He also talks about how he got involved in ‘Transformers,’ ‘Pain & Gain,’ why Jerry Bruckheimer is an amazing producer and future projects.

If you’re a fan of Michael Bay and want to hear him share some awesome stories about the making of Ambulance and some of his other movies, you’re about to be very happy. That’s because Collider hosted an early screening of Ambulance and after the screening ended, he joined me for an epic 90-minute Q&A! If you’re not aware, Bay rarely does Q&As, which is one of the reasons we made sure to film the event.

Since we covered so many subjects, I decided to break it up into two parts.

In the first part, which you can read or watch here, Bay shared some awesome stories about working with Sean Connery on The Rock, discovering Michael Clarke Duncan for Armageddon, how his Pearl Harbor movie included the most complicated explosion ever done on film, what it was like making Bad Boys and 13 Hours, working with Bruce Willis, and more.

In today’s installment, Bay goes deep on the making of Ambulance and shares tons of behind-the-scenes stories with brutal honesty. One of the things I love about talking to Bay is he just tells it like it is about his experience working with an actor, or how a certain shot or stunt came together. In addition, Bay spoke about how he got involved in the first Transformers movie, why he originally thought it was a bad idea, and what the first test screenings were like.

Finally, towards the end of the Q&A, Bay answered a ton of audience questions which led him to talk about why he thinks Jerry Bruckheimer is an amazing producer, whether he’d be interested in directing a horror movie, working with Nicolas Cage on The Rock, how he gets the government to let him use their equipment, his future projects, and too much more for me to list here.

The only thing I’m 100% sure of is if you are a fan of Michael Bay you’re going to enjoy this conversation.

As usual, I’m offering the interview two ways: you can either watch what he had to say in the player above, or you can read the conversation below. Trust me, this is one of those you want to watch. Finally, a huge thank you to Universal for helping to make this event happen.

COLLIDER: You made the first Transformers, it made like a billion dollars, huge hit. When did you realize? Before you were making it, during making it, or was it after, that you realized, oh this is going to be a huge movie?

MICHAEL BAY: Spielberg called me up. I was sitting in my editor room in Santa Monica. He goes "Michael, I'd you to do Transformers. It's about a boy who's getting his first car, and it turns into, it's an alien. Transformers." I'm like, I literally, swear to God, I did not grow up with Transformers. I hung up the phone and I literally said, this is a bad idea. So every studio in town turned the movie down. I said, to deference to Steven, I went to Hasbro, met with the CEO and I went to Transformer school. I remember when Brian Gold, their CEO of Hasbro. And it's very cool. You walk down Hasbro, you see literally the very first Monopoly board, created on a tablecloth, the checkered red and white tablecloth. You see Mr. Potato Head and all these toys that I played with when I was a kid. I'm like, I sit in this big boardroom. They show you how they're unfolding this stuff. They start giving you the lore, which I really liked. But I remember zoning in on a Japanese anime picture behind the CEO. And movies, sometimes it's one image that can spark a movie. The script was not good at first.

I thought to myself, wow, if I make these robots really real. If you could believe. Because effects were not that advanced at that time, and I'll explain that. And this image came to my head where, what if a kid is trying to hide these robots that are 20-30 feet, behind his house, and his parents inside. I said, to me, that was the movie. And then that's a wish fulfillment. And it was about, can we make this lifelike? Because these things will reflect 10,000 pieces of light. It's never been done in visual effects, and it kind of changed the game. We lost the Oscar, and that was bullshit, but whatever. Okay. All right?

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BAY: So now we're Transformers. Friday nights, the guys would come to my…I have a bar, we drink some beers. I like surrounding myself with normal people, and I'm not into the Hollywood scene. And they keep you grounded. I make movies for audiences and I'm not into all this, like, whatever. This guy, Mike Fisher, who was a former pro quarterback, from Texas. He was like, "Hey Bay. I mean, I really like Ridley Scott movies."

I'm like, "I do too, Mike."

And he goes, "You know, I don't know, Bay. I mean, this Transformer thing you're doing, I don't know."

Then you start feeling terrible about yourself. I'm like, "Yeah, I know. Oh God. Yeah." Then I remember the first day of the shoot. We shot Tyrese running, and Scorponok's diving out of the sand and diving right behind him. That was the first effect they did, and ILM did it. I remember showing it to Mike Fisher in my screening room. He goes, "Oh man. Okay, I get it now." So that's how that happened.

My only other question about Transformers, you obviously made a bunch of Transformers movies. Obviously, you made the first one and you were never sure how many you were going to make. You weren't sure if you were going to do a sequel. Would you have done anything differently with the storylines had you known you were going to make more of them?

BAY: Yeah. Because it was always a one off and you never knew you were going to do a whole thing. So literally, we did one. It was weird, when we were doing the first one, and then Peter Jackson had seen the trailer, he called Spielberg. He goes, "That movie's going to be huge." I didn't know. But when you saw with the audience, it's like the test screening. Here's a test screening. Let me just give you experience. As a director at a test screening, where we fill up an audience way bigger than this. 400 people. We have two houses. We have families in one house, 400 people. Then the next house starts 15 minutes later. That's more adults. And you sit there. I sit on the side and I've got the sound knob. And people in the front hate, because I turn it louder as it goes.

