EP. 163.5 — Movie Breakdown: Speed

Jenna [00:00:03] I’m Jenna Fischer. 

Angela [00:00:04] And I’m Angela Kinsey. 

Jenna [00:00:06] We were on The Office together. 

Angela [00:00:07] And we’re best friends. 

Jenna [00:00:08] And now we’re doing the ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. 

Angela [00:00:12] Each week, we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind the scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. 

Jenna [00:00:19] We’re the Office Ladies. Hello, everybody! 

Angela [00:00:24] Hey, today is a big day, you guys! 

Jenna [00:00:27] This is a very special episode of Office Ladies. We are not breaking down an episode of The Office. Oh, no. 

Angela [00:00:33] Well, you better buckle in. 

Jenna [00:00:35] We’re breaking down Speed! 

Angela [00:00:36] Speed! With Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Daniels. Lady! 

Jenna [00:00:43] I’m very excited to break this down. We did a lot of research for this. We have watched Speed. 

Angela [00:00:49] Oh, gosh. 

Jenna [00:00:49] More times in a row than I thought I ever would. 

Angela [00:00:52] So much. 

Jenna [00:00:53] I was telling Sam and Cassi this last week, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping. I think it is the cortisol. From watching these tense. 

Angela [00:01:03] Bus chase scenes for five days and nights. 

Angela [00:01:07] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:01:08] But I’ll tell you one thing. This movie holds up. 

Angela [00:01:10] It really does. 

Jenna [00:01:12] I have watched all of these, like, behind the scenes making of videos where I watched them intricately perform all these stunts as part of my research today. And yet when I watch the movie, it’s seamless. I am so impressed by this movie. 

Angela [00:01:26] I cannot believe the stunts they did and that the actors did them. We’re going to get to it. Here’s the research I did. Ready, folks? 

Jenna [00:01:33] Yes. 

Angela [00:01:34] Got an old tech alert for you. I got the DVDs with the extras. 

Jenna [00:01:38] Of course you did. I love it. 

Angela [00:01:40] Let me tell you what is on this DVD extras, because it’s worth it. Audio commentary with the director, Jan de Bont, audio commentary with writer Graham Yost and producer Mark Gordon. Action sequences, behind the scenes footage and interviews with director and stunt coordinator Gary Hymes. Behind the scenes of all the stunts on the subway train. Inside Speed on location stunts, visual effects. HBO First Look: The Making of Speed, extended scenes, trailers and TV spots, gallery of photos and a music video by Billy Idol. 

Jenna [00:02:12] Oh, wow. 

Angela [00:02:13] And guess what? Your little tiny, blond, middle age lady watched all of it! I have seen all of this. Oh, my goodness. Also, you guys, I want you to know the director, Jan, was a former cinematographer. He had worked on Hunt for Red October, Die Hard, Basic Instinct, Lethal Weapon three. He would operate the camera himself in this movie. A ton. Like, handheld camera. 

Jenna [00:02:41] And this was his directorial debut, right? 

Angela [00:02:43] Yes, that’s right. And he would just grab the camera and be like, guys, I got to get in there. Let me operate this camera. He would pull focus. He would even slate for himself on the bus. 

Jenna [00:02:52] I saw many behind the scenes videos and he gave an interview where he said they could fit so few people on the bus besides the cast that you kind of had to do more than one job. And so, yeah, he did the clicker and all the things. 

Angela [00:03:07] He did all the things. And he really wanted you to feel like you were in these shots with them. So that’s why he was up, up in their business with the handheld. 

Jenna [00:03:15] Well, we have one more exciting thing to tell you. Also, we interviewed Beth Grant. You know her as Dwight’s babysitter and date to the dinner party on The Office. You guys, she’s on the bus. 

Angela [00:03:28] She’s on the bus. 

Jenna [00:03:29] She’s the lady who gets blown up trying to get off the bus when she shouldn’t. 

Angela [00:03:33] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:03:33] So we had the loveliest interview with her, and we are going to release that as a bonus episode in a couple of days. 

Angela [00:03:41] It’s so good. You have to listen to her behind the scenes stories. We have so much to cover in the Speed breakdown that we wanted to give Beth a stand alone. 

Jenna [00:03:49] Should we get started? 

Angela [00:03:50] We better. My document’s 45 pages. 

Jenna [00:03:53] Oh, dear. Here we go. Buckle in, everyone. Speed. Written by Graham Yost. Directed by Jan de Bont. Produced by Mark Gordon with a running time of 116 minutes. Here’s your summary. A mad man has rigged an L.A. bus with a bomb. If the bus drops below 50 miles per hour, the bomb will go off, killing everyone on board. He wants $3.7 million in cash, or he’s going to blow up the bus. That’s it. It’s simple. 

Angela [00:04:21] It’s simple. 

Jenna [00:04:23] Fast fact number one. Graham Yost said that the original title for this movie was Minimum Speed. 

Angela [00:04:28] No. 

Jenna [00:04:29] Yeah, Minimum Speed. 

Angela [00:04:30] No. That’s not- what? You guys, I want you to go the minimum speed. 

Jenna [00:04:36] He said he changed it when he realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to have the word minimum in a movie title. 

Angela [00:04:41] That’s so funny. 

Jenna [00:04:42] Graham was a writer on Full House when he wrote this script. He was a TV writer. He was inspired by the Akira Kurosawa movie Runaway Train. And he thought, Well, what if we put a bomb on a bus? He wrote this movie on spec. That means he wrote it for free in his free time. And then he took it out to the studios and shopped it around. Speed was shot in September of 1993, making this the 30th anniversary of the filming of Speed. And we talked to Beth about that, how it’s been 30 years. 

Angela [00:05:13] That is crazy. Also, I want you guys to know many people on the commentaries talked about how hot it was. September is our hottest month in California, and they were on a freeway in September. So. 

Jenna [00:05:28] On a bus. 

Angela [00:05:29] On a bud. And then in between scenes, they’d be like on the side of the freeway. 

Jenna [00:05:32] Yes. This reminded me of us standing outside in our heavy coats in the Dunder-Mifflin parking lot, pretending like it was winter, when really it was so, so hot. 

Angela [00:05:41] We are just like Speed. You and I, we, our cast on The Office. 

Jenna [00:05:46] You know what, though? All the people are trapped in the bus all the time and it made me think of our conference room scenes. 

Angela [00:05:52] I know. I did think about that. I was like, I get how you get punchy in one room all day. 

Jenna [00:05:57] Yeah. 

Angela [00:05:57] What if the cast of The Office did a remake of Speed? Hear me out. 

Jenna [00:06:02] Say no more. 

Angela [00:06:03] Come on. 

Jenna [00:06:04] I’m in. 

Angela [00:06:05] Right? 

Jenna [00:06:05] This is the reunion no one’s thought of. 

Angela [00:06:07] Dwight is the mad man. 

Jenna [00:06:09] Yes, of course. Yes. 

Angela [00:06:11] Toby tries to escape. He gets killed. 

Jenna [00:06:15] Do I get to drive the bus? 

Angela [00:06:17] You get to drive the bus. 

Jenna [00:06:18] Michael is the annoying tourist. 

Angela [00:06:20] Oh, for sure. 

Jenna [00:06:21] Right? 

Angela [00:06:22] Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I’m seeing all the characters now. 

Jenna [00:06:26] We can do it. 

Angela [00:06:27] I think I’m the lady with the purse that gives us all away. 

Jenna [00:06:32] I think Creed is the one who pulls the gun because he thinks that Jim is after him. 

Angela [00:06:37] Yes. 

Jenna [00:06:38] Yeah. It’s all cthere. 

Angela [00:06:40] It’s coming together, you guys. 

Jenna [00:06:41] Who do we need to talk to about this? We need to get, like, Fox Searchlight and Universal to do a collab? 

Angela [00:06:46] We need to fire up the phone to the studio. 

Jenna [00:06:49] All right. Fast fact number two. Casting. You want some casting dish? 

Angela [00:06:55] Do I? 

Jenna [00:06:56] All right. 

Angela [00:06:56] What is that voice? 

Jenna [00:06:58] I don’t know. 

Angela [00:06:59] I don’t know. 

Jenna [00:07:00] Hold on to your hats. 

Angela [00:07:01] I’m holding on. 

Jenna [00:07:03] You are literally wearing a hat. 

Angela [00:07:04] I know. Because I have really bad back of the head cowlick day. 

Jenna [00:07:08] Well, you look cute in the hat, but hold on to it. 

Angela [00:07:10] Okay. 

Jenna [00:07:11] Keanu was not their first choice for the role of Jack Traven. 

Angela [00:07:14] How dare you. Get out! How dare you? Who was? 

Jenna [00:07:19] Stephen Baldwin. 

Angela [00:07:21] What? 

Jenna [00:07:21] Yeah. He turned it down because he thought it was too similar to Die Hard. He felt like it was a Die Hard redo. They also went to Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Finally, they decided to meet with actors for the role, and Keanu was one of the people they met with. The screenwriter said he pulled up to the studio lot on a motorcycle. 

Angela [00:07:47] Yes. 

Jenna [00:07:47] And he had, like, flowy, gorgeous hair. And they all basically got a man crush on him immediately and were like, Yeah, we’re going to want to give him the role. 

Angela [00:07:58] As one does. 

Jenna [00:07:59] That’s right. But check this out. After he got the role, the director, Jan, said, maybe you want to get a little bit more of a cop looking haircut. He didn’t specify what that meant. So Keanu went out and got a buzzcut. He showed up to the set on the first day of work and the studio and the producers, they looked at him. Their memories of his motorcycle arrival, they’re crushed. They couldn’t believe this buzz cut. They almost postponed filming so he could grow his hair back. 

Angela [00:08:30] Yeah, I know. Jan, the director, said that what you see in the movie is actually a little bit grown in. 

Jenna [00:08:37] Oh, my gosh. 

Angela [00:08:38] I thought he looked amazing with that haircut. 

Jenna [00:08:40] I have no complaints. 

Angela [00:08:41] I have no complaints. I mean, I guess I think I like his hair any way. There you go. Whatever your hair style is, Keanu.  

Jenna [00:08:49] The face is so great, I don’t need to even worry about what’s happening with the hair. He can wear any hairl. 

Angela [00:08:53] It all works. 

Jenna [00:08:54] It all. It all works. All the time. Let’s talk about the role of Annie, which, as we know, eventually went to the absolutely charming Sandra Bullock. 

Angela [00:09:04] She could not be more adorable in this movie. 

Jenna [00:09:06] Oh, my gosh. 

Angela [00:09:06] Not possible. 

Jenna [00:09:07] Talk about launching someone’s career. 

Angela [00:09:09] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:09:09] The role of Annie was originally offered to Halle Berry, but she turned it down. She said, quote, I turned down Speed because I thought, I don’t want to drive that bus. And there wasn’t a whole lot of dialogue. But then later she saw the movie and she said she loved it. And she thought to herself, Wow, the movie Gods sure didn’t talk to me that day. 

Angela [00:09:31] Oh, man. 

Jenna [00:09:32] The day she turned it down. 

Angela [00:09:33] But she does get to eventually star with Keanu. 

Jenna [00:09:35] Yes. They star in John Wick three. 

Angela [00:09:37] Yes. Which you haven’t seen. But I have. 

Jenna [00:09:40] I know. And we’re going to go see John Wick four. 

Angela [00:09:43] We are! 

Jenna [00:09:44] And leave a big hole in my John Wick anthology. I’m just jumping to four. But here’s something crazy. So Halle Berry, who was offered the role of Annie, and Stephen Baldwin, who was offered the role of Jack, eventually went on to star in The Flintstones. 

Angela [00:09:59] Oh? 

Jenna [00:09:59] There you go. So when Halle Berry passed, the writer pitched Ellen DeGeneres. He said he thought maybe like a comedian in the role would be a good idea. 

