If you’re a film fan, chances are you’ve seen The Crow, one of the very best movies of the 90s. Even if you haven’t seen it, you’ll know the tragic story of the making of the film.

Brandon Lee, son of martial arts icon Bruce Lee and future superstar in his own right, was accidentally shot on set after a blank round combined with a dummy bullet accidentally left in the barrel. Lee, 28, died the next day, and an industry was changed forever.

The Crow was completed, thanks to the dedication of director Alex Proyas, with the help of a young stunt double who was able to stand in for Lee. That stunt double, Chad Stahelski, went on to direct his own series of films about grief and revenge, beginning with John Wick.

It was during the press tour for John Wick 3, the best in the series, that Yahoo Movies UK sat down to talk to Stahelski about the film, hoping to also gain insight into what it was like to help finish The Crow.

Stahelski was so open about his experiences, and went so in-depth on the subject, we didn’t want to cut his answers down, so here’s the full transcript, which contains fresh information about that fateful day.

Yahoo Movies UK: You were friends with Brandon Lee, long before you made The Crow together. How did what happened to Brandon affect how you approach your films?

Chad Stahelski: It’s more about how you approach life, I guess.

Look, you can talk about safety and laws [on a film set], but you might as well talk about military work, or police actions, you can talk about construction, you can talk about any kind of factory work, there’s safety factors in all of those industries.

Brandon’s accident was a lot of little dumb things that got by, but it’s groupthink. All the people involved were very, very smart. You just get tired, you make one little mistake, it compounds…

View photos John Wick 3 director Chad Stahelski (credit: PA) More

You know why car accidents happen? Car accidents happen to lawyers, they happen to f**king rocket scientists; you do one little stupid thing like spill a drink, comb your hair, check the mirror, f**king text, and you’re dead. Granted, it was a safety standard that definitely changed the industry with firearms.

Read more: John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum: Featurette – Continental Hotel

You know where that leads to? John Wick is 90% guns, firearms. A lot of the safety or the methodology we use, it came about because of that accident.

It’s retroactive, which sucks, it’s like most f***ing things in life. No one wants to change anything until something bad happens. But I know a great deal about that story, and there’s no one thing that you could point a finger at, it was a lot of little dumb mistakes that shouldn’t have happened.

Brandon was quite the guy, very charismatic. We met through martial arts at a place called Inosanto Martial Arts Academy, which is really famous for martial arts stunt men and all that kind of stuff. It was founded off his father, obviously, that’s how we all met. Great guy.

View photos Brandon Lee in 1993 (credit: Gtres) More

People always associate him so much with his father, and that’s a hard thing. Brandon really didn’t really get into martial arts until much later in life. He wanted to be an actor. He had other interests in life, he was a musician, he did a lot of stuff. And when he decided he really loved action, he didn’t just go into it as a business, he actually appreciated it, that’s what he was a fan of.