available now on Netflix), the star plays an immortal warrior who, with her team of mercenaries, has been battling foes all over the world for centuries.

To pull it off so Theron looked like a warrior with 6,000-years-worth of fighting knowledge, the movie's fight coordinator Danny Hernandez spent four months working with the Oscar-winner and her co-stars on a wide range of martial art disciplines before cameras starting rolling.

That hard work is displayed throughout Gina Prince-Bythewood's movie, but especially in its first major fight sequence which takes place between Andy (Theron) and Nile (KiKi Layne) inside a cargo plane as it's flying through the air.

Andy and Nile's thrilling hand-to-hand combat as the plane zips through the sky doesn't just show off Andy's fighting expertise but that Nile, a new immortal member, is worthy to join Andy's team.

Hernandez said the goal with that scene was to make it as realistic as possible, which meant Theron and Layne would have to do their own fighting. To accomplish this, that meant the actors would have to do a lot of practice.

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"Having four months of training prior really helped out tremendously," Hernandez told Insider. "It's a lot of work, self-sacrifice, pain, and bruises. Because it's all for real. No cheats. No stunt doubles."

To make that plane fight work, Hernandez said the training was all done in steps, or as he called them "segments."

"I would start with a six-beat segment," he said. "Correcting all the hand positions and footwork."

Hernandez would even have Theron and Layne do the fight moves by themselves repeatedly in front of a mirror to watch how they were doing it and get it right.

Then they would elevate to working with a stunt partner to do the fight segment. Once they mastered it, they would evolve to more segments of the plane fight. Often the actors would train for a week on each segment.

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Here's a glimpse at some of that training from a video Theron posted on Twitter:

Through the months, the segments would grow until finally both Theron and Layne could do the entire plane fight sequence on their own.

Then it was time for both actors to "fight" against one another.

"Closer to filming the scene we were doing the whole thing multiple times a day to build up their cardio," Hernandez said. "Because we knew they would be doing the fight for multiple takes."

Finally, it was time to shoot the scene and it turned out that the plane fight would be the first thing shot for the movie.

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Hernandez said that led to some butterflies for both actors, as it took a couple of takes for them to do the fight correctly all the way through.

"What I always suggest is don't cut the camera, let them keep going, and by the second or third time you have the magic," said Hernandez.

Hernandez, who has done the fight coordinating for movies like "Avengers: Endgame" and "Birds of Prey," said the best kind of fights are the ones where the audiences can see that the actors are really doing it because it heightens the authenticity of those characters.

The airplane fight in "The Old Guard" certainly pulls that off. And Hernandez said Theron and Layne had the bruises to prove it.

"They were really kicking the s--- out of each other," he said with a laugh.

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Watch the plane fight scene here:

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