'Expendables 4' Stunt Coordinator Praises Megan Fox, 50 Cent in Unprecedented Action Roles (Exclusive)

Expendables 4 premiered this weekend, bringing action stars of the last five decades together on the big screen. This time, the all-star cast included newcomers Megan Fox and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, both of whom are relatively new to this kind of work. In an email interview with PopCulture.com, stunt coordinator Alan Ng said that Fox and Jackson took the work like naturals.

Alan Ng has a long and impressive career as a director and stunt coordinator, working in the Hong Kong film industry as well as Hollywood in the U.S. Like Fox and Jackson, this was his first time working on the Expendables franchise, but he said that they all found it easy to work with each other. Of Fox, he said that her work on the Transformers franchise "definitely helped with her scenes. She has a very good foundation with her dance background and she picks up choreography very fast when rehearsing or when we made any change on set."

As for Jackson, Ng said: "50 Cent is very powerful and strong so that made it very easy to work with him." While most of the stars of The Expendables are well-established in the action genre, Fox and Jackson are not. Ng explained his process for finding their strengths and weaknesses to characterize them on screen.

"We played to the fact that Megan has a strong dance background," he said. "Megan's style is very agile, flexible, and fast. Whereas as 50 Cent is very powerful and strong, so he like a tank. He was actually so strong that in one of the scenes, he was supposed to barge into a stunt performer and his strength resulted in the guy going flying and dislocated his finger. The guy and his finger are ok now of course."

The Expendables is a send-up of action movie tropes of the 1980s and 1990s starring some of the biggest action stars of the last few decades. It centers around a group of elite mercenaries fighting on behalf of the U.S. around the world. So far, all four movies have starred Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture. While stars like Arnold Schrwazenegger and Jet Li have bowed out, other action icons like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Ronda Rousey have stepped in to fill out the roster. This time, Fox and Jackson joined the cast with Tony Jaa, Jacon Scipio, Levy Tran, Iko Uwais, and Andy Garcia.

Expendables 4 premiered this weekend in theaters in the U.S. and many long-time fans were delighted to see the franchise still going strong. If the franchise continues, Ng said he would be pleased to return, saying: "I loved working with such a talented cast." The movie is still playing in theaters now.