I'm watching this and this movies not complete. I'm like, oh my God, oh, this is just a dumb kid movie. This is terrible. I'm thinking, oh, this is awful. Then I go to the next theater, watch that. And now we're in the adult thing. There's an empty seat, and then there's this dude sitting next to me. Halfway through, and I'm like, oh, I want to throw up. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. All directors do, by the way. That's just way it goes. And I go to the guy, I said, "Do you this movie?" And he doesn't know who I am. He goes, (silence).

I'm like, oh my God, I'm so depressed. So it was a crazy night. So the studio's all there, the studio's all nervous. And the score in the family theater was a 94, which is a massive score for an unfinished movie. And then same one for the adult, was 94. So I'm like, okay, maybe there's something here. And there you go.

It was a billion dollars.

Jumping into why I actually am talking to you tonight. Ambulance.

BAY: Right, Ambulance. Wait, let me ask you a question. Did you guys like it? Yeah? Really, okay.

Audience: I loved that movie.

Audience: I don't like it, I love it.

Audience: Yeah, it was so…

BAY: Come on, let's hear that. What'd you say?

Audience: I didn't like it, I love it.

With casting this, how was it in terms of…What is it for you to cast a movie nowadays? Is it literally you texting people and saying-

BAY: No, I was lucky. I mean, Eiza was my sixth choice, Jake was my seventh and Yahya was my first. No, I'm kidding. That's a total joke, and you better erase any of that if you shot it. Okay? That's a total sarcastic joke. I've always wanted to work with Jake. I told my agent. I'm writing a big movie with a big writer. And I just wanted to get back. I love shooting. I'm very passionate. I don't even have a director chair on my set. I don't have video village, I don't have a trailer. I'm the type of director that splatters the blood, holds a camera. I'm right there with actors. And you heard that word, that Bayhem thing, right? And it's not my word, I did not create that. My crews created that because I like to keep it fast. This was a very fast movie. I called my agent. I know I'm rambling right now. But I said, "I just want to do something fast and intense."

And he says, "Well, there was a script that's been sitting around..."

BAY: Bradley, how long has it been sitting? This is one of the producers, Bradley Fisher. How many?

Bradley Fisher: Six or seven years.

BAY: Six or seven years sitting. And I read it and I was developing a crime story, because I was developing another story that was sort of… I wanted to have the audience feel they're on a crime that goes south really fast and just keep it intense. And this had a lot of those markings. Reworked the script a bit.

The business was getting very, very busy. Which means, people were getting booked everywhere. It was, COVID was still going on and people were figuring out a way to do it safe. And it's hard to get availabilities of actors. Jake, I got the word that he was available. We called him, Bradley helped us. I had a great call with Jake. It was written for two white brothers. The studio called me, this guy Peter. And he goes, "You should check into Yahya." He said, "African American guy."

I said, "Well, I don't know about that. I don't know." Because I felt it might be forced, whatever. And then I said, "Is Yahya a real name? I've never seen his work." Then I saw his work, and I'm like, that guy's going to be a movie star and I want to work with him. So then I wrote in the kids. I figured out, okay, this might be cooler to have it this way. Because he gets adopted, they're trying to save the life of this guy. They both live in a rough neighborhood, but they're trying to save this kid and he gets adopted into a bank robbing family.

So, I loved working with the actors. And Eiza was always my first choice, right off the bat. But it was, you never know what you get, and just the vibe that we had between the actors was great.

Something that no one in this audience is going to realize. And because I didn't believe it when you told me. But this was made, I believe, in 39 days.

38 days. Now for people that don't realize, maybe you can explain, how long was your shoot on, say, the first Transformers movie, or any of the Transformers movies?

BAY: Let's just say, Armageddon was 120 days, because you're putting the space suits. Each spacesuit needed five people. Craziest crap in the world. Let me explain that. First day, Ben Affleck, way down, we wrecked, we're shooting in the Badlands in the Dakotas. I got a microphone or whatever to the actors. They're walking out of a plane crash, and wind machines, 100 mile an hour winds. And all of a sudden, I see Ben Affleck trying to hit his face shield. They had real NASA locks on their helmets. I'm like, "Cut, cut, cut. What's going on? Ben, what's going on?" So we have to run literally like a football field toward. And he was trying to find a rock to bust his mask, because he couldn't breathe because the air thing was shut. So that's why it was complicated. So that was a long shoot.

Transformers are usually about 100 days to about 90 something days. This one was 38. A normal movie shoot's about 20 to 30 shots a day. Luckily I'm a fast shooter. That's one of the things I'm good at, is just a shot maker. Very fast and very efficient. Leapfrogging my cameras. So we were shooting about 120 shots a day, and that's real. But it helped the movie and helped the performances. Because as an actor, if you're trying to keep that level of tension, it's very exhausting to go to a trailer, come back. To do that, you want to shoot it fast, so you keep that level of tension up for their performance. All right?

How many cameras do you typically use? For Ambulance, how many cameras were typical at all times?

BAY: Well, we would have KOMODOs, which is a smaller little RED. We would have drones. We would have like 10 cameras, but not on every shot. Sometimes sandbags, sometimes just putting them around. Me operating my DP, an operator, some bagged cameras.

