Spending over twenty years working in both television and film, Thom Williams has built up quite an impressive resume of stunt work -- both as a performer and a coordinator. After being nominated for an Emmy Award for his stunt coordinating work on The Punisher, Williams became the stunt coordinator and second unit director for HBO Max's Doom Patrol. Recently, Williams' stunt work on Doom Patrol Season 2 earned him another Emmy nomination.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, the industry veteran teased bigger adventures coming for the superhero misfits in Season 3.Williams shared which stunts in Doom Patrol Season 2 are his favorites, reflected on how working on The Punisher elevated his career, and praised the HBO Max show's cast and crew for being so open to collaboration and fun during production.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you're the first person to coordinate a superhero fight for television with Jesus Christ. How was it putting that together?
Thom Williams: It was so much fun! We've got a crazy, off-the-wall show anyway and, when I got the script, I was like, "Of course, why wouldn't he be fighting Jesus?" My mind started racing with it because I am a Christian man but I also have a weird sense of humor. I just thought of all the amazing possibilities we could do with this fight. I wanted to see how far I could push it without getting in trouble and I had a lot of fun with it. [laughs]
You work with the whole cast and especially with Diane Guerrero this past season. How was it working with the actors on these stunts?
Our entire cast is amazing. They're all gung-ho and love doing action and stunts and want to do as much as possible. Diane, in particular, just dives headfirst into it and is a pleasure to do any action with. She brings an immense amount of energy and joy to everything she does and the stunts are no exception. She makes everything a lot of fun.
We're in the middle of a golden age of stunt coordinators taking on feature and first unit directorial work in films like Extraction and John Wick. You've done quite a bit of second unit directorial work yourself but do you have similar career aspirations?
I love it. It really is a golden age for that and I'm so happy and proud of my stunt friends that are getting directing opportunities and so thankful that they're helping pave the way for people like me who want to do it and Doom Patrol has been a big part of that. Warner Bros., Berlanti Productions, and the showrunner Jeremy Carver have all been so supportive in letting me get a ton of second unit [work] because they know what I want to do. We've had several talks about it. They've all been very wonderful to work with as a whole.
Doom Patrol is one of the most bonkers shows on television right now. How is it working with Jeremy to figure out these set pieces as the scripts are developed?
Jeremy and his entire writers' room -- they call it "Room Patrol" -- they've honestly got to have one of the most fun jobs in the business. I can only imagine what it's like being a fly on the wall watching them write their scripts, it's got to be so much fun in there. They are honestly the most collaborative people I've ever met in the business. We'll be in preproduction meetings talking and they are very open to ideas.
We'll have phone or Zoom conversations and a lot of times what'll happen is I'll get the script and I'll send something back to them in written form, which they appreciate, putting my own spin on things and we'll have a really good back-and-forth. The level of trust, especially after three seasons, they know I'm game to go as crazy as they are and bounce wacky ideas off of them. It's been a really good collaboration and I love all of them.
As someone that's been working in the industry on television and film for twenty years, what is the secret sauce behind creating a good stunt?
Collaboration is a big key because there are so many departments all working together that you just can't do it with your single department. We have amazing [directors of photography], our camera crew is stellar, the props department, visual effects... Having that level of collaboration from the beginning when you're creating something, and seeing it come through on camera, it's amazing, because you don't always get that. This is definitely one of those shows where it really is a tight-knit family. We all work with each other extremely well.
Are there any stunts in particular from Season 2 that you'd like to especially highlight above the rest?
The first is the underwater sequence that we did because it was probably the most involved from every aspect. We had two actors in the scene -- Diane Guerrero and Sarah Borne -- the rest of the performers were stuntwomen. Especially with Diane, I had her train with a divemaster that I trust incessantly for several days leading up to it -- getting her used to breathing on a regulator first and then take the regulator out so she could act underwater and then go without a mask or regulator. It was a great process leading up to it. Her level of trust with us and vice versa made it really work. You could not have done that scene if Diane had not hit out of the park the way she did and was able to be underwater for hours. It was a big pool they built custom for our set and we were there for days, all day, just shooting. Stuff like that, for us, is a lot of fun. I was hoping it would be for her too, and I think she had a blast and knocked it out of the park and made the scene special.
The second one would be the Jesus fight, I got to second unit direct that scene and just the concept, coming up with it through shooting it...Riley Shanahan, who played Robotman, and Joshua Mikel, who played Jesus, had so much fun with it. That's a big part with me: You've got to make this stuff fun. If your actors having fun with it, it's going to really show on camera when the scene is put together. They did and they both crushed it.
You were previously nominated coordinating stunts for The Punisher and whereas Doom Patrol is wacky, The Punisher is grounded and you felt the consequence of every hit. How was it working on that series?
On the similarity side, both shows have amazing casts to work with. I will sing Jon Bernthal's praises all day, every day. That man helped change my life and the scope of my career. All credit [goes] to him for how much he put into that role and everyone there was really dedicated to it. The difference is obviously The Punisher is very serious, very graphic and I had to get in mindset on that show of figuring out extremely deadly, painful, and gross ways to kill people. On Doom Patrol, it's a lot more absurd and the emphasis is on the fantastical.
We had that fight in Season 1 where Robotman is ripping people apart, but there's still an aspect of absurdity to it. It's being taken as bloody seriously. It's still funny, in a way, while also being horrifying. For The Punisher, I was listening to a lot of Metallica and heavy metal to get in the right mindset. Doom Patrol is more Depeche Mode and '80s music.
What can you tease for Doom Patrol Season 3?
Take everything you saw in the first two seasons and ramp it up by a factor of ten because we were all rearing to go after our COVID vacation -- the writers, the stunt team, the cast, the PAs, everyone on the cast and crew. We were chomping at the bit to get back into it. Everyone destroyed it. It was amazing.
Doom Patrol will return for a Season 3 soon on HBO Max. No release date has been announced at the time of this writing.