When things go wrong on set, you have to roll with it and look for the blessing hidden in the mistake — the accident often gives you something better than you planned.

It was an accident. It was just supposed to be, it was just two grenades, not a nuclear bomb. It throws them over the side and I just wanted like some body parts or, you know, something to fly up some shrapnel... My fix guy was so ragged, running so ragged. We get to there and I go, do you have any body parts and stuff we can throw up or something you can shoot up. Pat, I didn't realize it's so high to get past that second floor. He's like, no, I don't. I can give you a fireball. I can give you a nice, you know, fireball with propane, but it burns away really quick. Like how fast? Like that, but it'll be big and orange. Okay, we'll shoot it in slow motion so it lasts a little longer because it just goes poof... A lot of times, I've just learned that if something happens, it's just meant to be that way. And I got used to doing things in one take and just living with it, didn't bother me... The whole front of that, which is foam, is catching on fire. And I cut just before you see that it's on fire. And that was the first shot at that bar, because we weren't going to start shooting the other stuff till night. So the first shot is that, and the set's ruined, burned to a crisp. The neon lights blew up. So we couldn't even shoot. Cheech goes, well, I guess I'm not doing my speech tonight. But right away, this is what happens. My first AD, Doug Arnikowski comes over to me and I go over to him. Guys came out with the fire hoses. The fire hoses weren't even adding water. It was like the thing was just scorching. The whole production design team was in tears because they had just spent weeks building this thing and it was up in smoke and charred. I said, let's just keep shooting. Let's just keep shooting because it looks really kind of cool like this. Yeah, they're going to have to come repair it and we'll have to come back, but it's all black and charred. That's why that whole scene with George Clooney and Cheech and the building's black. We didn't go over there and touch that up. That's real flame that burned. And it ended up looking great. So sometimes you got to roll with it and then look to get the blessing you get because of this mistake.

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