There a shot in the movie, and I could be wrong about this, a lot of police cars get destroyed in this movie, but there's one where it feels it crashes into a camera. Was that camera destroyed?

BAY: I don't think so, no. Actually, RED said, "We want to have you destroy a camera and put it on screen." And we kept trying to destroy them, and they wouldn't get destroyed. But no, it was actually in a housing.

In every movie you make, you do these crazy f'ing shots. But in this movie it goes to another level because of the way you use drones. So, can you talk a little bit about, had you been thinking about using drones before? And what was the inspiration for using extensive drone shots in this film?

BAY: I always try to come up with new stuff. And this movie, because there's a short shoot, not a lot of money. I'll tell you a little story. Spielberg, who I'm friends with, in War of the Worlds, I said, when Tom Cruise, middle of the movie, toward second, third act, Tom Cruise runs to a hill, and you see these plane go on past the camera. And he looks over a hill and you don't see over the hill. Like, Steven, "Why didn't we get to see over the hill? That looked like cool that we were going to see."

He goes, "Ah, 5 million dollars, it was a 5 million dollar scene. I cut it."

And I'm like, "Well that's the scene I wanted to see."

"Well, I cut it."

What it made me think of is, I've had all the money in the world, he's had all the money in the world. And it's great as a director to tie one hand behind your back and have limitations. That's a challenge. A movie needs to be a challenge for a director. It's cool to just be, I can't tell you how much fun it was…. First of all, my cops around the world like my movies, thank God. So I get away with a lot of stuff, okay? Miami is where I live most of the time. Miami cops, they'll let us get away with shit. I'm with Walberg and Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie. And it's me with a camera and the sound guy. And we got a dead body and we are in a van. Mark's just like, "We have no police escort." He's just starts driving. We are laughing. Mark is driving. Mark's a great driver, Walberg. He's driving through the city and cops would look at him. And he goes, "Oh, hey sweetheart, how are you?" Basically, we keep driving, we're laughing, the dead bodies went rolling around. And that is fun. That's just great stuff. That's where you feel you're in film school again. And it just gets down to basics, and that's kind of what this movie was.

Cut to, okay, I try to come up with cool shots on movies. Even though I have less money, less toys. But I'm like, okay, drone work.

Does it feel I'm just free associating talking right now?

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BAY: Little bit. Are you guys following it?

A little bit, but it is coming together.

BAY: But drone work is sort of boring. I'm like, how can I change this up? So I started looking at these 19 year old kids, these drone racers, some of the best in the world. I got them, we kind of tricked out some of their cameras. And they would do shit that is just amazing. I'm like, I was tough on them, I was like the Sean Connery to them. I'm saying, "Yeah, dude, I want you to fly through that fucking explosion."

"You do?" He's just 19 years old. "You do?"

"Yeah. Don't fuck it up." I screw around with people, but I do it as just like a tough love thing. And they actually do it. You saw one, he goes right under the cars and jumping over the thing. I said, "Yeah"

He goes, "Do I get to practice?"

I said, "No, dude. I'm doing this jump once." But seriously, you always have a fire marshal for safety on sets. A lot of drone people might not be as good. He saw these kids work and just the skill level they had. And he would let them. Like, no one would ever let you fly two feet from City Hall, with literally the radar towers and the cell towers right there. I mean, these kids were just dive bombing. You just challenge them. Then they said "We've never ever had a director allow us to do any of this." So it kind of creates a new kind of language there.

In this movie, you have helicopters that are very close to the ground. Is that normally allowed? Or was that special permits?

BAY: You don't need special permits for that. You need special permits to go under the bridge. So, I wrote that on a Sunday. And I worked with Fred North, who's one of the great helicopter pilots. French guy. And another pilot I worked with. There are really amazing flyers. It's very dangerous work, when you work with these people, that's why you need to work with the best. We got approval to go under the bridge. We shot that scene you saw there, in two and a half hours. That's fast. I told Jake, I said, "All right, Jake. There's a helo that's going to come by, and it's going to be about 20 feet from you. Don't worry, this is what they do, this is what they've been doing. I've flown with them for 25 years.

And he goes, "Okay."

And he didn't see the helo because the helo was way up there, and it dive bombs him. And it comes down, it comes right by him. And he shot at it and he gets in the thing. They start getting chased. I put Yahya, you know, we would have a stunt driver in there. That's a stunt man hanging out the side. But that's Jake actually at the door, shooting at a real helo. But Yahya, I just learned this today from Yahya. This is what he said on walkie. Because I'm in the Porsche Cayenne, which has a crane arm. Or BMW this time. It's a crane arm that goes, it's a very fast car and the arm kind of can move around. And it's controlled by four people in there. I'm in there with the operators, and I'm doing the zoom and whatnot. Yahya, and I've got a radio to Yahya. We're right outside his window. He gets on the radio. He's driving about 55 miles an hour. Yahya's a very good driver, by the way. We would train him, stunt people, before the movie. He gets on the radio. He goes, "Mike, this is the craziest shit in the world. You got two helos behind me."

I said, "Yahya, get off the walkie talkie and focus." So those are real helos right off the side of him.

What he told me today, he goes, "Because it was the craziest shit I've ever done, I put a live stream to my buddy in the ambulance. And he put his phone on." All right? That was pretty funny to hear that.

