“He’s a Tough Cookie”- 'How to Rob a Bank' Director on Nicholas Hoult Fighting His Way Through Filming, Injured
Being the boss of a bank-robbing crew sounds glamorous until the fists start flying. Nicholas Hoult plays Ryan, the bleached-blond mastermind at the center of 2026's How to Rob a Bank, leading a gang of social-media-savvy thieves. But as director David Leitch revealed, calling the shots also meant taking a few hits. Hoult had to fight through the film's action scenes, with injuries making the job considerably less bankable.
Hoult gave the bruises little room to negotiate, powering through the physical demands and proving that this particular robbery came with a hefty price.
David Leitch shares the efforts that Nicholas Hoult put into How to Rob a Bank
Director David Leitch offered The Hollywood Reporter a closer look at how Nicholas Hoult’s injury affected the production of How to Rob a Bank, revealing that the actor had to work around a torn ACL. Hoult sustained the injury while playing basketball shortly before filming began, but rather than undergo surgery and leave the project, he committed to intensive physical therapy three times a week. Leitch and his producing partner and wife, Kelly McCormick, also carefully structured the shoot to spare their leading man unnecessary physical strain.
“As much as [Hoult] had trouble with his ACL, he’s a tough cookie, and he did a lot of his own stuff,” Leitch says. “That fight scene in the garage was probably his biggest physical set piece, and it was mostly him.
When asked whether the wolf masks proved particularly useful given Hoult’s injury, Leitch agreed. The director singled out the garage fight as the actor’s biggest physical challenge.
“That fight scene in the garage was probably his biggest physical set piece, and it was mostly him,” he added
The masks also allowed the production to make clever use of its second-unit stunt performers. However, there was another moment that raised questions about just how much the actor's injury carried over into his performance. Asked whether Ryan’s limp through the street after the garage fight was real, Leitch clarified to The Hollywood Reporter that Hoult was deliberately exaggerating it.
David Leitch has been cheering Nicholas Hoult on through his injury and the James Bond rumors, but keeping an action production on track when its leading man has a bad knee is a challenge the director knows all too well.
David Leitch's knee-injury playbook
David Leitch has learned that action filmmaking is as much about knowing where to place the camera as knowing when to let an actor loose. Discussing his experience working with Keanu Reeves on the first John Wick, the director explained that knee injuries did not necessarily mean compromising the action. Instead, choreography and clever camera work gave the production room to adapt while still letting Reeves perform most of the stunts himself.
“Yeah, I do. There’s a lot of ways to shoot action, and there’s a lot of movie magic that can happen in that space. It’s all about how you choose to choreograph something and how you choose to capture it,” Leitch explained.
He also praised Reeves for powering through the recurring knee trouble, revealing that the actor performed 99 percent of the first John Wick's action. That experience proved useful again with Nicholas Hoult, who handled most of How to Rob a Bank's garage fight, except for a dangerous crash through a window. Leitch's tried-and-tested action playbook has clearly served him well, whether working with Reeves or helping Hoult fight through filming with an injured knee.
What do you think of Nicholas Hoult's performance in How to Rob a Bank? Let us know in the comments!
Edited By: Hriddhi Maitra
