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thefilmfatale:

Ryan Gosling, who plays daredevil motorcycle racer Handsome Luke in The Place Beyond the Pines, did most of his character’s stunt work in the film. He was trained by stunt performer Rick Miller. Traditionally for dangerous stunts such as the ones featured in the film (weaving through traffic or speeding through a forest), a technique called a “Texas Switch” would be done where a stunt double steps in for the actor and the scene is later edited with the actor’s face in close-up shots while the stuntman is performing the action. However, director Derek Cianfrance felt that longer takes were more successful in getting the kind of authenticity he was striving for, so they decided to have Gosling do the majority of his stunt work. According to Cianfrance: “We wanted to shoot a lot of film in these long takes. I feel once you cut, there’s a security and safety in a cut. There’s a lie in a cut. It you don’t cut, there’s a truthfulness to it” (x).