One of the biggest criticisms of the Netflix Marvel series Iron Fist, at least during its first season, was its lackluster fight choreography. This is something that improved a bit in season two but now, three years after the show was the first of five Marvel series canceled by Netflix, stunt coordinator Brett Chan is alluding to a lead actor that did not take part in training prior to the show’s fight scenes which could explain why they weren’t 100 percent convincing.
Finn Jones played the Immortal Iron Fist, Danny Rand, on the show and while Chan doesn’t specifically call him out by name, it’s easily insinuated that the stunt coordinator is referring to Jones in regards to the lead actor that didn’t want to participate in fight training. During a chat on the JAMCast podcast hosted by fellow stunt coordinator Travis Wong, Chan shakes his head when Wong brings up the series and this is when he coyly brings up an actor who didn’t make his job easy.
“You would be surprised. I got slammed by a lot of people after that came out, they had no idea. Johnny and myself were doing 21-22 hour days trying to make things work and having Marvel say ‘Eh, no.’ Everyone’s fighting and the actor doesn’t want to train and…’Guys, throw me a bone. Give me something to work with here.’ That’s probably why the best sequences were with Jessica Henwick because she trained four hours a day and she had zero martial arts experience.”
Again, he doesn’t mention Finn Jones by name but it would make sense that the series’ lead not wanting to train would cause the most problems on set. Chan does give praise where it deserves to be given as he points out how hard Jessica Henwick worked to make her fights look authentic. Henwick played Colleen Wing on the series and, looking back on it, a lot of her fight sequences were some of the best the show had to offer.
Back in 2017, Jones told “Metro” that he had a very limited amount of time to learn the choreography for the fight scenes. At the time Jones said, “But really, I was learning the fight scenes 15 minutes before we actually shot them because the schedule was so tight. So 15 minutes before, the stunt director would talk me through the choreography and I’d just jump straight into it. It really was a baptism of fire and I just learned on the job and I’ve been doing it for 12 months now. With practice, you just get better and better with dealing with that kind of schedule.”
It’s very possible that a tight Marvel schedule made it a bit impossible for Jones to dedicate more time to fight training. Maybe the actor wanted to train more but he had to stick to a certain schedule to ensure that that show was locked in time. Iron Fist did feel more rushed than the other Marvel shows on Netflix and this could be an issue of several obstacles merely getting in the way. Chan may have thought Jones didn’t want to train when, in all actuality, he just didn’t have the time to. In the same “Metro” interview back in 2017 Jones added, “It was very intense, to begin with. When I first moved over to New York, before I started filming, I had three weeks of very intense martial arts and weight training preparation. But then unfortunately once the show started, the filming schedule was just so tight. I was working 14 hours every day, six days a week, days into nights, nights into days, and actually my schedule didn’t allow me to continue the training as much as I really hoped.”
What are YOUR thoughts on what Brett Chan said? Do YOU think the actor didn’t want to train or did he simply not have enough time to dedicate himself to it? Both seasons of Iron Fist still continue to be seen and streamed on Netflix.