But it just gives more authenticity to the movie. But I'm extremely safe as a director, and I don't take it for granted at all. I mean, we did over a thousand stunts, not even a bandaid on this movie was used. I got crap. I did that Instagram posting, and they censored the thing. I's the explosion where the ambulance comes through the cars. That's all real. It's a ratchet. It's very, very violent. I've done more of those probably than anybody in the world. I work with the best crew. If you look at the Instagram thing, my assistant shot it. I'm in the black fire suit and I'm standing up on the dolly because I might fuck up my camera. Because the ambulance might hit me. We've got two catch cars, that the cars are made to be our blockers. I can dive back. And my dolly grip has a car there, by a curb. We might screw up the dolly, but that stuff's replaceable. What you're watching for, because it's microseconds. If you've done this a lot and you go through the physics, it's like, as a director, not a lot of directors know how to set up their own stunts and know, you always have to try to predict what can go wrong. Wen these moments come up, when these scenes come up, I am so serious on the set, and my crew gets very, very serious.

Stunt people, you hire the best of the best. Each one has a different skill level. Which, they are great runners, great drivers. You hire the best of the best. But I'm on the dolly and I'm standing there. I'm not even looking through the camera because I want to be able to jump back. I've got a monitor where I'm watching, but what I'm watching, because the ambulance is being pulled by a wire. It's going 50 something miles an hour, and it goes to a cable and a truck is pulling it that way. It's coming through. As soon as it comes through, hits those cars, an electronic cable cutter cuts it. So what you watch for, we invented on Armageddon, a car flipper. So we know it's only going to go 15 feet. The thing you're watching for is that violent thing. It's a car, we wrap it with a cable and it gets pulled. And it starts to spin violently. But it's getting pulled with such force, it's going that way. It's not going to come this way, it's going to go that way because of the force of the cable. The cable is super, super strong.

We go through over and over with the stunt people, where they are. Because those are the ones I'm concerned about. One stunt person hung in there a microsecond too long. So what I'm watching for is, when that ambulance comes through and hits, you want to make sure it's not coming this way. If it turns this way, I'm in trouble. My assistant shot it from over here, the over the shoulder, most dangerous looking shots when you do action. So it looks more dangerous. But I see that it's coming and I know that it's a couple feet, not past me, but it can't make a right turn. All right? So that I know that I am safe at that time. But I'm concerned about the stunt man that's coming to me, and he's going to get wedged because he's running right to the dolly. He was supposed to go past my dolly, but he was running right to it. And the ambulance hits at 10 miles an hour. I had plenty of time to jump off. The stunt person, I knew was fine. I raised my arms because I knew that was a perfectly planned stunt. I think the mayor gave me shit, the governor gave me shit, Instagram censored it. But that was a perfectly planned stunt, so.

I wanted to let the audience ask.

BAY: Yeah, come on, let's go.

Real fast, guys, because I know there's some real big fans of yours in this audience. I know this person, right there, is a huge fan.

Rapid fire. It all has to be fast.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I just want to say before anything, I'm like your biggest fan of all time. You inspire me to want to become a director. Transformers: Age of Extinction is my favorite movie of all time. Transformers one is when I wanted to become a director. And because of your influence, I'm actually going to Art Center College of Design.

BAY: Oh, you are. Awesome, dude.

AUDIENCE: Because of you, yeah. I actually just got off a movie shoot today, to come to this event.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. So one question I had, I wrote it down because, well, it's kind of important.

BAY: You know what you should go? You should go to your teacher. Say yeah, I'm quitting school because Bay just gave me a job.

AUDIENCE: How would you recommend aspiring directors get into the industry, in order to eventually make the kind of movies that you make? And also, are you hiring, by the way?

BAY: Very funny. Okay. Listen, there's no set, it's not a doctor. Were you go premed, ba-ba-ba-boom, become a doctor. You got to knock down doors. It's not going to come to you. You could shoot a movie on an iPhone, still. I mean, I do funny videos on iPhones, and the iPhone's got some great stuff to it. You just have to shoot and you got to figure out you really love. Do you love editing? Do you love sound? Do you love producing? If you want to be a director, you have to learn how to deal with people. You have to learn, time is money. You've got to get your dreams on the screen, but you've got to inspire your crew. It's literally, directing is exhausting. And it's literally, it's like a sporting event, but it doesn't stop. The train, once it goes, it doesn't stop. And you got to bring it in and on budget. But I would recommend just shooting short stories, and that's what I would do.

AUDIENCE: Were you influenced by a movie Wild Bunch by Sam Peckinpah? Because he uses lots of quick cuts, it's very bloody, very violent, like some of your films. And made me think, you saw that movie and said, I'm going to outperform him.

BAY: I actually did my senior thesis, or one of them, on the decline of the western hero. If you look at westerns, if you study westerns, they reflect history. You see how, what is it? The Mexican War we had. And then we've got Nazis coming in. And then you see the hero, where you would only shoot them in the front. The Wild Bunch is where you would shoot your enemy in the back. It was more the Vietnam era of war. And it was a very inspirational movie because it's the decline of the western hero. Was very bloody. Not that that's inspiring, but just, you can look at how history plays in westerns. It's very interesting.