Angela [00:10:09] Yeah, I read that he said, you know, there were these driving school classes at the time, that it was like a comedy driving school and that maybe this character taught comedic driving lessons. 

Jenna [00:10:19] And that’s why she could drive a bus then through the traffic. 

Angela [00:10:22] And but she also was funny and like cracking jokes. 

Jenna [00:10:26] Well, eventually over two dozen big name actresses auditioned for the role. At this time, Sandra Bullock had done two lead roles. She had been in Love Potion Number nine and Demolition Man. She still had to do a chemistry read with Keanu. I guess they crushed it. 

Angela [00:10:43] Yes. Everyone said they had amazing chemistry. 

Jenna [00:10:45] She got the part. They were both 29 years old when they made this movie. And after this movie, Sandra Bullock went on to be the world’s highest paid actress in both 2010 and 2014. 

Angela [00:10:57] Wow. It was big. 

Jenna [00:10:59] Big deal. 

Angela [00:10:59] It was a big deal. 

Jenna [00:11:00] Well, rounding out the cast, of course, we have Dennis Hopper as our villain. Jeff Daniels, who is so good in this movie. 

Angela [00:11:08] So good. Harry. 

Jenna [00:11:09] Yes. And also Joe Morton as Captain Mark. 

Angela [00:11:13] I loved him. 

Jenna [00:11:14] So good. 

Angela [00:11:15] So good. 

Jenna [00:11:15] We’ll discuss more about them in our breakdown. But let’s get to fast fact number three. 

Angela [00:11:21] Let’s. 

Jenna [00:11:21] The other star of this movie. The bus.

Angela [00:11:24] Bus 25. 

Jenna [00:11:24] 25. They used 12 or 13 busses for this movie. We discussed in all of the official behind the scenes material that I watched, they repeatedly say there were 12 busses. 

Angela [00:11:40] Yes. Well, I want you to know, in the director’s commentary, he says 13 busses. 

Jenna [00:11:47] Angela and I might have gotten in a tiny argument about this while doing our research. 

Angela [00:11:51] Might have? Jenna’s like, there’s 12. I said, No, there’s 13. She’s like, Lady, lady, lady, I have listened to so and so and so and so and so and so. And I’m like, I’m listening to the director. 

Jenna [00:12:01] Well, I made a list of all the busses from all the videos I watched. 

Angela [00:12:05] You do your list. And then I’m going to tell you what the director said. 

Jenna [00:12:08] And I tracked 12, maybe 13. Sometimes they say a couple, and I don’t know if what is that? 

Angela [00:12:15] Is a couple two? Is a couple three? What’s a couple?

Jenna [00:12:16] Right. Well, here’s what I’ve got. Two busses for exterior photography. When we see the bus, the long shot of the bus going down the highway, clearly shot by a helicopter, two of those busses, two stunt busses that they used for running into things, One of those was rigged to just go really super fast and one of them knocked into stuff. 

Angela [00:12:39] Great. 

Jenna [00:12:40] Then there was a bus that was rigged with special hydraulics so it could tilt up onto two wheels, and one side of it was actually attached to a pickup truck so that it would not actually tip over when it went up on two wheels. That was a whole special bus. One bus that was stripped down to be made very, very light for that jump across the missing piece of highway. One bus to blow up at the beginning of the movie, one bus to blow up under the plane, two interior busses. This is what they used for all of the filming of the cast inside the bus. One of those busses had this giant platform on the front of the bus that was like encased in plexiglass and that held the camera crew and Jan so that they could shoot into the bus but still have natural light coming in. They called it th Popemobile. Over and over again. 

Angela [00:13:32] That’s why the whole crew called it because, you know, the little clear glass. The buggy cart thing. 

Jenna [00:13:38] Yes. There was also a process bus which was higher off the ground for all the shots when Keanu is under the bus, and then a carcass bus. I don’t know what that is. And I also could not nail down if there were one or two of those. But let’s say there was one. That’s 12 busses. Angela, where’s your 13th bus? 

Angela [00:13:57] Okay, here it is, Jenna. Jan said the first take of the big jump, you know, the big, big jump. 

Jenna [00:14:05] The highway jump. 

Angela [00:14:06] The big highway jump, on the first take the stunt driver missed the ramp and crashed the bus. 

Jenna [00:14:12] Oh, my gosh! That is not on any of the behind the scenes material. 

Angela [00:14:16] Then he sort of quietly says on the commentary, I never told the studio because they only had one chance to do this. So two days later we got another bus and we did it again, and the driver jumped and landed it perfectly. 

Jenna [00:14:29] There’s your 13th bus. 

Angela [00:14:30] That bus 13? 

Jenna [00:14:31] Yes, that is bus 13. 

Angela [00:14:33] And I guess the studio has not listened to Jan’s director’s commentary. 

Jenna [00:14:38] I love it. 

Angela [00:14:39] No one was injured in the crash, but they missed the ramp on the first try. 

Jenna [00:14:43] Well, I have a bunch of really cool details on how they did that jump. 

Jenna [00:14:48] Oh you think you do? 

Jenna [00:14:52] Well, we do. 

Angela [00:14:53] Because you’re looking at two ladies who Googled the shiitake out of Speed, including, since we’re talking about the bus, the original movie poster for this. There were only two images on the original movie poster. Any guesses? 

Jenna [00:15:06] Keanu and Sandra? 

Angela [00:15:08] Keanu and the bus. 

Jenna [00:15:10] What?! 

Angela [00:15:11] Yes! 

Jenna [00:15:12] They totally cut her out. You know what? They didn’t know she was going to explode. They didn’t know. 

Angela [00:15:16] They didn’t know. Maybe not the right word for this breakdown. 

Jenna [00:15:19] Correct. That she was going to blow up. No. That she was going to become a star. 

Angela [00:15:22] No. Rise to stardom. Well, let’s take a break. And when we get back. 

Jenna [00:15:27] We have a lot of elevator facts. 

Angela [00:15:29] Oh, so many. 

Jenna [00:15:32] We are back and we are going to start this movie with a credit sequence that is a little over 3 minutes long. We are going to go down an elevator shaft starting at floor 41 all the way to the basement. 

Angela [00:15:45] Here’s the thing, you guys. This elevator shaft was a miniature. It was a elaborate direct replica of one of the elevator shafts they were filming in a building downtown. 

Jenna [00:15:54] Yes, it was an 85 foot long miniature created by Grant McCune Design. It was made up of eight shafts with one working elevator car and 400 mini fluorescent tubes as lights. It took them over a week to shoot this 3 minutes of footage. I watched it behind the scenes. 

Angela [00:16:16] Yes. 

Jenna [00:16:16] On how they did it. And these guys, they were so fried. They said they had a crew working seven days a week, 18 to 20 hours a day. They slept in a hotel near where this model had been built at the studio. Super intense. 

Angela [00:16:37] Yeah. And here’s the other thing, you guys. The miniature elevator shaft, 85 feet of it. They had to lay it horizontally and they designed it so that as the camera travels from one floor to the next floor, that’s in the title sequence, when a new person’s name would appear. And at the very end of this long tracking shot down the elevator shaft, it would end on this door. And the minute you go through that door, now you’re in the real size, the service door. 

Jenna [00:17:06] That is amazing. All right, Are we ready to get into the first act of this movie? Speed consists of three primary action sequences; the elevator sequence, the bus sequence, and the subway sequence. Producer Mark Gordon said he wanted to buy the script after reading the elevator sequence. 

Angela [00:17:25] I get it. It’s so good. 

Jenna [00:17:26] Yes. 

Angela [00:17:28] In the first scene, we are in the basement. It looks like someone is maybe fixing an elevator, but building security says, Wait, who are you? What are you doing? Where’s your work order? And he gets stabbed in the side of the head! 

Jenna [00:17:40] With a screwdriver. 

Angela [00:17:42] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:17:43] Very brutal opening. 

Angela [00:17:44] This is when we meet Dennis Hopper. Who plays Howard Payne, a retired Atlanta police officer who lost his thumb in service. And guess what, guys? He’s wanting payback. 

Jenna [00:17:54] He is. But what’s he doing? We don’t know yet. 

Angela [00:17:57] We don’t know. He’s up to no good. We know that. 

Jenna [00:17:59] We sure do. 

Angela [00:18:01] Jenna, did you know that Dennis Hopper wasn’t cast until the third week of filming? 

Jenna [00:18:06] They shot three weeks of this movie without a villain?

Angela [00:18:09] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:18:10] That is bonkers to me. 

Angela [00:18:12] Well, they had a lot to do. Maybe they spent a week in the elevator miniature shaft. 

Jenna [00:18:16] Well, something I noticed is that Dennis Hopper has almost no scenes with other human beings in this movie. He is almost exclusively on the phone in his weird apartment with all the monitors. I mean, he did a lot of phone acting. 

Angela [00:18:32] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:18:32] And incredibly so. Guess what? A bunch of executives have had a very successful board meeting upstairs. 

Angela [00:18:40] They’re very happy. 

Jenna [00:18:41] Yeah, they’re going to cram into the elevator. Bob is going to press a button. 

Angela [00:18:46] Oh, Bob, what button did you press, Bob? 

Jenna [00:18:49] I know. Bob was played by Patrick Fischler, and the guy giving Bob grief is Robert Mailhouse, who is one of the founders of the alternative rock band Dog Star with Keanu Reeves. 

Angela [00:19:00] That’s right. He was the drummer. 

Jenna [00:19:02] After Bob presses the button, our madman in the basement is going to blow up the cables and the elevator is going to start plummeting until the emergency brakes kick on. Uh oh. 

Angela [00:19:13] I mean uh oh is right. 

Jenna [00:19:16] But don’t worry. The SWAT team is arriving. And oh, do they arrive. 

Angela [00:19:20] We see a car fly through the air and like, land. 

Jenna [00:19:23] Unnecessarily. 

Angela [00:19:24] Unnecessarily. The director said he wanted this establishing shot of action. Normally with your lead, you establish just the lead, right? You just push in on your lead actor. But he wanted the car jumping to be like, this movie’s about action!

Jenna [00:19:39] Keanu Reeves is going to get out of the driver’s seat. Jeff Daniels gets out of the passenger seat. They go to the trunk. They start putting on all their SWAT gear. 

Angela [00:19:47] Yeah. Keanu, in an interview, said it was really cool to wear all that gear. 

Jenna [00:19:52] Well, I looked it up. I was like, How much does that gear weigh? Because they’re about to run up like a gazillion flights of stairs in that gear. So I had to know. It weighs 16 pounds. Like military grade hard plate vests weigh 16 pounds. 

Angela [00:20:08] That’s a lot. 

Jenna [00:20:09] It really is. 

Angela [00:20:10] Yeah. Jan said he really wanted the main characters and the background performers for the SWAT team to be as authentic as possible. He actually had squad officers on set at at all times to consult with. He said once they put the gear on, even how you walk changes. And the earpiece and how they talk to one another. 

Jenna [00:20:30] Amazing. Well, Captain Mack, who, as we said, was played by Joe Morton, who is a Tony nominated actor and who is just fantastic, he’s going to give us the lowdown on what’s happening. There is an elevator with 13 passengers. It is rigged with explosives. They are hostages because the person who set the bomb is demanding $3 million as a payout. They gave him an hour to get this done, but the clock has already been ticking and now they only have 23 minutes left. So Jack is going to volunteer Harry to go inspect the bomb. 

Angela [00:21:03] He is. You know, Jan talked about a writers trick that they do in movies called Set the Clock. And throughout this movie, there’ll be a clock ticking, whether it’s 23 minutes or they only have 10 minutes or they only have 6 minutes of fuel. There’s always the reminder of the clock. 

Jenna [00:21:19] I mean, also just the speedometer is a kind of ticking clock in this movie, too. This is why I think I haven’t been able to sleep. 

Angela [00:21:26] I know. 

