Jake Gyllenhaal & Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star in the latest thriller Ambulance; Credits: IMDB

Ambulance is the latest work of director Michael Bay, who is like David Fincher in many ways. One of the highlights of Bay's film career, the movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Eiza González, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the action thriller picture. 

The actors came together to explain their work on the film, explaining what it was like to perform a surgery in Ambulance, and how demanding Bay can be when it comes to working with him. They also explained how the film uses modern tech and drones to get its perfect shots. 

Ambulance takes after the 2005 Dutch film which featured the same name. Originally made by Laurits Munch-Petersen and Lars Andreas Pedersen, the film is now held by Bay and features a write-up by Chris Fedak. 

The story of the film is focused on Will Sharp who is played by Abdul-Mateel II in the film. Will is a retired veteran whose wife is in critical condition and needs to undergo life-saving surgery. However, he does not have the money to pay for the operation. 

Hence, he reaches out to his adoptive brother Danny, played by Gyllenhaal. Instead of giving him the money he required, David takes Will on a wild ride as they rob from behind to gather the required money. However, the heist goes terribly wrong and they find themselves on the run with the police tailing them. The ambulance also holds an LAPD officer, seriously injured, and an EMT, played by Gonzalez, as the hostages of the criminals. 

The three stars of the film talked about the film and how it all came about to be. Sharing his take on Michael Bay as a director, Gyllenhaal explained that he thinks of Bay as an auteur, a director who is so involved in the making of the film that they can also be considered the author. 

The director is all about the moment when he is filming his shots and staying true to that moment. The actor shared that David Fincher shares the same quality and so does every great actor that he has worked with. 

Fincher himself pays a lot of attention to staying alive in the moment of the shot, and Michael does the same but uses a different technique to get there. Gyllenhaal shared that both the actors are similar in their energies. 

Michael Bay can also be really spontaneous with his artistic talents and many times the shots could be based on your whim. At such times, the actors learned to not ask questions and roll with what the director demanded. 

Abdul-Mateen II added that it takes around 2 days for the newcomers to understand the dynamics of the sets and work gets done on a movie. The actor revealed that he found the work a little different than his previous gigs. 

Michael Bay is a director who improvises while other directors mostly have each and every detail of their films sorted out and planned. While it may seem to be a little out of sorts for things to be so spontaneous, Michael Bay knows how he wants things to carry out and usually has plans set at all times, but mostly relies on spontaneous inspiration. 

Gonalez added that the director is also whimsical when it comes to the scenes he wants to shoot. As actors, it gave them the chance to always stay prepared for whatever Bay would demand of them instead of falling victim to a comfortable rhythm that didn't allow creativity. 

Hence, Bay would simply ask them to skip over many scenes and shoot whatever he wished to capture at that time, even if it was actually scheduled weeks ahead in the grand scheme of things. He would have ideas that fit in the picture and put them to the test right when he wanted to. Therefore, the actors learned to find their peace with it. 

However, Gyllenhaal admitted that it was difficult for him to prepare at such short notice but the other actors had learned to improvise. For him, he would just roll with whatever was asked of him at the moment and decided to give the best he could and do what he could do. 

The actors also discussed the humor in the surgery scene in Ambulance. Jake Gyllenhaal is not present in the scene in person, but his character had donated his spleen for the operation. The actor joked that he did not get the due credits for the scene as his part was present in the shots, but he did it for the love of art. 

The surgery was an incredibly difficult scene for the actors to enact considering the gore and the blood. Abdul-Mateen II admitted that he himself could not look at the operation, and Gonzalez was so surprised that even though she wanted to look away, she couldn't. 

The scene was rough, filled with gore and blood, and to make things awkward, the characters were supposed to punch the character once he woke from the surgery. They also revealed that the punch was not in the original script but Michael Bay asked them to do it anyway. 

Gonzalez admitted that it became her favorite scene she ever shot and was impressed with the way the director shot it. 

Another amazing aspect of the movie was that they were confined in a small, moving space which was the ambulance. The compact set required that Michael Bay improvise the way the film had to be shot and the director made sure that he captured the tininess of it in perfect synchronicity.

Most of the shots during the scene are up close, in the faces of the actors, and relay just how anxiety-inducing the entire operation was given the small space and the seriousness of it all. 

Ambulance is available in cinemas near you.