Ric Roman Waugh

Ric Roman Waugh (birthname: Richard Roman Waugh) is one of a handful of Hollywood filmmakers who began his career as a stunt performer and then shifted to work behind the camera.

Starting in 1984 and until 2001, Waugh was a busy stunt performer in such stunt-heavy movies as The Blob (1988), They Live (1988), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Total Recall (1990), Days of Thunder (1990), Hook (1991), Universal Soldier (1992), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Last Action Hero (1993), Hard Target (1993), True Romance (1993), The Crow (1994), and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). During this period, Waugh was also an actor in a few movies such as writer-director Bruce Evans’ Kuffs (1992), starring Christian Slater, and Blink of an Eye (1992).

Ric Roman Waugh’s first credited writer-director project was In the Shadows (2001), whose storyline derives from Waugh’s experiences as a stunt performer and co-starring Matthew Modine, James Caan, Joey Lauren Adams, and Cuba Gooding Jr., although Waugh’s first actual directorial assignment was Exit (1996), for which Waugh took the then-DGA-approved “Alan Smithee” credit when a director rejects the final results and wishes to pull their name off the screen credits.

Waugh’s second movie as writer-director was Felon (2008), with Stephen Dorff, Val Kilmer, Harold Perrineau, and Sam Shepard, followed by (with Waugh again as writer-director) the far more successful action movie, Snitch (2013), starring Dwayne Johnson, Barry Pepper, Jon Bernthal, Michael K. Williams, Benjamin Bratt, and Susan Sarandon, with $58 million box-office returns more than doubling $25 million costs.

Waugh then departed from narrative filmmaking in 2015 for the documentary he made about Iraqi war veterans suffering from PTSD, That Which I Love Destroys Me. Ric Roman Waugh’s first movie as writer/producer/director was the prison drama, Shot Caller (2017), with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Omari Hardwick, Lake Bell, Bernthal, and Bratt, premiering at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Waugh wrote and director the third installment in the Has Fallen franchise, Angel Has Fallen (2019), starring Gerard Butler (who also produced), Morgan Freeman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Tim Blake Nelson, and Danny Huston, grossing a solid $146.7 million theatrical for distributor Lionsgate. Although filmed and intended for theatrical release, Waugh’s next feature (as director only) starring Butler, Greenland (2020), was pulled from theatrical release during the COVID-19 pandemic and released on video-on-demand.

Ric Roman Waugh turned to the sports drama genre (once again as director only) with National Champions (2021), based on the play by Adam Mervis and co-starring Stephan James, J.K. Simmons, Alexander Ludwig, Lil Rel Howery, Tim Blake Nelson, Kristin Chenoweth, Timothy Olyphant, and Uzo Aduba.

Waugh’s third project in a row as director only was the CIA thriller, Kandahar (2023), again starring Gerard Butler, with Ali Fazal and Navid Negahban, and released by Open Road Films. Waugh’s next projects with Butler were the sequels, Greenland: Migration (date to be announced), with Morena Baccarin, and Night Has Fallen (date to be announced), while Waugh also served as director (only) on the action thriller, Cliffhanger (date to be announced), starring Sylvester Stallone.