Jenna [00:21:26] Because I’ve been under the ticking clock of this movie for so long. 

Angela [00:21:29] Well, Harry and Jack are going to climb into the elevator shaft and they’re going to find the explosives on the top of the car. They’re going to start trying to figure out what to do here. 

Jenna [00:21:40] They do their first pop quiz. Do you want to do it? I printed it out, Ange. 

Angela [00:21:44] Do I? 

Jenna [00:21:45] All right. 

Angela [00:21:46] Do I want to do the pop quiz? This is, like, my favorite runner of the movie. 

Jenna [00:21:50] All right, I’ll be Harry. You be Jack. Ready? 

Angela [00:21:52] Oh, I get to be Keanu? 

Jenna [00:21:54] You can be Keanu. 

Angela [00:21:54] Okay. Okay. 

Jenna [00:21:56] All right. Pop quiz. The airport. Gunman with one hostage. He’s using her for cover. He’s almost to a plane. You’re 100 feet away. 

Angela [00:22:05] Shoot the hostage. 

Jenna [00:22:07] What? 

Angela [00:22:08] Take her out of the equation. Go for the good wound. And he can’t get to the plane with her. Clear shot. 

Jenna [00:22:13] You’re deeply nuts. You know that? 

Angela [00:22:15] Lady, after this movie came out, my friends and I would say pop quiz (BLEEP) all the time to each other. 

Jenna [00:22:21] Of course. 

Angela [00:22:22] Like, just like running errands, like going to the grocery store. Pop quiz, (BLEEP), do you want to grill hotdogs tonight or hamburgers? 

Jenna [00:22:29] I feel like it’s one of the more like, quotable moments from the movie. 

Angela [00:22:33] For sure. Jack is going to figure out how to defuze the situation. 

Jenna [00:22:37] How to take the hostages out of the equation. 

Angela [00:22:39] Yes. There’s this giant- what do you call that thing? 

Jenna [00:22:43] A crane? 

Angela [00:22:43] A crane on top of the building. And he’s like, let’s get a cable. We’re going to run up there, we’re going to loop this down. We’re going to attach it to the elevator. 

Jenna [00:22:50] Well, as you know, spoiler alert, this crane idea is going to work at first, but it’s not ultimately going to hold. We’ll get there. But when Jack says, How much does an elevator weigh? And he gets this idea. I looked it up. 

Angela [00:23:07] How much does an elevator weigh? 

Jenna [00:23:09] The average weight of an empty elevator ranges from 2000 to 6000 pounds. 

Angela [00:23:37] That’s a lot. 

Jenna [00:23:37] That’s an empty elevator. We’ve got 13 hostages inside. 

Angela [00:23:41] Well. 

Jenna [00:23:42] By the way, the hostages are kind of freaking out. It’s very tense in the elevator. So they attach the hook. Keanu Reeves is upside down. 

Angela [00:23:51] He really did that. He really hung upside down on those cables, you guys. 

Jenna [00:23:55] I almost Googled how long can you safely hang upside down? But I let it go. 

Angela [00:23:59] Well, okay. 

Jenna [00:24:01] Anyway, these are the things I think of. So our mad man is going to realize that they’re up to something and he is going to blow the brakes. This blows out a hole in the bottom of the elevator. The elevator starts plummeting all the way down to the 23rd floor when our crane finally catches. There is so much mayhem and panic inside this elevator. Have you ever been trapped inside of an elevator? I never have. But this gives me, like, PTSD as if it happened to me. 

Angela [00:24:28] No, it’s so scary. I have never been trapped in an elevator. But, Lady, the director shared about something that happened to him on Die Hard that inspired him for this scene. You’ve got to hear it. 

Jenna [00:24:40] Die hard inspired Speed. I love this. 

Jan de Bont [00:24:43] The reason I came up with this whole elevator scene, as I was starting to say earlier, is that during the filming of Die Hard, I once myself got stuck in an elevator. I mean, there was a actually at the building of the Fox Plaza building, and it was really eerie where were sitting on the fortieth floor. And we were there for hours. And finally the fire department came and took us out via the top and we had to climb out and jump from one elevator to the other elevator. And that’s that has stuck with me for a very, very long time. That whole it feels just so incredibly claustrophobic in there. And all those people around you. It gets hot very quickly. It’s very hard to, you know, to stay calm. I mean, if anybody would panic, it would instantly be chaotic. And it’s this was a kind of a traumatic experience and that whole feeling of claustrophobia, I thought this would be, you know, that would be ideal for this type of for this film, for my movie. I wanted to make sure that that people could identify with it. 

Jenna [00:25:43] Oh, my gosh. 

Angela [00:25:44] Yeah. Can you believe that? 

Jenna [00:25:46] He got stuck in an elevator while filming Die Hard and then he used that experience to inform Speed. 

Angela [00:25:53] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:25:53] This is maybe my favorite fact ever. 

Angela [00:25:56] He’s fascinating. I would say of all of those DVD extras, the best thing on it is Jan’s commentary and also all of the behind the scenes of the stunts. 

Jenna [00:26:07] What about the Billy Idol music video? 

Angela [00:26:08] I would skip it. 

Jenna [00:26:10] Oh, no. Well, listen, like I said, that crane is not going to hold, but they are going to try to get all the passengers out of this tiny space as it continues to kind of like fall. 

Angela [00:26:26] Yes. Jan pointed out he loved the sound design in this elevator sequence because he really wanted the elevator to be its own character, groaning and making these really scary noises. And he thought the sound design team crushed it. 

Jenna [00:26:41] It had the same effect as like in Jurassic Park, when you would hear like the sounds of the T-Rex, you know? It’s like the elevator was its own kind of monster. 

Angela [00:26:51] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:26:52] You know, there’s one woman who doesn’t want to leave the elevator. 

Angela [00:26:55] No. 

Jenna [00:26:56] She was played by Susan Barnes, who ironically turns up again in Speed 2: Cruise Control as Constance. 

Angela [00:27:03] Oh, yeah? 

Jenna [00:27:03] Yeah. 

Angela [00:27:04] Does she get stuck in something and have to get pulled out? 

Jenna [00:27:06] I haven’t watched Speed 2, so I’m not sure yet. 

Angela [00:27:09] Me either. 

Jenna [00:27:09] Will we? 

Angela [00:27:10] I kind of feel like I should, like, go see it because, okay, so here’s the thing. When I was hired at 1-800-Dentist, I was doing my training and there was this story kind of like legendary story. There was an operator that worked there before me, and he came in one day and he was like, Suck it! Eat it! I’m out of here, because I got cast on Speed 2. I’m going to be on the boat, so kiss my ass. I quit. I don’t know if it was that dramatic, but it was like he quit. He was going to go be on a boat for two months. He filmed for two months, lady. And then when the movie came out, all the operators were like, Oh my God, we got to go see the guy. Blah blah. They went to the movie and I was like, How was the movie? And they were like, He’s not in it. 

Jenna [00:27:57] Oh my God. 

Angela [00:27:59] I was like, What? He’d been cut out. There was like his shoulder. His shoulder was in it, like in the background for 5 seconds. And I was like, Oh my God. So I feel like I need to go see it. I need to go see it for shoulder guy. 

Jenna [00:28:17] Lady, that’s so reminds me of when I got cast as the sixth member of the International Spice Girls. 

Angela [00:28:24] What? 

Jenna [00:28:25] Remember? But it was really it was like a a front for a call girl ring? I told that story on the podcast. 

Angela [00:28:32] Yes! I know. All of a sudden I thought you were cast in a movie and then you got cut out of it. 

Jenna [00:28:36] No, sorry. No, it was when I was going to be an international Spice Girl and I was explaining to people like, I don’t know if I can come to your wedding. I might be on tour. You know, it’s just like, I don’t even know if I can come home for Thanksgiving this year. We’re probably going to be rehearsing a lot. You know, I’d tell my boss like, I can be here for now, but eventually… 

Angela [00:28:56] Yes! This is what this guy did. He told everyone, like everyone, I’m going to be in Speed 2. This is a big deal. 

Jenna [00:28:59] Everyone in my life. Yeah. Yeah

Angela [00:29:02] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:29:03] And then everyone was like, Hey, whatever happened with-. 

Angela [00:29:05] Whatever happened? 

Jenna [00:29:06] You’re like, Oh, I don’t want to talk about it. 

Angela [00:29:08] I was cut out. 

Jenna [00:29:08] Mm hmm. 

Angela [00:29:09] So they get all the hostages out just in time. I mean, Susan lost a shoe. She’s lucky she didn’t lose a foot. 

Jenna [00:29:15] I know. 

Angela [00:29:15] Right? 

Jenna [00:29:16] Yeah. She had not a second to spare. 

Angela [00:29:18] Not a second to spare. And now Harry and Jack are going to lower themselves on the elevator. 

Jenna [00:29:26] Because Jack realizes, I think the bomber’s still in the building. I think he’s on a freight elevator. 

Angela [00:29:31] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:29:32] Well, they land on top of the freight elevator, and the bomber hears them, and he starts shooting up, you know, through the top of the elevator. 

Angela [00:29:40] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:29:40] Jeff Daniels got 11 stitches in his chin in real life from the shrapnel from that stunt. 

Angela [00:29:47] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:29:48] And I became sort of obsessed with trying to see if I could see his injury, because in the EPK interview, he’s got, like, this elaborate nude bandage over his chin because he’s still filming. He was filming with 11 stitches in his chin. And the thing that really upset me, Angela, the thing that really, really got me because you know how I feel about re injuring injuries. We’ve talked about this. 

Angela [00:30:12] We have. And we’re going to see John Wick four together. And I don’t know how you’re going to get through it. 

Jenna [00:30:16] I’m worried. Also, John Wick four is 2 hours and 49 minutes long. 

Angela [00:30:20] It’s a commitment. 

Jenna [00:30:21] We’re seeing it in IMAX. 

Angela [00:30:22] It’s a commitment. 

Jenna [00:30:23] Okay. Back to the subject at hand. After Jeff Daniels falls through the top of the elevator and then Dennis Hopper picks him up by his nose. 

Angela [00:30:31] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:30:32] That was not in the script. 

Angela [00:30:33] No. 

Jenna [00:30:33] Oh, I should say I found a script for Speed. I don’t know which iteration it is, but I found the script. The picking him up by the nose is not in it. But at 21 minutes and 23 seconds, Dennis Hopper puts his fist underneath Jeff Daniels’ chin, and he is like jamming his fist into his chin. And all I could think about was like, Please tell me this was pre stitches. Tell me they shot this before the shrapnel incident. I was very distracted by it. 

Angela [00:31:02] Dennis Hopper, a.k.a. Howard Payne, has shot up the roof of the elevator. Harry falls in. Right? We’ve established that. 

Jenna [00:31:09] Yes, with with the fist and all of it. 

Angela [00:31:11]  And now, I mean, Howard wants to smoosh, you know, Jack. 

Jenna [00:31:17] I love that you just called it smoosh. I mean, it’s true. 

Angela [00:31:17] He wants to smoosh him. And Jack was like, Oh, no, I’m going to get smooshed. So he jumps in to the elevator with Howard and Harry. And this is when we learn that Howard has been listening to them all the time. Because now he’s saying pop quiz. 

Jenna [00:31:34] Yup. He’s going to trick everyone. Everyone is going to think that he’s getting off on floor number three, but he’s really going to P1. That’s his escape route. He’s got Harry by the chin. He’s dragging him down the hallway. And Harry says to Jack, Shoot the hostage. And he does! He shoots his friend in the leg! 

Angela [00:31:56] But listen, after he shoots him in the leg, Harry is like, (BLEEP) you, but he just said, Shoot the hostage. Howard Payne is like, what the heck just happened here? But he makes his way into the parking lot and then he hits a button and they think he blows up. And Jack goes flying- 

Jenna [00:32:11] It was quite an explosion.  

