Justin Riemer Breaks Down the “Lanterns” Highway Chase — and Choreographing Around a Bird That Isn’t There

• Justin Riemer is stunt coordinator and second unit director on HBO Max’s “Lanterns.”
• His team had to fix the size and movement of a bird that was added later in post.
• He built John Stewart’s fighting style from the character’s Marine and boxing background.

Posted: August 24, 2026

Justin Riemer is credited as both stunt coordinator and second unit director on HBO Max’s Lanterns, and his breakdown of episode two, “Trust Fall,” is a useful case study in designing action around an element that isn’t on set. The sequence runs in two halves — a close-quarters fight inside a moving van, then a highway chase through oncoming traffic — connected by a conjured bird John Stewart is trying to protect. Before a single beat could be blocked, the stunt department had to lock down “how big it would be, how it would move, [and] how it would react to John and the environment,” because every eyeline, every clearance and every reaction in the choreography depends on those answers.

Riemer describes the two halves as separate action problems. “Inside the van, it’s about John versus the captor. It’s close, physical, and contained,” he says. “Once we hit the highway, the dynamic shifts to John and the bird” — traffic itself replaces the captor as the antagonist, and the sequence pays off when Stewart takes a hit from a swerving van because he prioritizes the bird over the oncoming threat. The performers carry the fight’s physicality straight through while tracking a beat that will only exist in post: “The physicality of the fight and the sequence stays the same… But you’re constantly thinking ahead for when the bird actually becomes part of the scene.”

The fighting style itself was built off the character’s biography rather than off spectacle. Riemer designed Stewart as an ex-Marine and boxer — “incredibly powerful, but at the same time, very technical and controlled in the way he fights” — which keeps the work economical instead of flashy. He also seeded deliberate physical differences into the captor’s movement to foreshadow the later alien reveal, choreography doing narrative work that the script hadn’t yet spoken aloud.

Source: Forbes — ‘Lanterns’ Stunt Coordinator Justin Riemer Breaks Down Episode 2’s Highway Chase

Learn more on IMDb: Lanterns (2026) · Justin Riemer