When stunt coordinator Wade Allen started working on the second season of Lioness, there was a scene in the first episode that he knew was going to be a challenge. It follows Zoe Saldaña’s Joe McNamara and her Quick Reaction Force team members as they rescue a kidnapped U.S. congresswoman from a Mexican border town. The script called for a multi-vehicle chase, a shootout and a water landing in the Rio Grande (with helicopters involved). “That took years off my life,” Allen says with a laugh. “By the time we got to episode eight, that scene seemed small.”
Lioness creator Taylor Sheridan is famous for starting production before a season’s scripts are finished, so Allen — who has been with the showrunner since the Wind River days — was prepared for the element of surprise. For the river rescue, that meant running a preseason training camp, where the actors (who try to do as many of their own stunts as possible) learned gun techniques, stunt driving and water safety. Sheridan joined the cast of season two, playing a CIA operative who drives the lead car in the chase, which involved complicated maneuvers like 90-degree stops and active impacts. Allen didn’t find out that Sheridan was going to be in the episode until right before they shot. “We had to have a talk at one point, because he wanted to do it all, and he’s proficient enough to do it,” says Allen. “I had to say, ‘If you get in a wreck at work, we’ve got one of the biggest showrunners on the planet and any number of A-list celebrities in the car. Plus, I’d be sad because I let it happen to a friend of mine.’ It’s always a tug-of-war.”
Those A-listers also filmed the episodes themselves, mostly without body doubles, culminating in the dramatic water rescue. It required Saldaña, who was wearing a heavy military vest and helmet, and Sheridan to be shot crash-landing in a river and extricate themselves from the sinking Suburban, as a helicopter flies over them firing blanks from two mini guns. “Taylor likes to see Zoe struggle on camera, because it’s so real,” Allen says. “So if you see her crawling onto shore so tired that she’s heaving, it’s because she is.”
But all of that felt easy by the time the production filmed the season finale. In it, the group of operatives attempt to intercept a team of Chinese nuclear scientists in Iran; the situation devolves into a shootout, culminating in a last-minute helicopter rescue. Genesis Rodriguez, who plays season two’s lioness — elite operatives sent on undercover missions — flew the bird herself. Allen hired an ex-Green Beret as a military tech adviser, and Rodriguez trained for weeks.
They filmed the final battle sequence at Sheridan’s Texas ranch. It was September by the time they were finishing the season, with temperatures hitting 119 degrees. Saldaña and her fellow actors wore battle armor while dealing with the stress of the high-stakes shots (and, as Allen points out, scorpions and snakes), which forced them to rotate in their stunt doubles to allow the cast to cool down.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.