If any filmmaker has perfected the way you blow shit up on the big screen, it’s Michael Bay – the master of mayhem, with decades of experience in exploding the hell out of Hollywood. From Bad Boys and its sequel, to Armageddon, to the Transformers films, his own particular brand of Bayhem has been a major force in action cinema. And as he tells Empire in the latest issue, with his latest high-octane extravaganza Ambulance about to burst into the world, he has a very particular way of brewing a big, blockbuster-worthy boom.
“There’s a special sauce for explosions,” he explains. “It’s like a recipe. I see some directors do it, and they look cheesy, or it won’t have a shockwave. There are certain ways with explosions where you’re mixing different things, and different types of explosions to make it look more realistic.” If it sounds like he could put one together as easily as the rest of us make lunch, that’s because, well, he can. “It’s like making a Caesar salad,” he says.
There’s one explosion Bay is particularly proud of – an especially ferocious fireball during the attack sequence in Pearl Harbor. “Jerry Bruckheimer showed Ridley Scott the movie,” recalls Bay. “And the quote [from Scott] was, ‘Fuck me.’ No-one knows how hard that is. We had so much big stuff out there. Real boats, 20 real planes. We had 350 events going off. Three months of rigging on seven boats, stopping a freeway that’s three miles away.” While Guinness World Records has the destruction of Blofeld’s base in Spectre down as the current record holder, Bay’s having none of it. “James Bond tried to take the ‘largest explosion in the world’,” he says. “Bullshit. Ours is.”
Read Michael Bay’s full guide to creating the ultimate on-screen action setpieces – from explosions and fist fights, to shootouts and car chases – in the Moon Knight issue, on sale now and available to order online here. Ambulance comes to UK cinemas from 25 March.