AUDIENCE: So, I watched you film a commercial for six hours, and then was politely asked to leave. It was very enjoyable.

AUDIENCE: It was Burger King, and it was in Glendale.

AUDIENCE: You were trying to get a dog to do something. It wasn't exactly coming off. I thought it looked right.

BAY: Right. Who asked you to leave?

BAY: I hate that. That's great.

AUDIENCE: So, I love the way your stuff looks. Another guy who I just adore the way he shoots is Tony Scott.

BAY: Love Tony. I was friends. Tony was very nice to me. It was very sad when he passed. But yeah, go on.

AUDIENCE: That's what I'm hoping for. Could you tell us a story about spending time with Tony Scott?

BAY: You know what? I was in college and I saw Top Gun with some fraternity brothers in Connecticut. And I'm like, oh my God, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I got see this. You hear the music, you see Tom Cruise on the thing. It looked so cool. I'm like, this is what I want to do. Being taken under Jerry Bruckheimer, Don Simpson's wing. Who did Top Gun and whatnot. Worked with Tony a lot. Tony was very inspirational. The Scott brothers were very inspirational because they came from commercials. So that's where I came from. But to me, it was always about becoming a movie director, and it was just stepping stones. So a director, what he was talking about, I had videos to do. Story videos, we were doing every other week, then it went on to commercials. But just meeting him and just learning from him, it was great.

AUDIENCE: So I just think you're the GOAT as far as action filmmaking goes. I think everybody in this room can agree that. I was just wondering, out of all your movies, what movie do you look at from yourself and say, this is my masterpiece.

BAY: Well, I don't try to pat myself on the back. I mean, they're fun things that I've done. You look at movies as different wars each time, and you have a love for each thing on movies. I mean, one of the fun ones that I did, that just, I see it, it makes me chuckle, was Pain & Gain. We did it for 22 million bucks. We had much fun doing it and it's so wacky. I think it's Dwayne Johnson's best performance. He quit the week before. I wrote this long letter and I'm like, "You are going to be my secret weapon." Anyway, there's love for each movie because it's all different feelings. So, thank you.

AUDIENCE: Hey Mike. Love the movie. I always tell people, when Michael Bay shoots an actor, he makes them a movie star. So I'm curious, was there an actor growing up, that you wish you could go back and direct in a movie? Like, somebody you looked up to, and you're like, man, if I had that actor in my movie, I would made him even a bigger movie started than he already was.

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BAY: You know, it's interesting. Eiza, I think it was day three. Remember, we're shooting at a fast clip. And you're just getting to know actors as you go. Every actor's different psychology-wise. Like Ed Harris, my second movie, and I'm down low and we're shooting at Alcatraz in the real place, where Birdman of Alcatraz was housed and it's kind of creepy. Ed Harris is doing a scene, this is first night. He had a lot of dialogue. I'm down low here and there's the guy with the effects smoke. Ed saying his stuff. And he's just like, "Are you doing smoke?!" He's yelling. I'm like, what the hell's going on? He's out of his mind. And third take, "Would you stop doing smoke?!" I'm like, whoa. Okay. But it was his process, and you learn that was his process. I love working with Ed Harris because now I know how he works. He gets really riled up, and his fifth take are the brilliant takes. Sean Connery was the second to third, take. Every actor's different.

Eiza on this, we were doing a shot where she gives a finger to Jake. Well, it's a great moment, because she puts her hands up, she's this. I told the sound guys, I wanted to hear that her brothers and sisters are looking for her. You hear all the sirens around. She's got a choice, she could run, and then she hears that heart thing. And that's so cool she runs back. It's kind of a love letter to first responders here. She was running to give the finger. And then you change lenses, when you go to a longer lens, you have to slow down a little. Because you've got this huge ass movie screen, and if she's moving too fast and it's a tight shot, she would whack around. Meaning like, boom, boom. A strobe on the screen. I'm like "Eiza, slow down." She doesn't know me. I don't know her.

She goes, "You're picking on me. Why are you picking?"

I'm like, "Eiza, look, come over here. Let's talk." And she's like, we get in our first fight, and she's intense. She's fun to hang out with, but she's intense. I'm like, "You don't have to listen to me. I mean, I'm just telling you, this camera sees different than your eye and I know what I'm doing. I can make you great."

And she goes, "But you're picking on me."

I said to her after I let her speak, I said, "I'm going to make you better than you've ever been. Okay?" I'm very proud of her performance. She was a trooper beyond troopers and she did a great job. And I think we've made a real discovery in movies with her, because she's a great hero in this movie.

AUDIENCE: Just quick question: Ambulance 2?

BAY: Come on, we got to keep going on. By the time I'm 35, I want to do another movie.

AUDIENCE: What random action movies are you into recently, or anything you're obsessed with recently?

Random action movies that I've seen. I don't know, can we talk about a TV show? Yellowstone, baby. Yellowstone, I really Yellowstone.

I have to ask you a question. If actually they asked you to direct any of Yellowstone, would you do it?

BAY: You know, like I said, I would not want to do Star Wars V, because like Ridley, Scott said, the greatest and toughest thing for a director to do is to create the world. And I like creating the world. But that might be fun. I mean, the horses and the Stetson hats, and just the beautiful landscape, it's fun. It's a fun show.

