SIREN'S CALL Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza Gonzalez tell LAURA HARDING they couldn’t resist the chance to create a little ‘Bay-hem’ in action movie Ambulance
FOR Jake Gyllenhaal, there was something surreal about making a film set inside an ambulance at the height of the Covid pandemic.
At a time when we were clapping for carers and worrying about the strain being placed on our health services, it was impossible for him not to think about the people who were putting their lives on the line and driving around in ambulances for real.
The Hollywood star, 41 – best known for thoughtful films such as Brokeback Mountain, Donnie Darko and Nightcrawler – takes on a very different kind of role in Michael Bay’s film Ambulance, playing a bank robber who stages a hijacking when the heist he is attempting with his brother, played by The Matrix Resurrections star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, goes wrong.
The pair commandeer an ambulance, complete with paramedic Cam, played by Baby Driver star Eiza Gonzalez, and an injured police officer inside, and take to the streets of Los Angeles in an attempt to flee the authorities.
“It did make me think a lot every day,” Jake remembers as he reflects on shooting at the height of Covid. “We were having a difficult time acting in an ambulance, and this made me think about all the people who actually do a real job in an ambulance, and how difficult that is, and that they save people’s lives every day, within minutes. I just thought, ‘How the heck do they do that?’
“We were shooting during a very heightened time in the pandemic, so first responders and EMTs (emergency medical technicians) were constantly on our minds, constantly in the discussion in the media, and you just couldn’t help but think every time you’re in there of all of the people who were doing this job while we were on lockdown.
“Cam is really the hero of the movie, and it is a love letter to those who do that job, it was just incredible.”
For Mexican actress Eiza, 32 - whose previous films include I Care A Lot and Bloodshot – the idea of playing a life-saving paramedic at the height of a medical crisis felt like hubris.
“I mean, talk about pressure,” she says ruefully. “I received the script around October of 2020, it was peak Covid, but we were sort of starting to reactivate our lifestyles and I remember just opening the first five pages and saying ‘No way, who do I think I am that I’m going to play an EMT?’
“I closed it and I was literally having a panic attack, and I was like, I can’t do this. And then I reopened it and I was like, okay, let me read.
“I thought it’s going to be something stupid, she’s going to die, or she’s going to fall in love with the dude and it’s going to be stupid, but then she was cool and smart and then smarter and cooler. This was a really well-written female character.
“It’s so timely, it’s the people that are saving our lives, and I was like, ‘I have to do this. It would be such a such an honour to do this. If Michael was willing to have me, I’d be so honoured to bring this to life and give it my all’.”
And give it her all is what she did. While Covid meant she couldn’t visit any hospitals, she ended up sitting in her car outside hospitals, watching the ambulances come and go.
“I thought ‘I’m going to know everything I need to know that it doesn’t make them look like cartoon version’. We had an EMT onset and I was talking to nurses, firefighters, doctors, everyone in the medical field.”
“But if all this sounds terribly serious, make no mistake, there is still plenty of Michael Bay’s signature action sequences, the explosive set pieces the director of Bad Boys, Armageddon and the Transformers franchise is synonymous with.
“I knew that it was going to have all of the core Michael Bay business,” says Abdul-Mateen, 35, best known for his roles in Watchmen, Candyman and Aquaman.
“I knew that you would get the Bay-hem that he’s known for.
“I was on the Matrix when I was doing this. I had just put out Candyman and Aquaman was coming right around the corner, all these -mans, -mans, -mans... Watchmen, all these supernatural things were in the can already and I just wanted to be a guy who did not have a superpower.”
Jake nods enthusiastically. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Michael’s movies and he is [known as] the action auteur.
“What I discovered in working with him is that he really is, but he also follows actors the way he follows an explosion, so there’s this really wonderful energy, where he gives you the allowance to have fun and explore and there’s really no boundary there, and that’s the reason why I wanted to do it.”
Michael was determined to make the film as real, tense and kinetic as possible.
“There’s barely any green screen, and it’s all real stunts,” the director says proudly. “We shot some of the ambulance inside a stage where you could take apart pieces, walls could come out, then we shot in a real ambulance on rockers, and then we would take another real ambulance out, and we would drive around at 70 or 80 miles an hour.
“You’re hitting your head and the crew is in there, and they’re trying to act and you’ve got cops outside chasing you, they’ve got real helicopters flying outside the window, and it helps the actors keep that intensity.
“Even though it’s claustrophobic with the characters, it’s still the big world outside. I always like doing that with actors, it gives them the feeling of what would it be like, it’s not stale on a stage.”
Cam is really the hero of the movie, and it is a love letter to those who do that job Jake on paramedic Cam, played by Eiza, right