Sam Hargrave Spent Months Prepping His Leads for “Matchbox” — Shane Habberstad’s Department and Two Doubles Carried the Rest

Posted: October 7, 2026

With Matchbox landing on Apple TV on October 9, the press cycle has turned into a running account of how much of the vehicular and aerial work the principals actually executed — which, with a stunt-coordinator-turned-director in the chair, is a question of prep rather than bravado. Sam Hargrave came up as a performer and coordinator before Extraction, and the pattern on this one looks like a department building a long runway in front of each principal instead of handing the shot to a double on the day.

Jessica Biel describes being trained into specific driving beats rather than general car handling: a 180-degree spin followed by parking on a mark, which is precision-driving vocabulary and the kind of thing that only becomes repeatable with seat time. Her read on how far it went — “I did so much more than I probably should have done safely” — is worth noting as a working observation about where the line sits when a principal gets good enough to keep going. John Cena’s helicopter sequence came at the problem from the other direction: he has a fear of heights, and his account is that Hargrave began the conversation months out, walking him through what would be asked and the safe way to carry it out, which is the pre-production work that determines whether a principal can be put in that position at all. Cena’s own framing — that if he ever does it again it will be for Hargrave — is a performer describing trust built by a coordinator’s process, not an appetite for risk.

The department carrying it is credited to stunt coordinator Shane Habberstad, with Justin Howell and Nadia Lorencz credited as stunt doubles, Caroline Vexler as stunt driver and Aurélia Agel among the stunt performers; Greg Baldi shot second unit. The action work was spread across Budapest in January 2025, Casablanca, Erfoud and Merzouga in Morocco through March, Slovakia into April, and Los Angeles — a travelling car unit, which means local crews and local vehicle prep at each stop and a coordinator rebuilding the same safety baseline in four countries.

Source: ComingSoon — Jessica Biel Discusses Doing Her Own Stunts for New Action Movie With John Cena · PixelTwelve — John Cena Says He Was Afraid of the Helicopter Stunt in Matchbox The Movie