I would love to see you do a Yellowstone episode.

BAY: You know what? I was on a horse once with my parents. I was in Palm Springs and I had to climb the stairs to get on the horse. This is true story. I'm a kid and I get on, I don't even put my hands in the stirrups. Maybe one foot, on my one foot. I didn't even grab the reins, and the horse bolts and he runs over a gully. I'm grabbing the horn and the hair on the horse, and I'm down low. Like that movie. What was the movie? What? No, the one with the kid, the beach, the horse.

BAY: Black Stallion. Okay. So, we're running over a gully, we are charging over a golf course. I'm passing guys with golf carts and the whole thing and I'm looking behind, and I'm almost falling off this horse and he's tearing down. I see these three cowboys. "Yah, yah!" Behind. I'm like, “oh my God!” So anyway, childhood horror story. Okay.

Before you ask the question, I just want to point out, before this. When I was meeting people outside and checking people in, it's very rare for me to hear so many people say, "I can't wait to see Bay talk. I can't wait to be a part of this." It's not usually that. And, no one has left. Like, they go to the bathroom, but they come back. That also is not the norm.

AUDIENCE: It's okay. I have a question. What drives you to make the movies the way that you do? Is it the adrenaline, the passion, the art, the audience?

Bay: I'll tell you, personally, I love to shoot. Just, it's so much fun for me to be involved. I love working with crews, I love everyone's input, it's a collaborative experience. And when I don't like something, you'll know it, but it's fun. It's an adrenaline rush. I love working with actors. It's so exhilarating when you start hearing music to your scenes. It's so interesting when actors add so much more. It's fun. I mean, you don't know, when you cut a movie, it could be shit. You have no idea. This has been a fun one watching with crowds. Because what directors do with a 350 person house where you test it, you watch body language. You count how many people, we have already had two or three go to the bathroom during my talk, so that's bad. All right? Because I only had six on my 350 house when watching the movie, and that was two hours.

Well they did watch the movie, and then viewing the Q & A.

BAY: Okay, fine. Should have gone before.

AUDIENCE: So I actually work at the company Falck, which is Falck Ambulance. And I did do a set visit one day while you were directing.

BAY: I remember seeing you.

AUDIENCE: So, movie turned out great. We loved it. So I just want to say that front. But my question is, would you ever be interested in doing a horror film?

BAY: Yeah. I mean, The Shining, when you see those two little twin girls, oh my God. Fuck. I mean, I saw that at the Village theater when I was young. It was an empty theater, 1200 seat. I saw it in a matinee or whatever. I mean, it's terrifying. I do like horror movies. I mean, I saw The Exorcist I think when I was 12, and I slept between my parents that night.

AUDIENCE: Okay, quick question. On a previous Collider screening, Jerry Bruckheimer said that, in one day, you did at 72 setups. Is that still the record for you, and what movie was that on?

BAY: No, I am now up to 120. We've done 120. On this movie, we did 120 many days.

For people that don't realize, a normal shoot could be like

BAY: 20, 25, 30. Yeah. But listen, I've been doing this a long time. The thing is, there's too much screw around time. Everything's too precious. Certain things definitely have to be precious. But this is a movie where speed, it helped the adrenaline of the movie. So it was helpful on this movie to do it like that. It's not fun, it's tough, but it's a cool study for me, and just to make it. Let me tell you the hardest day on this. We had that gigantic bank area. We had the streets all blocked down. It was the LA Times building, the City Hall right there, the LAPD headquarters right there. It's a major deal to get that. And they said, "This is the only time, the last time you are ever going to get this corner, this area." And we had the scene where the little blue car pulls up. This is a no joke, and this is where it separates the men from the boys. I'm like, oh my God. I go to my DP. We are so screwed right now. We have 19 minutes of light right now. And my dog, who's the big Mastiff who's 227 pounds. I have to get his ass into that fucking car. And I'm like, "Nitro, get in there."

He's like, what the do you want me to get in? I don't fit. I go in Escalade. And so he got in there, his head sticks out. We grab a camera. Garrett comes out and it's his first day with me. I'm like, "Welcome to Bayhem, baby."

Because he goes, "We get rehearsal?"

I said, "No." And it was basically all real cops, not actors. Except for Cedric, who was the actor who pushes my SEAL guy, Remy. We had to shoot all that in 19 minutes because the sun was dropping.

Yeah, by the way, that's Bay's dog that's in the movie.

BAY: Yeah. He's definitely not trained.

AUDIENCE: So my question is, in all of your films, you create this sense of found family, found brotherhood amongst all the actors every time, how do you facilitate that on set?

BAY: Yeah, you might be right. I actually haven't thought like that. Go ahead, go through the movies. I mean, are Armageddon...

AUDIENCE: I mean, Armageddon, Transformers, 13 Hours.

BAY: I used to always think my movie archetype that I liked the best was the normal person becoming a hero. Doing extraordinary things when they never thought they could. It's like Nic Cage in The Rock, he comes to my house and he's been working out a lot. And first time meeting him, he goes, "Yeah, I've been working out a lot."

And, "Well Nic, you're an FBI chemical weapons expert."

He goes, "Well, I want to have my shirt sleeves ripped off."