Angela [00:32:12] Quite an explosion. Jack goes flying through the air. 

Jenna [00:32:15] I watched many videos on how they did that stunt. 

Angela [00:32:17] So did I. 

Jenna [00:32:18] I don’t understand how you wouldn’t get injured just from the controlled stunt doing of that stunt. 

Angela [00:32:24] I know. 

Jenna [00:32:25] They put the guy on like some cables and they like yank him. 

Angela [00:32:27] Yanked him! 

Jenna [00:32:28] Like, eight feet! 

Angela [00:32:29] Yeah. Flying backwards. There were pads and whatnot. There were. But it still look like your back might hurt later in the day. 

Jenna [00:32:36] My back would hurt later in the day for much less than that. 

Angela [00:32:41] The stunt guy that did that was Brian Summers if I’m saying your last name right, Brian. And Brian was also the stunt driver of when the subway jumps. 

Jenna [00:32:52] Well, Jack and Harry are going to get medals for their bravery. They’re going to go out and get super duper drunk. 

Angela [00:32:58] That’s what you do. You get drunk, you dance kind of awkwardly at a bar. 

Jenna [00:33:02] The next morning, Jack is going to get some coffee at what is clearly his favorite coffee house. He’s a little hung over. He’s going to run into Bob, who is a bus driver. 

Angela [00:33:13] It’s our second Bob. 

Jenna [00:33:14] I noted that. Yes, this Bob was played by John Capodice, who is putting on gloves that are way too small for him. I watched it several times. 

Angela [00:33:24] This is what you noticed. This is what you had to like rewatch was the glove moment?

Jenna [00:33:27] Watch it. Watch it. He’s never going to get those gloves on his hands. 

Angela [00:33:31] I’m going to say this with love. I don’t ever want to see this movie again. I loved it. Maybe- you know what? I need a break. So, like, in six months, I’ll rewatch it again and I’ll go to this glove moment. But for right now, I can’t do it. I can’t go back.

Jenna [00:33:46] Okay, I understand. I get it. I get it. So, bus driver with gloves that don’t fit goes outside. He gets in his bus and it blows up. 

Angela [00:33:56] This whole shot had to happen over Jack’s shoulder. It was super hard to achieve the timing. They only had one bus to blow up, so the timing had to be perfect. 

Jenna [00:34:06] Also, the bus that they blow up is not the bus that you see driving by moments before it blows up. They did what is called a Texas switch. Jan said the real bus goes past Keanu and it takes a left turn. But you don’t see it because you’re on Keanu. And then when the camera sweeps back around, their shell of a bus that had like a mannequin for a driver and it was being pulled by a truck, that was their bomb bus, that’s the one that then you see blow up. Because you couldn’t see the front of the bomb bus. So you have to see the front of a real bus, it turns left, and then it reveals bomb bus. 

Angela [00:34:45] Fakey bus. Okay.

Jenna [00:34:46] Guess what? That bus was sitting there for a second before it started being towed. 

Angela [00:34:52] Well, because they weren’t on a set. Right? This was actually in Santa monica. 

Jenna [00:34:56] Yes. This was really on the street. They thought they shut it down. A woman got past the production and ran on to bomb bus thinking she had missed her bus. 

Angela [00:35:08] Come on. That is terrifying. 

Jenna [00:35:09] She saw the mannequin driver and was super confused. And the radios, like everyone on the radios was like, Don’t blow up the bus! Do not blow up the bus! And they had to start the shot over again and get that woman to safety. That that woman almost got blown up on the bus. 

Angela [00:35:24] That is so scary. 

Jenna [00:35:25] I know. 

Angela [00:35:26] Well, if you go to 28 minutes and 1 seconds when there is a high camera angle shot of the bus, you can see a red van with a giant like, I don’t know, what do you call it? 

Jenna [00:35:39] Cable? 

Angela [00:35:40] Cable. Pulling the bus. 

Jenna [00:35:42] You can see the tow car? 

Angela [00:35:44] All of it. You can see all of it at 28 minutes, 1 seconds. 

Jenna [00:35:47] Jan would be heartbroken. 

Angela [00:35:49] Jan shares about it very openly on the commentary. 

Jenna [00:35:51] Oh, okay. All right.

Angela [00:35:52] Jan said, Listen, we had cameras everywhere and we caught some things. It just is going to happen. 

Jenna [00:35:58] Pay phone is going to ring. For some reason. Jack feels compelled to answer the ringing payphone in the middle of this bombed bus. 

Angela [00:36:06] I just feel like if I saw something blow up and then all of a sudden the pay phone started ringing, I would think I better answer it. 

Jenna [00:36:12] You would? 

Angela [00:36:13] Yes, 100%. 

Jenna [00:36:14] I think I would run over. I would notice that there is a payphone because this is the days before smartphones, before cell phones. 

Angela [00:36:20] Oh, don’t get me started on how this movie would change if just someone had an iPhone to take a picture of a bomb. 

Jenna [00:36:25] Oh, my gosh. I have a whole rant about it later. 

Angela [00:36:28] Okay. 

Jenna [00:36:28] We’re on the same page. But if I suddenly saw the payphone and it was ringing, I would answer the phone and say, I have to call 911, and I would hang up immediately. I wouldn’t even say anything. I would just pick it up and hang it up and then call 911. I wouldn’t be like, Hello? 

Angela [00:36:42] I would pick it up and say, Did you do it? 

Jenna [00:36:44] You would. You would know the bomber was calling you. 

Angela [00:36:47] Yes, I would. 

Jenna [00:36:48] Well, on the other line is our bomber. And he is going to tell Jack this is not the only bus with a bomb. 

Angela [00:36:55] No. 

Jenna [00:36:56] He’s going to lay out the whole plot of the movie. I thought we should hear it. 

Angela [00:36:58] We should. And I want to point out, you guys, this whole scene that you’re about to listen to was Dennis Hopper’s first day of filming. 

Howard Payne [00:37:06] Pop quiz, hot shot. There’s a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do? 

Jack Traven [00:37:24] I’d want to know what bus it was. 

Howard Payne [00:37:26] You think I’m going to tell you that? 

Jack Traven [00:37:29] Yes. 

Howard Payne [00:37:30] Very good. There are rules, Jack. And I want you to get this right. No one goes off the bus. You try to take any passengers off the bus, I will detonate it. I want my money by 11 a.m.. 

Jack Traven [00:37:46] We can’t pull that kind of money in time. 

Howard Payne [00:37:48] Focus, Jack! Your concern is the bus. Don’t try to call. The radio’s down. Now. The number of the bus is 2525. It’s running downtown from Venice. It is at the corner of Ocean Park and Main. 

Jenna [00:38:06] And he’s off. 

Angela [00:38:07] He’s off. He hops in his truck. At 30 minutes, 55 seconds, you guys. He left his coffee on top of the jeep. 

Jenna [00:38:15] Oh, wow. 

Angela [00:38:15] He drives away with the coffee on top of his car. I thought this was very realistic. We are now going to cut to bus 2525. It’s making its stops. But guess who missed the bus? 

Jenna [00:38:25] Annie. 

Angela [00:38:25] Annie. She’s running after. She’s yelling at Sam, the driver. 

Jenna [00:38:29] Sam, played by Hawthorn James. By the way, is she running with a cigarette? 

Angela [00:38:33] And a coffee. Yeah. Before she gets on the bus, because, you know, Sam slows down for her. 

Jenna [00:38:38] Yeah. 

Angela [00:38:38] He says, Put out the butt! And she goes, Okay. And she litters. I just want to point that out. 

Jenna [00:38:43] We would never let the heroine of our movie today smoke and litter. 

Angela [00:38:48] And litter. 

Jenna [00:38:49] Times have changed. 

Angela [00:38:50] And the very first opening shot. 

Jenna [00:38:52] Yes. She gets on the bus, she takes a seat and is immediately chatted up by a tourist played by Alan Ruck from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But you know what? His character didn’t use to be a tourist. He was a totally different character in the original script. And I found an audio clip of him talking about it, and I thought maybe we could hear it. 

Alan Ruck [00:39:14] Actually, my character was supposed to be a really sort of loathsome, entitled attorney whose BMW was in the shop, and he was stuck riding the bus. And then when I auditioned for it, Jan de Bont decided to go a different way with it and just turned me into this, you know, yokel, this bumbling tourist. And I think it worked well. I think it was actually a better a better choice. 

Jenna [00:39:45] So, you know, Sandra Bullock is going to have to get away from him. So she’s going to pretend like there’s gum on her seat. 

Angela [00:39:51] Oh, yeah. The whole gum bit was improvised by Sandra Bullock. 

Jenna [00:39:54] Really? 

Angela [00:39:55] Yeah. Just in the moment, they’re trying to figure out how to get her away. And so she did this gum bit. I thought it worked great. 

Jenna [00:40:00] I thought that was really smart because it was a very, like, likable, kind way for her to, like, brush this guy off. So she’s going to get up and then she’s going to sit down next to Beth Grant! 

Angela [00:40:12] Helen! 

Jenna [00:40:12] How often when we talked to Beth about this, you have to listen to her interview. We won’t rehash it right now. But there was like this whole other script, like the one where Alan Ruck was like the angry businessman. There was this whole other thing in the original script. It’s so interesting. You have to listen to her interview. 

Angela [00:40:29] All of her behind the scenes details are so wonderful. 

Jenna [00:40:33] So we kind of pan around the bus now and we get a sense of who all of our passengers are. Jack is racing through traffic, trying to catch up to the bus. 

Angela [00:40:43] He’s going to bang on the bus door and the window cracks. 

Jenna [00:40:46] Yeah. 

Angela [00:40:47] That was not planned. 

Jenna [00:40:48] What? 

Angela [00:40:49] Yeah, that just happened. And then it kind of became a continuity thing because sometimes you see a bus with a door that’s cracked, sometimes it doesn’t have a crack. Crack. No crack, crack, crack, no crack. 

Jenna [00:40:58] Wow. Well, as the bus is driving away, leaving Jack on the side of the road, the bus is not yet going 50 miles an hour. So the bomb has not been engaged. And this sort of creates a big plot hole in an otherwise pretty tight script. It was pointed out in Janet Maslin’s review. 

Angela [00:41:19] Yes! Janet! 

Jenna [00:41:19] You know Janet? 

Angela [00:41:20] I mean, I don’t know her, but her review’s amazing. 

Jenna [00:41:23] Yes. Her New York Times review, she said, At this point, the bus is only going about 15 or 20 miles an hour. He has a gun. Why doesn’t he shoot out the tires so that the bomb is never engaged? Well, this review has haunted screenwriter Graham Yost, who 20 years later was still discussing this and said, Yes. He wished he had thought of this. He said if he had to do it all over again, he would have Jack pull out his gun and then he would have the driver of the Jaguar purposely bump Jack, thinking that Jack was like a bad guy. And then Jack’s gun would go flying and then Jack would get in the guy’s car. And that that would be like a perfect way to solve this problem. 

Angela [00:42:12] Right. Of course then Jack wouldn’t have had a gun to pull on the passenger who pulls a gun on him. 

Jenna [00:42:17] Oh, my gosh, Angela. 

Angela [00:42:18] Then he wouldn’t have had a stalemate. 

Jenna [00:42:20] I don’t know how to tell Graham that because he was really excited to have fixed this plot hole. 

Angela [00:42:25] Well, Graham, I think he needed his gun. Otherwise, the passenger with the gun would have had the bus pulled over. 

Jenna [00:42:31] This is a really good point. 

Angela [00:42:33] Just saying. Well, Jack is now going to flag down a guy driving a Jaguar. License plate TUNEMAN.

Jenna [00:42:40] Yes. He was played by Glenn Plummer. 

Angela [00:42:43] He also comes back for Speed 2. 

Jenna [00:42:44] Really? 

Angela [00:42:46] Yes, he plays Maurice. 

