Chris Brewster has been working within the stunt industry for a little over fifteen years. During that time he has amassed over 150 credits, working across a range of high-profile film and television shows. Brewster is a regular on the Marvel circuit, having helped on Captain America: The Winter Soldier and TV series Daredevil to name but two properties. Another key project in his career was the MTV show, Teen Wolf. The show, which originally went off air in 2017, has recently been back in the public eye thanks to its spin-off, Wolf Pack, and a new TV movie that continues the Teen Wolf story. It wasn’t just key members of the cast that were brought back for the reunion, Brewster himself was invited back and asked to help helm the action.
To coincide with the release, THN spoke with Brewster to find out a little more about his career so far, coordinating stunts, reuniting with the Teen Wolf cast, Ninja Turtles, Renfield, and a step into directing.
I have spoken to a couple of stunt people over the years and everyone has their own story of how they got into it. What was your journey?
That’s my favourite thing about the stunt world. There’s no clear path into being a stuntman. Every stunt person you talk to has such a completely different story on how they got in. For me, I’ve been doing martial arts since I was 4 years old. All martial arts can be divided into two categories: there’s the stuff that really works, and then the stuff that just looks really cool. I was a master of the stuff that looks really cool. All the flippy, twisty, extreme martial arts. I studied arts that combined all the traditional techniques, with gymnastics and acrobatics, and even a little bit of dance to be really aesthetically pleasing. So stuff, that just looks awesome.
I went from competing worldwide to performing. I was on a little martial arts team that was doing all of the contest shows. We did America’s Got Talent, we did Steve Harvey’s Big Time. 30 Seconds to Fame and we started overlapping with the stunt world quite a bit. We’d get hired to be the flippy twisty karate guys, but they would say, “okay, we’re going to hire a stunt coordinator to choreograph your movements’,’ or “we want you to do the flippy, twisty stuff, but we want you to do it in a fight scene, so stunt coordinators are going to design the action for you.” I started meeting stunt coordinators who are absolute legends in the business, and they just opened the door. They were, “if you ever decide to go this route, let us know,” and I was, “yeah, sign me up!” I just knew instantly. As soon as I realised that stunt performing was a job, I knew that’s what I was meant to do.
I think a lot of people don’t realise just how much work goes into stunts. Before anyone is shooting you’re planning things out, creating pre-vis etc. How important do you believe this aspect of stunts to be?
I truly think that any film or TV show is either made or destroyed in prep. We like to take the script, and the same way an actor will put thought into how they’re going to deliver every line, and how they can tell the story with their words, in the same way the director will tell the story in the way they shoot, each different sequence in each scene, we do the same thing, but with kicks and punches. We try to tell the story in the script through physical movement instead of verbally. Normally the stunt coordinator and the stunt team will normally start a show anywhere from several weeks, to several months, before we even go to camera. We will take every piece of action and choreograph it, design it, and then we do what you mentioned, the pre-vis, where we actually shoot a concept for each piece of action and then we present that to the director. That way we’re kind of all on the same page, so that by the time we start filming on camera, we all know exactly what we’re going to do and then it’s just a well-oiled machine at that point.
We’re here talking because of the new Teen Wolf movie; you worked on the show a number of years ago, what was it like returning to that world?
It was amazing. One of the first elements that it takes as a stunt coordinator / stunt performer, as far as building the action on a TV show or film, is to build up trust with the actors. It’s really important that they trust you because you’re designing movements where people are punching at their faces, and they’re falling over; things that can be quite dangerous. They will never be able to perform to the best of their abilities if they don’t trust you. In the same respect, the stunt coordinator has to build trust for the actors to know that they’re not going to punch the stunt people that they’re fighting, or they’re not going to do something silly and move in a different way than the choreography, and twist their ankle or do something that could damage their performance.
In coming back to the Teen Wolf movie, we had already built this trust between the actors and myself. It was like a really cool family reunion. The love and the energy was amazing and incredible, and I just feel like we were able to accomplish really big challenges because we already had a really strong trust for each other going into it.
With a few years passing and the actors going onto other projects, was there any concern that some of them might not be able to jump straight back into it?
Oh absolutely. There’s always the fear that actors working on the show, whether they’re returning actors, or new actors, or actors that you’ve never met before. There’s always a fear that they’re either injured or they’re not in top physical conditioning. So they might not be able to perform all of the action that is going to be required of them for the show. On this show we got really, really lucky and blessed, because all of the actors are very active, very fit, and they all are amazing with action. I’ve worked with a lot of actors that have two left feet and can’t pick up three or four moves of choreography. The actors on Teen Wolf are all incredible.
We literally had zero prep to get ready for the action for this. There were actually pieces of action that we were designing moments before we rolled cameras on them. If I did not have the background that I had with these actors, and they weren’t so incredible physically… if they didn’t have the attitudes that they have, we would never be able to pull off what we did. But very, very little prep, they were all able to learn the choreography, add their character to it and perform it. There’s so many levels, and a lot of times you will teach somebody choreography, and when they do the choreography, it looks like a dance. It just looks like they’re going “one, two, three, four.” There’s no feeling behind the movements. If it’s just movements without feeling, it’s kind of just ‘flash’. It’s just action for the sake of action. But to me, the audience will always be pulled into character-driven action, where you can feel the characters through the movements. The actors on Teen Wolf are absolute experts at that. They’re able to take choreography and immediately do it the way that their character would. It’s just a really fun experience to give them a move and watch how they put it through their own characters’ filters, and then play it back. It amplifies everything so much.
During its 140 minute run time there is a lot of action, fights, and set pieces. What are you most proud of?
There’s a few moments. I think overall watching the way that the actors took the action and played in their own respect. Watching the way that Crystal [Reed] took very, very basic choreography and amped it up and added so much life to her character. Watching the layers. She took the normal ‘Allison’ layer, but obviously she’s not Allison as we know her. So watching the layers all get added to the choreography. Watching how Tyler took what used to be Scott’s movement and then showed that Scott has matured. Everyone just added layers and watching the character building process on top of the choreography, is what made this so exciting to me.
Over your career, you have worked on so many exciting projects, which ones are most special to you?
I think the project that really advanced my career, and one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever been a part of was Daredevil. I started off as the stunt double, and then started designing all of the action, and eventually was stunt-coordinating. Even designing the camera movements for everything, and got to really grow as the show grew. That was a very incredible experience. Then recently, I just worked on Renfield, which is Chris McKay’s new film. That was out of this world! I cannot wait to see that one come to screen because that was literally the most fun, and the most awesome experience I’ve ever had in my entire life.
A common career path for those in stunts is to eventually work their way into directing, is this a route you could see yourself following?
I feel like it’s all on the same path of storytelling and filmmaking. In the beginning, you’re trying to tell the story through the actual choreography, and then to step it up a level you’re able to tell the story through the choreography, and how you capture the movements, and it all work so seamlessly, and so hand-in-hand, and I just feel like the more you’re able to do it, the more you fall in love with the entire process. You can have the most beautiful dance in the world, if it’s not filmed the right way, it’s going to be boring. So I’m at the level now where I want to choreograph and design the most beautiful action out there, but then I want to display it in the most beautiful way possible. I want to not only design the movement, but design the camerawork around the movement to really enhance what we’re seeing.
You already mentioned Renfield, but do you have any other work lined up that you can talk about?
I’m directing my first film this year, hopefully soon. It is called Relentless. It’s a Thomas Jane action film, and it’s going to be incredible. It’s going to be a really adrenaline-packed, intense ride.
Catch Chris’ work in Wolf Pack and Teen Wolf: The Movie, both of which are available now on Paramount +.