I'm like, "Dude, you never used a gun. I mean, it's kind of weird, don't you think?" So it's always, to me, I like the old wise man. Taking someone who's normal and turning them into a hero. I don't know, it's just something that's been interesting to me.

This was an interesting movie because you're dealing with two people. One robbing a bank and doing it for a noble reason, to save his wife. Then one who is just charming everybody. And you these guys, and it's a weird, interesting dynamic. And what I've found from audiences, they're sympathizing with these guys. If you look at my movies, they've always been this rah-rah, pro America. I just did press tours in Europe, in the four different countries. And they go, "Bay, you've done movies that are so rah-rah America. But now I've seen through some of your movies..." From Pain & Gain, which shows the narcissism of kind of Instagram and whatnot. And this, you can become the American dream and do it in all evil ways. Then you got 13 Hours, where America's not going to come save your ass. They've got to go in and six people have to fight back, and turns into the whole group. Then you've got this one, where you've got a military person coming back and he's sort of screwed over by our government. It's sort of weirdly the decline of the American dream.

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AUDIENCE: Did you play one of the cops outside of the bank?

BAY: You want to know where I am? I will tell you exactly where I am. When Jake holds those baby booties. Remember, low budget movie. When he holds the baby booties, those are my baby booties. Okay? And now I'm going to give you the one nugget, this is the one nugget. When Yahya holds that picture up and he's looking, and he goes, "ah". Mrs. Burns was my third grade teacher, by the way. I just want you to know that. He holds a picture. If you look at the movie again, you can actually see my mom holding me as a baby. True story.

AUDIENCE: Michael, thank you for your time, for being here. One of my questions is, what you just said about, a lot of your movies are about America and everything. I was just wondering, how do you get the government to let you play with all the toys that they have. I mean, that's the coolest thing. Like, every time I watch your movies, I'm like, how did he get him to do that? Like, let him play with the helicopters and the carriers and everything. Can you expand on that?

Can I follow up to that? Because in this movie, I believe the truck that is the command center of the LAPD was something that's like a prototype. It could be wrong, but I think it is a prototype. Which goes to your point of, how the F do you keep on getting this prototype equipment?

BAY: Well, okay. I forgot what we've talked about today, because I've been talking for nine hours. There are 52 real cops in this movie. So basically, everyone is real. Real SWAT, real snipers, real undercover SIS. Most of those people in the shoot out, they're all real police. Not great actors, but they work, they feel real. No, seriously. But the tactics, a lot of the tactics are all from them. I thought chases were, you just put a spike strip down and whatever, but that's not how they do it. They really manipulate. With hostage takers, they put pressure on/off. So that these are all real stuff. I mean literally, it's so much fun. When you have 52 real police on there, you do get some special things. Where like, "Hey, can we get an LAPD helo fly by?" And two minutes later, helo comes by. I mean, that's fun.

It's because I treat the military well. I've become friends with so many people in the military, I've worked with the Pentagon a lot. They know that I treat them well, with respect and I show how it really is. They are an amazing group of people, that will put their lives on the line. Even police, paramedics, all of them. It's fascinating that they give of themselves so much, and they don't get enough appreciation.

But like, Yahya, his character, Will's character, he comes back, and he can't get that surgery. I mean listen, America kind of screws over some of our soldiers coming back, and it's sad. We take them for granted sometimes. Sometimes the governments are planning wars that we don't need to be in. You know? So I mean, what's going on right now in Ukraine, in our lifetime is just, it's devastating.

How did you get that prototype of that command center?

BAY: Well, we made it, and they gave me a truck. I've been the first to use a bunch of the military weapon systems. When I asked when I was in my third movie. Okay. I go to NASA, I want the space shuttle. And they go, "Okay." I'm like, wow. I'm the only director in the world to get it twice. Then I'm like, "Well I want the B2s, a stealth bomber for Armageddon."

"Oh, no, you can't do that. It needs to be moved under the cover of night." We're shooting in a military base, Edwards Air Force Base, which is totally secure. "Well, we need to move it in the cover of night."

I said, "Well, can I get it?"

"Well, okay, you can get it." So on that day on the shoot, they had this line of death, and they had two military people with the M-16s at that time. Bruce and the actors are there. They have a sign that says "You cross this line, lethal force will be used." By lunchtime. I was sitting in that motherfucker. Okay? All right? You just got to be good with a gifted gab here, okay?

AUDIENCE: Hey, Michael. I've seen The Rock 100 times. I love that movie. If I'm really busy, I catch it on TV, I'll still have to sit and watch. Is there any truth, there was a time where you said you might have done a sequel. Is there any, is that something that would possibly happen in the future, or is that not something you're interested in?

BAY: It was a great learning experience for me, it was great working with those actors. But I mean, they were asking me today, "Could Sean's character have been James Bond?" And I'm like, "Yeah, that was always thought of slightly in the movie." But I don't know, not a sequel, I don't know.

AUDIENCE: Do you have any plans on making another Transformer movie?

BAY: It was a great ride doing it, it really was fun. But I want to do other things, and I love making movies. So I like going from big to small. This is a small one. Hopefully, I'll do a big one next. I mean, if I'm not kicked out of the business, I don't know.

I'm just going to say that I enjoyed your work on the Transformers movies, but I'm very happy that you're doing other things, because I want to see these other things.