Jenna [00:42:48] Wow. 

Angela [00:42:48] Mm hmm. Jack is going to say, Listen, I need, you know, basically, he needs to use his car. Get over. I’m driving. He’s going to catch up with the bus, right as it hits 50 miles an hour. 

Jenna [00:43:00] The worst luck. Darn it. 

Angela [00:43:01] The worst luck. The bomb is activated. And now Jack has to somehow tell Sam he’s got to keep it at 50. 

Jenna [00:43:08] Yes. They managed to communicate all this with, I guess, writing it on a piece of paper and then screaming it in through the door. But Keanu, now he needs to get on the bus. Okay? He has to get on. 

Angela [00:43:20] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:43:21] This stunt of him getting on the bus, Keanu did this himself. He really jumped from a car onto a bus. 

Angela [00:43:27] They were going 50 miles an hour. The two vehicles had to stay the same speed. 

Jenna [00:43:33] The director didn’t want him to do it, but Keanu trained with the stunt team. And he did. 

Angela [00:43:37] He did the dang thing. 

Jenna [00:43:40] Here is the stunt coordinator, Gary Himes, discussing doing the stunt with Keanu. 

Gary Himes [00:43:46] One of the situations that comes to mind early on was when he’s transferring from the Jaguar to the bus. We had talked about it. We talked it through. He seemed very comfortable with it. I went ahead and built a platform under the bus so indeed, if he did miss, he wasn’t going to hit the ground because we’re running 50 miles an hour down the freeway. And once we got out there and we the first time we went to shoot it, he was just a little bit uncomfortable with the situation. So I cut the shot and we went back. We talked about making a couple little changes, nothing major. And and he did it. And he did it so well that we went to get one more take of that. And we actually moved the car and the bus further apart and he went for it. And I mean, it was a it was a great shot. 

Angela [00:44:35] Well, I have a second The Office/ Speed crossover for you. 

Jenna [00:44:39] You mean besides Beth Grant? 

Angela [00:44:40] Yes. Gary Himes worked on the Hangover Part 3 with Ed Helms. 

Jenna [00:44:47] Oh! Well, there you go. I want you to know, at 39 minutes and 55 seconds, as Keanu is getting ready to jump onto the bus, there’s a shot from behind and the wind- you can tell how fast they’re going because the wind whips up the back of his shirt and you can see his mic pack. 

Angela [00:45:04] Well, I think we should take a break because when we come back, Jack is on the bus, y’all. 

Jenna [00:45:09] He’s on the bus and a lot happens. 

Angela [00:45:16] We’re back. We’re on the bus, you guys. Jack is on the bus, and right away, there’s even more mayhem. 

Jenna [00:45:23] Yes. A man pulls a gun on Jack because he thinks that Jack has boarded the bus for him. 

Angela [00:45:30] To get him. Yeah. 

Jenna [00:45:30] The man was played by Daniel Villareal, and, yeah, Jack is like, I’m not here for you. He has some great dialogue. 

Angela [00:45:38] He’s like, We’re good. We’re good. And he’s going to put his gun away. His gun that he needed to have for the standoff. Just saying. 

Jenna [00:45:46] No, this is true. He’s going to use this gun later, too. But one of the other passengers on the bus is going to see an opportunity. He’s going to tackle the guy with the gun. The gun is going to go off. It’s going to shoot the bus driver, Sam!

Angela [00:45:57] Yes! In the shoulder. Now, he like falls over the steering wheel and all of a sudden Annie’s got to step in to drive. 

Jenna [00:46:05] Yes. This is when Jack is going to tell everyone the news that there’s a bomb on the bus. Because Annie’s starting to slow down. Obviously, she needs to slow down. Sam has been shot. 

Angela [00:46:15] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:46:15] And he’s like, No, no, there’s a bomb on this bus. Everyone’s like, What? 

Angela [00:46:21] What? 

Jenna [00:46:22] My gosh. So I wanted to say that in the first version of the script, the character of Annie was a paramedic. And this was to justify the fact that she could drive a bus really quickly through traffic. Then in the second iteration, like you said, she became this comedic driver’s ed teacher. Finally, they settled with just that she had her license revoked for speeding. 

Angela [00:46:46] Well, in deleted scenes there was more that she shares with Helen. 

Jenna [00:46:51] Really? 

Angela [00:46:52] Yeah, she tells Helen she’s a graphic designer, but currently working at, like, a fast food restaurant. 

Jenna [00:46:57] Oh. 

Angela [00:46:58] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [00:46:58] Well, I’ll have, you know, Sandra Bullock trained to actually be able to drive a bus, and she passed a bus driving test before the movie started shooting. However, she is never driving the bus. Not one time. She’s not really driving the bus. 

Angela [00:47:12] In the commentary, they did say when they were at the airport and they had all that big open space, they let her drive just one or two-. 

Jenna [00:47:19] For a second?

Angela [00:47:20] Yeah, And she did hit a few cones. 

Jenna [00:47:22] Oh, dear. 

Angela [00:47:23] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:47:24] Well, the person who was actually driving the bus was stunt driver Gil Combes, and he was hidden all over this bus. A lot of the time he was on top of the bus. They built, like, this rig. 

Angela [00:47:37] Like a cage that he sat in. 

Jenna [00:47:39] I mean, cage is… Generous. 

Angela [00:47:41] Ish. 

Jenna [00:47:42] Yeah. There were a couple of bars, and you can see him up there with an operating pedal and a big steering wheel. 

Angela [00:47:48] And a helmet. 

Jenna [00:47:50] A helmet, but shorts. 

Angela [00:47:51] I know. 

Jenna [00:47:52] I just. I was looking at him, and I was like, I mean, what- if you fall off the top of that bus, the skin on your legs is going to be shredded. 

Angela [00:47:59] Well, it was September. He made a choice. 

Jenna [00:48:02] I guess so. 

Angela [00:48:03] They also put him at the back of the bus. They put him low in one of the seats sometimes. He was like sitting basically on the floor. And they said they had to give him a little tiny mini wheel. They put him all over the place to hide him, depending on the camera angle. 

Jenna [00:48:17] Well, Jack is going to get on the phone with Harry and they decide he should check out this bomb. Can he get somehow like eyes on this bomb. 

Angela [00:48:27] Right. 

Jenna [00:48:27] Yeah. So they’re going to remember that there’s like, this access panel and he’s going to stick his head down and he’s going to look at this bomb. 

Angela [00:48:35] This is when I said it really would have been nice if someone had an iPhone. 

Jenna [00:48:39] I thought so, too. He’s playing this game of telephone with the tourist and Harry and him, but instead he could have just like put it on a face time and been like, Harry, this is what it looks like. 

Angela [00:48:50] What are your thoughts? Well, while all of this is going on, the bus is slowing down. There’s some traffic. Annie is trying to get Jack’s attention. She’s like, Hello? Hello? She grabs a little microphone thing and screams, Hey! Officer! 

Jenna [00:49:04] On or off? On or off? 

Angela [00:49:05] That was Sandra Bullock’s idea, grabbing that little microphone. 

Jenna [00:49:09] I really liked that. 

Angela [00:49:10] I know. 

Jenna [00:49:11] Jack says, Get off the freeway. Off. She’s going to run into a series of pretty much anything. 

Angela [00:49:17] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [00:49:18] Cones, water barrels. 

Angela [00:49:21] Beth talked about this with us, so you guys be sure and listen to her interview. 

Jenna [00:49:25] And then she’s going to run into a baby carriage. 

Angela [00:49:29] Oh, God. 

Jenna [00:49:30] A woman crossing the street. 

Angela [00:49:31] Okay. I guess one of the things they felt like when they tested the movie that really sold this moment is that it’s not one woman with a carriage. It’s two women talking. So you’re thinking maybe there’s a baby in that baby carriage? 

Jenna [00:49:43] Yeah. This was a note from Fox during the development period. The writer said the note was like, What if they, like, almost hit a baby carriage or something? That would really up the tension here. And the writer was kind of like, you know what? It feels like a cheat, you know, like in movies when there’s a car chase and then the car runs through a fruit stand. Like something just, like, not at all dangerous. So he said he remembered that he saw a guy in New York City walking across the street with a shopping cart full of cans. He’s like. What if there were cans in the baby carriage? And then it was Jan’s idea to use like one of those really classic English prams? 

Angela [00:50:24] Mmhmm. Well, I felt like Sandra Bullock’s reaction was like, what I would have done. I’d be like, Oh, my God! 

Jenna [00:50:29] Yeah. 

Angela [00:50:30] I will say I felt like Jack got over it very quickly. I feel like Jack was like, like they hit the the baby stroller, and then he’s like, Oh, no, we’re good. I’m like, what? That was so quick. Right?

Jenna [00:50:45] Well, this isn’t the only drama. There is going to be a really ugly right turn coming up in order to get back on to the freeway. Mack has managed to get, like all these police helicopters and a police escort so we can keep the bus at 50 miles an hour. And guess what? He’s going to take them to this section of the 105 freeway that is under construction. They’re going to have complete control of it. There’s going to be like no traffic. It’s going to be great. But in order to get there, you’re going to have to take a super hard right. 

Angela [00:51:13] A 90 degree turn. 

Jenna [00:51:16] Oh, my God. 

Angela [00:51:18] While all this is happening, Harry is starting to piece together who Howard Payne might be. 

Jenna [00:51:24] Yeah. Doing some just incredible think acting. 

Angela [00:51:29] Yeah. He’s got a look. He’s getting an idea. He’s got to look at a computer. He’s got to look at a bulletin board. Lots of little glances. 

Jenna [00:51:36] Yeah. 

Angela [00:51:36] This is called glance acting. 

Jenna [00:51:38] I mean, I was riveted. I’m not even kidding. 

Angela [00:51:40] I know! 

Jenna [00:51:41] So here’s something. The 105 freeway was actually under construction while they were filming this movie. They got permission to shoot on the empty freeway. But every day they would get, like, a report over which section of the freeway they were allowed to shoot. So they were having to move around because they were actively building it. 

Angela [00:52:01] Building. Yeah. 

Jenna [00:52:01] Sometimes they would show up and there would be no lines painted and they would have to paint lines on the freeway before they could start shooting. 

Angela [00:52:09] Okay. I have to share with you what Jan said. I mean, I’m calling him Jan like we’re best friends, but I listened to him talk for 2 hours, you guys. So he said that there were some real pros and cons to having this whole big open freeway. They were so lucky, right, that they got this. But he said, every car you see on both sides of this big freeway for the whole entire shoot were production cars. Because it wasn’t an active freeway there were no cars on it. They had to cast cars and drivers. They had to choreograph it. And imagine choreographing hundreds of cars that have to go back to a starting point after each take. It took a lot of time. He said it was a logistical nightmare. He said that they would start the day with a meeting, him and the stunt coordinator, Gary. They had a little bag of toy cars. 

Jenna [00:53:02] I saw this in the behind the scenes videos. They get on the ground and draw the freeway. 

Angela [00:53:07] With chalk. And then they had little cars. They had a bus. They had, like, a helicopter. And they would all gather around and they would plot out, like, what they were doing for the day. They said it was the best way visually to get everyone on the same page. The other thing he said is they had six weeks. The freeway was going to be completed in six weeks. So that’s all the time they had on it. 

Jenna [00:53:29] And that was to shoot everything. That was to shoot all the TUNEMAN stuff, that was to shoot this part as well. 

Angela [00:53:35] So for the film crew to be able to use the freeway right up to basically the opening of it, there was a list of things that they had to promise to be done. For example, they had to paint some of the lines like you were talking about. Freeway lines. They had to put up some signage. The director said they felt like they had become road builders in addition to making a movie. And five days after they wrapped filming, the freeway opened. 

Jenna [00:53:58] Oh, my gosh. That is insane. 

Angela [00:54:01] I know. 

