- I'm Eric Johnson.

- We're brothers and founders of Homage.

- And together we train actors.

- For some pretty cool roles.

- That's it. [Ryan and Eric laugh]

[tense music]

[Scarlett groans] [spider tank and arm shatter]

- Scarlett Johansson, [tense music]

"Ghost in the Shell".

Scarlett's character's role as Major in this film

was a cyborg.

A cyborg is a machine, a machine meant to kill.

The climax of the movie is one of the final battle scenes

where Scarlett is on top of a spider tank

and she is trying to open the door

with all of her strength and all of her might,

and she begins to put so much force

into trying to get this door open

that she actually rips her arms off her cyborg body.

In order to make that look as realistic as possible

when were shooting, we decided that we really wanted

to focus on her back, her delts and her posterior chain,

so her glutes and hamstrings.

We had eight weeks to prep

before principle photography began.

Once we began filming, we continued the process.

We had six months where we continued training

five to six days per week.

To complete this look, we used the pull-up.

The pull-up allows you to really focus in

on growing the lats, which are those winglike muscles

that are on the edges of your back.

Over time, as we contract these muscles of the lats

more and more, they're gonna grow wider and wider

as we place more demand on those muscles

to grow and become stronger.

[tense music]

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, yep, perfect.

[tense music]

The Golden V-Taper is the ratio

of the width of your shoulders to your hips,

and the more discrepancy we can make between those two,

the better your physique is gonna jump off the screen.

So when we started, Scarlett hit

about three repetitions on the pull-up.

By the time we finished filming "Ghost in the Shell",

Scarlett could do eight pull-ups.

In the climax her scene was phenomenal,

where her arms ripped off.

Scarlett's physique was so impressive

that Director Rupert Sanders decided

to put a scene in where her back was showcased

just because she looked so incredible.

- Olivia Cooke, [mysterious music]

"Ready Player One".

I had six weeks to prepare Olivia for her role as Art3mis

in Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One"

without any real clear knowledge

on what stunts that she would have to perform.

From the book I learned that basically it was

an over-the-top treasure hunt based in virtual reality,

where the possibilities were endless.

Our programming kinda had to represent that.

It was how much could we throw at Olivia

and how much athleticism could we develop

over the course of the next six weeks

that ultimately would help her in any stunt

that she needed to do during the course of filming.

When I first assessed Olivia and when we first met,

I could tell right off the bat that she was super invested,

high-energy and just really down to do anything,

so we kinda hit the ground running because

we had such a short amount of time.

The big thing that we tried to incorporate was

a lot of movement flow, a lot of jump training,

a lot of absorbing impacts because

that's where the movie lied.

Women are more vulnerable to ankle sprains and ACL tears,

so that's definitely something

that we want to always remember

in the beginning stages of our programming.

Because the hips are wider, their knees

tend to buckle in a little bit more.

When you're in a fight scene, you might get pushed

into a weird, awkward angle and land incorrectly

and blow out that ankle or hurt the knee.

We had her jump out to a one o'clock position,

and when she landed, we would use the terminology

of pretend that you're landing on a plane of glass

and you don't want to break the glass.

That is the way to safely ensure

that she's absorbing impact correctly

into her glute, [shoe smacks]

into her knee, down into her ankle,

and then she's coming back.

After a soft landing, she would then return

back to her left foot at the center of the clock

and then repeating the same thing

at a three o'clock position,

and then a five o'clock position.

Because we're so used to walking

just in a forward plane of motion,

jumping out to the side in this safe, controlled manner

really will be helpful later on, as the stunts progress.

I wanted Olivia to learn how to land softly

by absorbing the impact of the jump into her hip

and into her glute and with a strong knee

that wasn't collapsing in, and by doing so

you're taking any unnecessary strain off the ankle.

A good metric that we had for Olivia's progress

was something that I'll say is subway legs.

After our first couple sessions, she would come back

and joke around and laugh about how she would have to

hold on to the railing walking down the subway stairs,

and then by the end of the six weeks,

subway legs were no longer a thing,

and Olivia was running up and down the stairs

after a crushing 75-minute workout with ease.

Seann William Scott, [tense music]

"Goon 2: The Last of the Enforcers".

[buzzer buzzes] - I learned the difference

between a moment and a career is evolution.

[fist smacks]

- Seann's character was a hockey enforcer,

also known as a goon.

That player's responsibility is to protect the star player

by beating up the other team.

At the end of the first movie, Seann's character Doug

blows out his right shoulder in the final scene,

so for the sequel, we had to teach Seann

how to be a southpaw fighter.

Seann and I had six weeks to prepare for his role in "Goon".

Making somebody comfortable fighting on ice

with their nondominant stance in six weeks

is nearly impossible.

Imagine writing a letter or eating with a fork

with your nondominant side, and then multiply that by 10.

A good power punch requires coordination

of the entire body, not just the arm.

That means you need to learn how to radiate tension

off the floor through your ankle, through your hip,

through your core and then ultimately dial all that tension

through your shoulder, and then into your wrist.

Throwing a medicine ball with your nondominant side

is much like a punch in that you have to turn over your hip,

but it's a much simpler movement to learn.

[medicine ball smacks]

So there's two versions to the medicine ball side toss,

one being more representative of a uppercut,

which we throw from the hip,

and the other being more representative of a power punch

or a cross, which we throw up near the chin.

[tense music]

[ball smacks]

After the medicine ball, we had him progress

to the jammer press.

And here you can really see that it represents a punch

in the way that you need to turn your ankle

into your hip, into your core,

and then ultimately through your shoulder.

[weights clank]

When we first began to throw punches,

it looked very choppy and unpieced-together.

There was a slight hesitation before each throw

that you could see that the brain

is trying to figure it out, but towards the end,

there was really no difference between his left

or right side, when it came to how we were fighting.

- Ben Platt, "The Politician". [dramatic music]

Before I got the call to work with Ben,

he had just finished up working on "Dear Evan Hansen",

which he actually won a Tony for.

In this Broadway show, Ben's character

was a socially anxious teenager.

Spending so much time playing this character on Broadway

really started to have effects on Ben's posture

in the real world, so his shoulders started

to round forward, his back started to round as well,

and it made him look insecure.

He came to me wanting to prep

for this new role in "The Politician".

In "The Politician" Ben plays a very outgoing,

confident teenager who's running for his class presidency.

- I will fight for each and every one of you,

so long as there is strength in me to fight.

So give me your vote.

- My goals for Ben Platt were to number one,

fix that posture, to really exude that confidence

that he would have to play in "The Politician",

and number two was to make sure that Ben

looked his absolute best for the opening scene of the show,

where Ben is in the shower shirtless.

Ben and I worked together five to six days per week.

The workouts were 60 to 75 minutes in length.

Instead of just jumping right into weight training for Ben,

we really decided to attack his mobility

and to regain movement through his upper back,

and we did that through thoracic mobility drills.

You're gonna drive your elbow down

and really rotate your shoulders.

The goal here is to get your left shoulder

in line with your right.

I had Ben do this thoracic mobility drill

to really unlock his spine and to open up his shoulders.

The goal here is to get a lot of rotation

through this upper back region,

so that the lower spine could be nice and stable.

Within a week we could already see changes in Ben's posture

and after Ben regained his mobility,

I added farmer walks into his training.

A farmer walk is simply grabbing the two heaviest weights,

whether they're kettlebells or dumbbells,

and carrying them with good posture as far as possible.

The heavy load of that weight causes the shoulders

to depress and slide down his back.

In that opening scene he looked phenomenal.

[dramatic music]