AUDIENCE: I just want to know what your favorite scene to shoot in this movie was?

BAY: You know what was a difficult scene, but I liked it? It was when Jake and Yahya go to Poppy's and they deliver the money. There's a scene in every movie where it's very difficult. An actor won't throw a tizzy, but there were a lot of words, there was too many words written in the scene. We're shooting this as such a fast clip. We don't have, it's not Mission Impossible, where Tom Cruise can go back three times, and re-shoot the scene over and over and over. I mean literally, if we didn't shoot, it's not in the movie. Jake's like, "It has to be emotional, it has to be emotional, it has to be emotional." And this was Jake's hot day. Every actor has a right, there's a day where it's like, this is really passionate for an actor. Because actors are out there, and as a director, you got to understand that. And, "It has to be emotional.”

I'm like, "Jake, I mean, I want to cry right now. I want it to be emotional, but we have three motherfucking hours to shoot this, okay?" So all kidding aside, we shot, but it wasn't working. We shot some stuff and then we were lucky to come back. Because the problem was, this town was so busy, we couldn't get that location. We were able get it for another four hours, and we came in and we shot it. That was a tough scene, but I really liked the scene. Because Yahya improv-ed and Jake improv-ed. I don't know, I really liked that scene.

AUDIENCE: Do you have any plans in the imminent future to reunite with Jerry Bruckheimer? Also, is there a movie that you may have seen, a classic movie and only a recent movie, where you would've been like, you're watching it and as you're watching it, you're just left with the impression that like, damn, they should have gotten me? Or, I could have made that better, I could have taken that to the next level.

BAY: Okay. There are a couple movies where, I was given Saving Private Ryan before Steven. Steven, when I saw it, that's the greatest first scene of any movie I've ever seen. I would've never done a better job. Steven was perfect for that. I was given Black Hawk Down. I'm like, this is way too violent, there's no way anyone's going to go to this movie. I am so glad Ridley Scott did that movie. So I'm glad they didn't pick me, thank God, and I didn't say yes. I think my first movie I was ever given when, and when I went to meet Steven when I was a kid, at the desk, the Raiders of the Lost Ark story, he gave me Small Soldiers. I said no to that. It's kind of weird. Your first movie you're offered, and I said no. The first movie I was going for with a vengeance was Speed. I lost that movie. Okay? Jan de Bont did a great job.

I want to follow up with what this gentleman said. Is there any talk about you and Jerry Bruckheimer doing anything?

BAY: Jerry and I are great friends. Jerry is an amazing producer. Let me give you an idea about what a great producer he is. So, Jerry's got the longest desk in Hollywood. It was, Don Simpson sat over here. It's literally, it's almost like from that end of this chair to about next to her. That's how long it is, okay? It's really true. When I was doing Armageddon, Jerry would come in like a real producer. Like, 11:30 in the morning. And I'm there at 9:00 in the edit room. Jerry was like the Chinese water torture guy. It was like literally drip, drip, he would make you feel bad. But in a nice way. It's like, he would come into the edit room, "Okay guys, what'd you fuck up today?" It makes you feel great.

So I'm literally in his office waiting for him. I said, "Is Jerry around?"

He goes, "Well, he's working out with a trainer."

I'm like, "Okay, let me call him." Because I just, I said, "Jerry, hey, I just read Godzilla was competing with us, Armageddon." I said, "Jerry. Godzilla, they have a whole album. We don't have shit."

And there was a long pause, like this, "Let me call you back."

Three days later, we had Aerosmith sitting in his edit room. That's a great producer. But Jerry and I talk about working together. I really can't wait to work with him again.

My last question of the night.

BAY: I'm excited to see his Top Gun, by the way.

I've heard really good things about Top Gun. Remember we talked about Top Gun. They know I was hinting at that, that's something earlier. You know what I'm talking about?

Anyway, so my last question for you. I heard rumors about Robopocalypse, but what exactly are you thinking about for the future?

BAY: I mean, I really do like Robopocalypse. The problem with that movie, Steven prepped it. And he asked me, after he saw 13 Hours, he'd me to do it. But the problem is, there's 30 million, because he was, literally built stages, whatever. So there's 30 million dollars against the movie, which would go on top of the movie. So, we'd be very expensive because, you've got to…recoup it.

So do you know what you're going to do next?

BAY: I've got this movie, an idea I created 14 years ago, called Black Five, that I'm working on. Which is a cool mission movie. It's a cool concept, high concept. There's a couple great World War II things. And then I don't know, we'll see. I'm reconstituting Platinum Dunes with Brad Fuller. There we go.

I am so curious about you and World War II, doing a movie.

BAY: One's a very, very emotional story that's pertinent for today. It's not like an old man World War II, it's dealing with young people during World War II. So I can't talk about it right now, but you know.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Michael Bay.

BAY: Thank you guys, thank you. A lot of fun, it was a lot of fun hanging with you.

Ambulance is now playing in theaters.

Steven Weintraub launched Collider in the summer of 2005. As Editor-in-chief, he has taken the site from a small bedroom operation to having millions of readers around the world. If you’d like to follow Steven on Twitter or Instagram, you can expect plenty of breaking news, exclusive interviews, and pictures of cats doing stupid things.

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