Jenna [00:54:01] Well, listen, Sam is not doing well. 

Angela [00:54:03] No. 

Jenna [00:54:04] They need to get him off the bus. And Howard is going to agree. He’s going to say you can unload the driver, but that’s it. And so the SWAT team is going to pull up next to the bus and they’re going to be driving parallel and they’re going to unload the bus driver. 

Angela [00:54:21] Yeah. Onto this big flatbed truck. 

Jenna [00:54:23] But that is when Beth Grant is going to decide she might want to get off the bus too. 

Angela [00:54:30] Helen’s had it. You know, she was taking the bus because it was less stressful than driving. So the woman’s already anxious. 

Jenna [00:54:37] And the police officers are they’re encouraging her. They’re like, Come on,lady. Come on, give me your hand. 

Angela [00:54:43] Don’t they know the rules? 

Jenna [00:54:44] Were they not listening?! Well, guess who’s going to see this? Howard. He’s going to see this happen, and he’s going to press his little button and the steps to the bus are going to explode, and Helen is going to go crashing down under the wheels. She’s dead. 

Angela [00:54:59] She’s dead. 

Jenna [00:55:00] Sandra Bullock is going to burst into tears at one hour and 2 minutes. The whole time they’re doing this dramatic crying scene, you can see outside the bus window that flatbed with the SWAT team. Those guys, talk about background work. They had to ride alongside the bus for all these scenes because you could see them out the window. 

Angela [00:55:24] As I watched this, all I could think about was like, did a bug hit anyone? 

Jenna [00:55:29] Of course a bug hit people. It must have.

Angela [00:55:30] I mean, I’m sure bugs were hitting them. 

Jenna [00:55:33] What happens after you’ve done how many days of background work standing on a flat bed? Standing. Not even sitting. 

Angela [00:55:42] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:55:42] With the wind hitting you at like 50 miles an hour. And you go to lay your head down on the pillow at night. 

Angela [00:55:47] You’re wind chafed. A bug’s probably hit you. 

Jenna [00:55:50] You have to be feeling that. 

Angela [00:55:50] You’re sunburned. Maybe you had to pee, but you couldn’t. You have gear on. 

Jenna [00:55:56] I mean. Brutal. 

Angela [00:55:59] It’s a long day. Well, Annie and Jack are in it now. The two of them, I mean, she’s driving. He’s like copilot. I always wondered why he never drove, but. 

Jenna [00:56:09] He needs to be available to talk on the radio. 

Angela [00:56:11] Okay. Okay. 

Jenna [00:56:12] He has to talk to the people on the flat bed. 

Angela [00:56:13] Okay, fine, fine. 

Jenna [00:56:14] And also, he trusts her. 

Angela [00:56:16] That’s great. But maybe she wanted a break. I’m just saying. But anyway, Annie says to Jack, Hey, can you take the wheel? Because she’s going to take off that sweater cardigan thing. Plot point. Cuz now you’re going to see the little Arizona. The little wildcat. Well, you and I watched a bunch of interviews of the cast and what they thought of working with each other and their character backgrounds. There’s tons out there. But, Jenna, I wanted to take a moment and ask you if anyone has ever compared you to a season. To a time of the year. 

Jenna [00:56:48] No. I wish.

Angela [00:56:49] Me either. Well, I think you should hear this, because if we couldn’t love Keanu more, get ready. 

Keanu Reeves [00:56:57] She’s a beautiful lady. Yeah. Very beautiful. Giving and… I don’t know. She has a nice, nice such a wonderful energy about her and life. And she’s just wherever she goes and she really gives and wants things to be… Springtime. 

Angela [00:57:23] This is him talking about Sandra Bullock. He describes her as springtime. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over it. 

Jenna [00:57:29] I love the time and care he takes… When speaking. 

Angela [00:57:36] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [00:57:37] He sounds calming to me. He sounds just like a giant exhale. You know? We’re all holding so much tension. And then he is so relaxed. 

Angela [00:57:50] Springtime. And then he goes on to say she’s a great actress and compliments her work on the movie. And then she runs in and bear hugs him. He doesn’t see her coming. And they do this giant bear hug. 

Jenna [00:58:04] Wait, I saw that. And then he blushes. 

Angela [00:58:06] He blushes. He compliments her blouse. And then she runs off and he just looks at the camera completely flushed and says, voila. (SIGH). Okay, listen to us. Listen to us.  

Jenna [00:58:23] We’re swooning. 

Angela [00:58:23] We’re swooning. 

Jenna [00:58:25] There’s another problem. 

Angela [00:58:26] What? Another one? 

Jenna [00:58:28] Yeah. 

Angela [00:58:28] No. 

Jenna [00:58:29] Don’t relax. 

Angela [00:58:30] In this movie? 

Jenna [00:58:31] Mm hmm. There is a section of the freeway that is missing. 

Angela [00:58:35] Oh, crap. 

Jenna [00:58:37] They I guess they were building it not from one side forward, but from two sides to meet in the middle. And there’s a huge part of this ramp that is not completed. I know this ramp very well because I had a full panic attack driving on this ramp one year. It came out of the blue for me. It is so bizarre. I was driving to the airport. This is the road you take to the airport, everybody. And I started driving up this ramp and I got all the physical symptoms of a panic attack. My heart started racing. 

Angela [00:59:13] Now, was this just on your own? Not from the movie. 

Jenna [00:59:15] Not from the movie. This was just a moment that I had. This ramp is very high up in the air. I want you to know, in real life, you go up very high. It feels like you’re going to go into the clouds. And the first time I drove it, I don’t know what happened to me. I went up the ramp and I started getting heart palpitations. My palms were sweating. I started getting shortness of breath. I was in the throes of a panic attack. I used all of my anxiety training to talk myself down. I got off on the other side of the ramp and then it started to disperse. But like I had to actually stop the car and take some deep breaths once I was off the ramp. Just personal story about me and this ramp. 

Angela [00:59:55] Did you pull over on the side of the ramp? 

Jenna [00:59:57] No. My God, no. I had to get down the ramp. 

Angela [01:00:00] Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that.  

Jenna [01:00:01] Never do that. 

Angela [01:00:01] No. 

Jenna [01:00:02] I’m saying once I got off the ramp. 

Angela [01:00:03] Once you were off the ramp.

Jenna [01:00:05] I took an exit. 

Angela [01:00:05] And then you took a moment.

Jenna [01:00:07] I remember it like it was yesterday. It was years and years and years ago. But anyway, this is a scary ramp, okay? 

Angela [01:00:14] It’s a scary ramp. 

Jenna [01:00:15] Even when it is completed. 

Angela [01:00:17] This is what you need to know. 

Jenna [01:00:19] So something you should know is that there was no road missing in real life. And in fact, at one hour and 5 minutes and 24 seconds in the establishing shot in the movie of this missing piece of road, they digitally removed the road. But you can still see the shadow from where the road would have been underneath. So they forgot to digitally remove the shadow. 

Angela [01:00:42] Oh, gosh. Look at me. I’m like, Oh, gosh, like I know anything about, like, digital, whatever. 

Jenna [01:00:49] Yes. 

Angela [01:00:50] Like, I’m like the shock, the horror, the shadow. 

Jenna [01:00:53] The writer said that the bus jump was not in the earlier drafts of the movie. He said this was Jan’s idea, that Jan said, At a certain point in the movie, I want to hit a metaphorical wall. I want there to be a point where it looks like it’s game over and there is no way they can get out of it. 

Angela [01:01:11] He goes on to say that he thought at this point in the movie, the bus needed a really big challenge. And every day they were looking at parts of an unfinished freeway. So he asked the writers to write in the movie that there would be an unfinished bridge. The studio told the director they thought this was ridiculous. They said a bus can’t jump a bridge. But the director fought really hard for this moment. He said, Listen, we need a big climactic moment for this bus and a big emotional moment where everyone is terrified and then they feel like relief and victory almost. 

Jenna [01:01:43] Now, to do this in real life, like we said, they stripped down the bus, they made it super duper light and they had stunt driver Geoffrey Brown do this jump for real. He was driving the bus. Not over a 50 foot gap, we should say. But they were going to have him drive 70 miles an hour up a ramp and then sort of launch off this ramp and land on the other side of this ramp. And their biggest concern was that when the bus hit the ground, that that pressure would compress his spine and maybe break his spine. So the stunt coordinator designed a special suspension safety harness to keep this from happening so that when the bus landed, he would be in like this, like (MAKES NOISE) safety thing. I’m doing the motion. No one can see me. 

Angela [01:02:28] I can see it. It’s selling it.

Jenna [01:02:28] You see what I’m doing. 

Angela [01:02:30] It’s selling it. 

Jenna [01:02:30] Thank you. But then the other thing that they were concerned about was that they had some cameras that they were afraid might snap off their rigs and crush the driver, but they rehearsed this for two weeks. 

Angela [01:02:42] They did. They also put Geoffrey, the driver, in the middle of the bus in like this cage, like you said, with this suspension bungee thing, because that way if the bus compressed in the front or the back, he would be in the center of it. They also had super suspension shocks on the bus to absorb some of that as well. And here’s what Jan said. He said the effects people told him that the bus would only go about 30 feet max because the bus was just too big to jump any further than that. So he set his cameras up with that measurement in mind. 

Jenna [01:03:16] And there were like a ton. 

Angela [01:03:17] Yeah. And then in reality, the bus actually flew over all of his cameras and landed on two of them, totally destroying one of them. He said thankfully, he had put one camera 90 feet out because that’s the one that caught the landing. They could not believe how far this bus actually flew. At its highest point, the front of it was 20 feet in the air. It actually went out of frame. 

Jenna [01:03:41] You can see that in the movie. 

Angela [01:03:42] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:03:43] Yes. It went far more vertical than they expected. And in reality, the bus stayed in the air for .49 seconds. But because they had all of these cameras and then they kind of slowed down the speed of the film, it stays in the air for 11 seconds in the movie. 

Angela [01:04:01] Jan went on to say he really wanted to be able to show the passengers of the bus reacting to the landing, so they actually got another bus and rigged it to do a very, very small jump. He said it only went about eight inches in the air, but the actors had real reactions because even just eight inches, that’s a big impact for a structure as big as a bus. And they said it was fun. It felt like a rollercoaster. 

Jenna [01:04:25] Wow. 

Angela [01:04:26] One other thing Jan, you know, he had sort of said in the beginning, listen, we had cameras everywhere. We had pulleys. We had we had all of these rigs. It was impossible when we edited to sometimes not capture another camera. So I did do a pass called spot that camera. 

Jenna [01:04:45] Okay. 

Angela [01:04:45] There’s so many. 

Jenna [01:04:47] Really? 

Angela [01:04:47] There are so many. There’s one on the side of the road, on a tripod. Like a big camera. There’s ones on the side of the bus. They try to make them kind of look like they’re part of the bus. But, like I mean, listen, I’m sure you guys don’t want to do this. You don’t want to watch Speed just trying to look for cameras. But there were a lot. 

Jenna [01:05:05] You could. 

Angela [01:05:05] You could. 

Jenna [01:05:06] Well, they do their jump and now they are headed to the airport, which is going to be great because they’re going to be able to control things now. And the bus can just drive in a giant circle. Well, in the original script, the bus was going to circle Dodger Stadium and then it was going to go on and it was going to blow up by the Hollywood sign. The writer, Graham, said that he actually looked at like an overview of Los Angeles, and he was like, Where can a bus go in a circle? And he saw the parking lot at Dodger Stadium. But the O’Malley’s, who owned Dodger Stadium at the time were not into it. 

Angela [01:05:41] They weren’t into it. They weren’t having it. 

Jenna [01:05:43] They said no. So they changed it to the airport, which was actually really helpful because then as a story point, they could restrict all that, you know, the news cameras and all that. 

Angela [01:05:54] Yeah, the air space. 

Jenna [01:05:55] It worked great. 

Angela [01:05:56] Jack’s going to get a phone call because the bomber has a cell phone now. His giant AT&T big handheld cell phone. 

Jenna [01:06:03] Can we talk about his choice to hold the cell phone across his body? 

Angela [01:06:08] Oh, Dennis Hopper? 

Jenna [01:06:09] Yeah. So Dennis Hopper is holding it in his right hand. 

Angela [01:06:12] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [01:06:13] Which is his undamaged hand. You know, his one hand he lost his thumb in some sort of incident at work. 

Angela [01:06:22] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:06:23] So he’s holding the phone with his other hand, but then he crosses it over to his left ear. Why not just hold it up to your right ear? 

Angela [01:06:29] You know the writers-. 

Jenna [01:06:30] I love it. 

Angela [01:06:31] I love it, too. The writers and producers talked about this. They were like, why is he doing that? Is this just a choice Dennis made? It wasn’t in the script. I thought it was very specific, but it made me think like, okay, your phone rings. Answer your phone. Okay, your phone’s ringing. Bling bling. Hello? Which ear do you hold it up to?

Jenna [01:06:47] My right. With my right hand. 

Angela [01:06:49] Okay. I hold mine to my left ear. 

Jenna [01:06:52] Oh, you do? With your left hand? 

Angela [01:06:54] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:06:54] But you’re right handed. 

Angela [01:06:55] I know, because a lot of times if I’m on the phone, I put it in the crik of my neck and I can do things with my right hand. 

Jenna [01:07:00] I put it in my right crick and I can still do things with my hand. 

Angela [01:07:04] See it when I hold it up to my right ear it feels so weird. It feels like the world’s upside down. 

Jenna [01:07:07] Well, I wondered if maybe when that bomb went off and it took off his left thumb, maybe he got some damage in his ear. Remember when I did my deep dive about loud explosions when we were breaking down Dwight K. Schrute. 

Angela [01:07:21] Yes. 

Both [01:07:21] Acting manager. 

Angela [01:07:23] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [01:07:23] Mm hmm. I thought maybe he had some some hearing damage in that right ear, and he needs to hold it up. 

Angela [01:07:28] That’s very detailed back story to give yourself. I would say this. I just thought. Dennis Hopper liked to talk on his left side. 

Jenna [01:07:35] I loved this choice. 

Angela [01:07:36] I did too. 

Jenna [01:07:36] I have no problems with it. I thought it was brilliant. Jack is going to dismantle the bomb. 

Angela [01:07:41] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [01:07:42] And he’s going to do this by getting on a little what is it? 

Angela [01:07:47] Well, he doesn’t dismantle it. 

Jenna [01:07:50] Well, he’s going to try! 

Angela [01:07:51] He’s going to try. 

Jenna [01:07:52] Yeah. And he has to get on a little thing. 

Angela [01:07:55] It is insanity. It is insanity by far. The director said he felt like this was one of the most dangerous stunts in the whole entire movie. 

Jenna [01:08:02] 100%. 

Angela [01:08:03] At one hour, 12 minutes and 33 seconds, Keanu Reeves actually goes under the bus. 

Jenna [01:08:08] Yes, he does. 

Angela [01:08:09] On this little red cart with four wheels. They said these wheels were tiny. It was going fast. One of them could have blown. They could have had a tire blowout. Anything could happen. Gary, the stunt coordinator, really tried to take care of him. They had him on a like a pulley thing that they could yank him out if they needed to. There was a whole other part where Jan talked about this on his commentary. Jenna, oh, my gosh, Get ready for this. 

Jenna [01:08:33] What? 

Angela [01:08:33] He said when Keanu went under the bus, he really wanted it to feel real and he shared a story from his childhood. Okay, we already know he got stuck in an elevator. And how he brought that to this movie. 

Jenna [01:08:47] Okay. 

Angela [01:08:48] That tension. He shared this. He said when I was a child, I fell out of my dad’s car. We were crossing a bridge, and I fell against the railing of the bridge. And then I rolled back under the car. And the car went over me. Not fast, but I was under it. I have remembered this for my whole life, and I wanted to portray some of the things that I felt in this scene when Keanu went under the bus. 

Jenna [01:09:15] Is Jan going to tell a story where, like in his childhood he’d dismantled a bomb or he was on like a runaway subway train? 

Angela [01:09:23] Maybe. I don’t know. 

Jenna [01:09:24] There ever been a more fateful match? 

Angela [01:09:25] Director? I know. 

Jenna [01:09:28] For a project? 

Angela [01:09:29] He said he had a tremendous amount of respect for Keanu because of what he did for the scene, his focus and just all of it, he was very impressed. 

Jenna [01:09:38] Well, I’ll tell you who you could not have put under that bus. 

Angela [01:09:41] Me?

Jenna [01:09:41] And had them maintain their focus. 

Angela [01:09:43] Who? 

Jenna [01:09:44] I guess maybe you, Angela? I don’t know. You know you. Could you do it? 

Angela [01:09:48] I could fit in the cart very well because I’m short. 

Jenna [01:09:50] This is true. 

Angela [01:09:51] I wouldn’t hang off. I was worried because it looked like his feet were hanging off. You know? I don’t think any of me would hang off the cart. But, I mean, I don’t think I could go under the bus. 

Jenna [01:10:02] Woman who had a panic attack on. 

Angela [01:10:04] On the ramp? 

Jenna [01:10:05] On the freeway ramp. It cannot go under the bus. So I’m definitely not going under the bus. 

Angela [01:10:09] No, you’re not under the bus. 

Jenna [01:10:11] I’m not remembering any of my lines while I’m under there. 

Angela [01:10:13] Also, once he was under the bus, they did all of these shots where he was like messing with the bomb. And those shots, they had him strapped to the under part of the bus. They had like a little- literally, they had tied Keanu to the under part of the bus. 

Jenna [01:10:29] All right. Listen, Back in the office, the police office, Harry gets a break in the case. 

Angela [01:10:34] Yeah, we found our scumbag! 

Jenna [01:10:35] We sure did. I want to shout out the woman in the office with Harry was played by Margaret Medina. She was very helpful in solving this case. 

Angela [01:10:43] Yeah.  

Jenna [01:10:45] So Harry is like, stop dismantling the bomb. I’m going to the source. We’re going to his house. 

Angela [01:10:50] Sit tight. 

Jenna [01:10:50] We got him. 

Angela [01:10:51] Yeah. You can come out from under the bus. Oh, I want you guys to know, location alert, the house that was Howard’s house was a real house in a neighborhood near L.A.X.. 

Jenna [01:11:04] This was my question! Was this a movie set? Because- 

Angela [01:11:07] No.

Jenna [01:11:08] Guys, the house is going to blow up. 

Angela [01:11:10] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:11:11] Harry is going to die. And I wrote down, Did they blow up a real house in a real neighborhood? What about all the other houses in the neighborhood? 

Angela [01:11:19] It was an actual house in the neighborhood near LAX. And they said they actually did very little damage. This is some movie magic. They purposely built fake walls in front of the old walls, fake windows in front of the real windows. And they blew up very little, they said. They had a lot of special effects to create debris, and the owners were able to live in it afterwards. 

Jenna [01:11:43] I am shocked. That’s amazing. 

Angela [01:11:46] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:11:46] The bomber’s going to call Jack and taunt him. 

Angela [01:11:50] Mm hmm. 

Jenna [01:11:50] And Jack is going to completely freak out at one hour, 23 minutes and 2 seconds. 

Angela [01:11:55] I thought Keanu’s performance in this moment was so real and physical, and he just got really bad news about his best friend. Now, granted, we don’t talk about Harry ever again. 

Jenna [01:12:06] Ever again!

Angela [01:12:06] Ever again. But in this moment, you really see how upset he was. And that’s a big physical piece of acting that he had to do. And I thought he did a really good job. 

Jenna [01:12:17] He did. Jack is now going to have an epiphany. 

Angela [01:12:20] Yes. 

Jenna [01:12:21] Wild cat. He realizes that Howard can see them on the little closed circuit bus camera thingy. 

Angela [01:12:28] Yeah, Keanu had to do some glance acting. We’ve talked about that earlier. Had to glance to the sweatshirt, glance to the camera. Glance. Glance. Aha. 

Jenna [01:12:37] Yep. Mack is going to figure out that a news van nearby can make a video of what’s happening inside of the bus. They’re going to play it on a loop to trick Howard while they get everybody off the bus. 

Angela [01:12:53] The actors really did cross between these two moving busses. They literally just put a wooden plank and they had to keep the two busses going the exact same speed so the board wouldn’t fall. They had some wires there to yank people up, but the actors really did cross from bus to bus. 

Jenna [01:13:09] The special effects supervisor, John Frazier, said that they originally made a treadmill that would go 50 miles an hour to do a lot of these little insert shots, you know, of like the people’s feet going across the little bridge or other shots in the movie. But that Jan said to him, what’s the difference between falling off a treadmill going 50 miles an hour and falling onto the street? 

Angela [01:13:34] Yeah, I agree. 

Jenna [01:13:35] They said no difference. It’s basically the same. So Jan was like, then we’re not going to use the treadmill. We’re just going to do it for real. 

Angela [01:13:43] Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, just watch one YouTube video of people falling on their treadmills at home. It never ends well. 

Jenna [01:13:52] It does not. 

Angela [01:13:53] The tourist guy is going to fall and then they kind of have to yank him up. And now Jack and Annie are stranded on the bus. 

Jenna [01:14:00] Yeah. 

Angela [01:14:01] They have a bar to put on the pedal. 

Jenna [01:14:03] To keep it going. 

Angela [01:14:04] Keep it going. And some rope. Can I just say for a second here, this is some very intricate knot tying while under a huge amount of pressure. Well, the director said this movie would not be a movie set in Los Angeles without a surfboard or a skateboard moment. And in his mind, when Jack and Annie get on that piece of panel and go flying out, they’re surfing out of the bus, you guys. Did you know that they really did ride on that board? 

Jenna [01:14:32] I was looking at it and I could tell it was definitely Keanu. I wasn’t sure if it was Sandra Bullock. 

Angela [01:14:37] Oh, it was. So the very beginning where they slide under the bus and go out, that first shot are stunt people. But then as soon as they’re in the clear open of the runway, that’s Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. 

Jenna [01:14:51] They’re going very fast. 

Angela [01:14:52] Let me tell you what they said. It said the board had little wheels on it and they basically just launched them and let them go. And they went way further than they thought they would go. 

Jenna [01:15:03] They are holding on to each other really tightly. 

Angela [01:15:05] I know they are. They really are. 

Jenna [01:15:07] The bus is going to explode because it goes under 50 miles per hour. It’s about to run into a plane, but then it explodes, keeps running into the plane, and then the plane explodes. And I really love that detail because I really liked that they showed us that the bomb on the bus was real. It didn’t just run into the plane and then they exploded. It was like, no, it went 49 miles an hour and it exploded. And then it exploded the plane, which they wrote on the side of the plane to make sure we all knew it was a freight plane. This was not a passenger plane. They could not have written it in bigger letters. 

Angela [01:15:42] And they even had the truck pulling the plane. They had the guy jump out and run away. So no one was hurt. The guy that ran away was a producer, Ian Bryce. And this whole sequence was shot in the desert. They could not obviously blow up a plane at an airport. An actual airport. 

Jenna [01:15:59] That makes sense. 

Angela [01:15:59] This whole sequence was shot in the desert. Also, the plane was full of heavy liquid explosives. And it had a pulley system and it was actually attached to the bus and it was pulling the bus to itself. 

Jenna [01:16:13] Wow. Annie starts to cry. She really breaks down. It’s been a day. 

Angela [01:16:18] She just went catapulting out of a bus on a tiny plank. I did notice that while Jack is comforting her, he just leaves his hand on her chest the whole time. 

Jenna [01:16:31] What part of her chest?  

Angela [01:16:32] Just right in the middle there. Just right there.

Jenna [01:16:34] Oh, right in the center. 

Angela [01:16:36] Right in the center. And Annie has this famous line. She says, I have to warn you, I’ve heard relationships based on intense situations never work. 

Jenna [01:16:47] This is going to come back at the end in a big way. In a sassy way. 

Angela [01:16:51] It is. In a sassy way. 

Jenna [01:16:52] You think things are over. And this is where the movie originally was going to end. With the bus blowing up. 

Angela [01:16:59] Yes. 

Jenna [01:17:00] It was going to be the end. 

Angela [01:17:01] Graham, in the commentary, says this is when the movie ends. And then we have a second part where we do it all again. 

Jenna [01:17:07] Yeah, on the subway. This is our final sequence in the movie. You know, I was tired at this point. I’m not sure, as much as I love you, Speed, I love you, I don’t know if I needed the whole subway thing. But the studio felt that they needed to get off the bus for the final segment. And we also still need to catch our bad guy.That has not been resolved. 

Angela [01:17:31] He’s still out there. 

Both [01:17:31] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:17:33] So they’re going to drop off his money as if the bus is still circling. He’s looking at his little TV. 

Angela [01:17:39] He hasn’t figured it out yet.  

Jenna [01:17:41] No. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t seen the purse glitch yet. They’re going to drop the money into this trash can on the corner here in Pershing Square, which is in downtown L.A.. 

Angela [01:17:52] Annie and Jack ride in the ambulance to where the drop is going to happen. And I’m just going to call bullshit on that for a second. 

Jenna [01:17:58] Okay? 

Angela [01:17:59] Because they would not take Annie to this active crime scene. 

Jenna [01:18:04] Not after everything she’s been through. They tell her to stay in the ambulance, but she needed some fresh air. 

Angela [01:18:09] Why didn’t the ambulance go back to the hospital? 

Jenna [01:18:12] I don’t know. Why didn’t Jack get into a police car and go to the scene? And Annie goes to an ambulance. 

Angela [01:18:17] Yeah, He says, I’ll see you later. 

Jenna [01:18:19] You know why? 

Angela [01:18:20] Why? 

Jenna [01:18:20] Because Howard Payne is going to need to kidnap Annie. And thus begins my one giant feminist complaint about this otherwise really great movie with a terrific female lead, which is that she goes from being this heroic co-lead of this movie, this co-hero, to being a damsel in distress. 

Angela [01:18:43] You didn’t leave me. You didn’t leave me. 

Jenna [01:18:45] Yeah. It bummed me out. 

Angela [01:18:47] Yeah. That’s what she says in the subway.  

Jenna [01:18:47] Because she was so bad ass for so long and this was like a really cool thing. And by the way, Keanu, another reason I love Keanu, he does not seem to have a problem sharing the hero role with women in his movies. 

Angela [01:19:01] He doesn’t. 

Jenna [01:19:01] Lori Petty in Point Break, The Matrix, Speed. 

Angela [01:19:06] Mm hmm. He does say in an interview that he saw her as a heroine. 

Jenna [01:19:10] Yes, she is. 

Angela [01:19:11] She is. 

Jenna [01:19:12] Well, they can’t figure out why the money hasn’t moved. They dropped it off. You know, why is the money not moving? You know?

Angela [01:19:19] Why didn’t they have it turned on at the beginning? 

Jenna [01:19:22] Oh, because Mr. Mansplaining egomaniac like tracker guy. 

Angela [01:19:27] Norwood? 

Jenna [01:19:28] Yeah. He’s like, do you- I don’t need to turn it on yet. I don’t need to turn it on. 

Angela [01:19:32] We’ve got everything we’ve got it ready. 

Jenna [01:19:35] It’s ready. We’ve got. It’s going to explode. We’ve got, like, an ink explosion. We’ve got a tracker. 

Angela [01:19:42] I’ve got eyes on the box. 

Jenna [01:19:42] I don’t need to turn it on. He hasn’t come yet. 

Angela [01:19:44] Just turn it on. Oh, guess what? It’s moving. 

Jenna [01:19:47] It’s moving. There’s a hole in the ground. Way to go, Norwood. I’m like suddenly so mad at Norwood. 

Angela [01:19:54] I know. 

Jenna [01:19:55] I didn’t feel that way when I was watching it, but now I’m all worked up. 

Angela [01:19:58] Now I’m pissed off at Norwood. Keanu’s like, the minute they realize it’s moving, he’s out the door. You know what? Jack doesn’t wait to get all of the information sometimes. He gets a little bit of it, and then he just runs. 

Jenna [01:20:10] Yep. 

Angela [01:20:10] He ran across an intersection with these cars coming. Keanu really did that. Those were all stunt drivers. And Jan, who loves a good action sequence, actually was worried about this and said that he didn’t think it was necessary. And Keanu was like, No, I want to do it. 

Jenna [01:20:25] Wow. 

Angela [01:20:25] So he did it. I could watch this man run for a long time. 

Jenna [01:20:30] Well, get ready, because this afternoon, I guarantee you he’s going to be running all over John Wick four. 

Angela [01:20:35] I know. 

Jenna [01:20:35] I have some information about the subway. We talked about how they filmed most of this movie on an unfinished freeway. The subway was also unfinished. 

Angela [01:20:45] Oh! I didn’t even mention! The part of L.A.X. they filmed at was in construction and unfinished. 

Jenna [01:20:51] These guys lucked out. 

Angela [01:20:52] So three major locations were being built and had these empty spaces without public. Jan said that when they did film in the actual part of the subway, that they had a very small piece of track so they’d just have to go back and forth and back and forth. 

Jenna [01:21:08] Yeah. When we get down into that whole, like, subway fight, the top of the subway car was fake. That was sort of like the one part of the movie that they actually did in a studio with green screen and all that stuff, that final fight between Jack and Howard on top of the subway. 

Angela [01:21:24] Yeah. And Jan was holding the camera. Handheld. 

Jenna [01:21:27] Oh, I saw that! 

Angela [01:21:28] Filming on the roof of the subway. 

Jenna [01:21:30] That’s crazy. 

Angela [01:21:31] Our bomber is finally going to meet his demise. 

Jenna [01:21:35] He’s going to lose his head. 

Angela [01:21:36] He’s going to lose his head. 

Jenna [01:21:38] And then Keanu is going to jump down into the subway car. You know, Annie has been handcuffed to this pole, but he’s going to very quickly and easily disconnect the bomb. The vest. It was very easy to just yank that wire. Suddenly.

Angela [01:21:55] This is what he does. This is what he does. 

Jenna [01:21:57] Okay. 

Angela [01:21:57] He knows how to do this. 

Jenna [01:21:58] Okay. All right. Well, the bomb is off, but he cannot get her off that pole. 

Angela [01:22:05] The keys were in Howard’s pocket, and. 

Jenna [01:22:07] He’s lost his head. 

Angela [01:22:08] He’s lost his head. 

Jenna [01:22:10] So the subway is just careening down this track. 

Angela [01:22:13] Well, the driver had been shot by Howard. The driver, by the way, Richard Schiff, who went on to play Toby Ziegler in the West Wing. 

Jenna [01:22:22] Oh, wow. 

Angela [01:22:22] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:22:23] He didn’t even have any lines in this one. 

Angela [01:22:24] Nope. 

Jenna [01:22:25] He had a great death scene, though. Jack gets the idea that he’s going to speed up the train. 

Angela [01:22:30] Yeah. 

Jenna [01:22:30] This is going to make the train jump the track. 

Angela [01:22:33] Yes, that’s the idea. Here we go. We’re going to jump something else. So these scenes of the subway flying through the track, that was a miniature that they built again. An elaborate miniature. 

Jenna [01:22:45] It’s very good. 

Angela [01:22:46] The actual subway train they built weighed 105 pounds and could go 15 miles an hour. 

Jenna [01:22:51] Amazing. 

Angela [01:22:52] It had to break in two. They had to orchestrate that because the part that goes shooting out at the end had to be the exact size of a bus, because they took an actual bus and they built an exterior around it to look like a subway. 

Jenna [01:23:05] Oh. Because I guess they couldn’t launch a subway car. 

Angela [01:23:07] They couldn’t. And the stunt driver for this stunt I mentioned earlier was Brian. He was also inside that cage with the suspended harness. 

Jenna [01:23:16] Oh, smart. 

Angela [01:23:17] Here’s the crazy thing, because a subway doesn’t have, like, a windshield, he had a very tiny little window to see out to make the jump. 

Jenna [01:23:25] That is bonkers. 

Angela [01:23:26] Yeah. The jump did go off without a hitch. It’s pretty wild. They did this, you know, in Hollywood Boulevard. 

Jenna [01:23:32] Yeah. 

Angela [01:23:32] It was a very hard location to lock down because of all the tourists. And the subway bus is supposed to, you know, fly through the air and come to a stop right before the Starline tour van. 

Jenna [01:23:44] Yes. 

Angela [01:23:44] But on the day it actually skidded all the way into it and gently hit it and rocks back and forth. 

Jenna [01:23:50] Really? There were like people in it. 

Angela [01:23:52] Yes. I mean, it barely tapped it, but that was not planned. They had to shut down four blocks of Hollywood to make this happen. 

Jenna [01:24:00] Wow. 

Angela [01:24:01] You know what the traffic was like. 

Jenna [01:24:03] I do. So the final scene, Annie and Jack, they’re laying together in this crashed out subway car. 

Angela [01:24:12] In the middle of Hollywood. Jack is now going to say her line back to her. I have to warn you, I’ve heard relationships based on intense situations never work. She says, Okay, then. We’ll just have to base it on sex. 

Jenna [01:24:25] Whoaaa! 

Angela [01:24:26] And he says, Whatever you say, ma’am. 

Jenna [01:24:28] Oh ho! 

Angela [01:24:30] And then 100 people gather around to take pictures of them making out. 

Jenna [01:24:34] Credits roll. 

Angela [01:24:34] Credits roll. 

Jenna [01:24:36] There you have it! Speed! 

Angela [01:24:38] That was Speed. Not Minimum Speed. 

Jenna [01:24:41] Full Speed. 

Angela [01:24:43] Full Speed. 

Jenna [01:24:43] Yes, I enjoyed it. This movie holds up. This movie even holds up to the scrutiny of watching it seven times in one week. 

Angela [01:24:53] It was such a fun ride. It really was. And I can’t believe how much information you and I both know about this movie now. I really hope were invited to a cocktail party. 

Jenna [01:25:06] Where this is useful? 

Angela [01:25:06] Where you just throw out some information about Speed. I’m sure the people around us will be like, why the hell do they know so much about this movie? Stop talking to us about it. 

Jenna [01:25:16] Yeah. I don’t know what that party is. I don’t know what this event is, but yeah. 

Angela [01:25:20] Well, I’m sure will dazzle at that party. Thank you guys so much for listening. I totally recommend Speed. Office Ladies approved. 

Jenna [01:25:31] All right. We love you guys. We will see you next week for the beginning of season eight. The List. I’ve got some really fun tidbits about casting and James Gandolfini. We talked about it in our interview with Rainn, but we can’t wait for you to hear it. 

Angela [01:25:48] And I’m going to bring back some more audio clips of Jan talking about some of the action sequences of Speed. 

Jenna [01:25:54] You’re gonna sprinkle that into The List? 

Angela [01:25:55] Gonna sprinkle those in. 

Jenna [01:25:56] All right, sounds good. 

Angela [01:25:56] You guys have a good- Have a great week. Bye! 

Jenna [01:25:58] Bye! Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer, and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Codi Fischer. Our producer is Cassi Jerkins. Our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer. And our associate producer is Aynsley Bubbico. 

Angela [01:26:20] Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad free versions of Office Ladies, go to Stitcher Premium dot com. For a free one month trial at Stitcher Premium, use code “office”.