Here are some of the most interesting secrets to being a stunt double!
1 Part only The life of someone working in Hollywood stunt
isn't always Glitz & Glam.
In fact, it can sometimes be downright boring.
Can you imagine training your entire life to get into Tip-Top shape?
Or be skilled enough to backflip out of an airplane, but then to only be used as a HAND
MODEL?!
Well, that’s the reality for many stunt workers in the industry.
Do you know those scenes where the camera zooms into a very specific body part?
Or maybe a scene where you can only see the bareback of the character?
A lot of times that’s not the actor, it's actually a stunt double.
It may sound kind of crazy, but many of the studios hire a body double to play a single
body part!
And sometimes it's only for one scene!
But in some cases stunt doubles such as Danielle Sepulveres have made an entire career out
of never being seen.
She was first hired for her delts and trap muscles for WWE Superstar S tephanie McMahon
for a soft drink commercial.
She wasn’t even told who she was supposed to be until she arrived on set that day!
Sepulveres said that she’s often just used for close-up shots of different body parts.
She may be picking up a business card or turning a doorknob.
Or maybe her legs are just playing footsie under a table.
And, just because her face doesn’t show up, it doesn’t mean she gets to get out
of getting makeup done!
She had to get into full makeup just to play Brooke Shield’s arm once!
The madness doesn't end there.
One time she was just there to play a wisp of Katie Holmes's hair!
So why DO studios do this?
Most of the time it’s just the time commitment for the actors or actresses.
If a scene goes for too long, or if extra scenes are needed after scheduled shoots,
if an extra can do it, it’s cheaper and easier!
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Too in shape?!
Okay, back to stuntmen.
Getting into full makeup just to play an arm and a piece of hair isn’t the ONLY strange
demand.
Major actors and more specifically, directors, demand that every detail be perfect even if
that body part or face is never seen on screen.
You could even say it borders on obsession!
You would THINK that a person who's never showing their face in a movie wouldn't have
to worry about being denied a job because they were too good looking.
But that’s what happens!
Actors and actresses are known to have fragile egos.
That can't be seen any more clearly than in the vetting process of choosing their stunt
doubles.
While some people couldn’t care less what their stunt doubles look like, a lot of people
don't want to be one-upped by their stand-in.
For example, director James Cameron hired Leonardo DiCaprio's body doubles in the Titanic.
He often chose uglier actors in order to protect Leonardo’s ego!
And he does this pretty much all the time.
Thanks for showing up And how would it sound to get paid to never
do your job?
Sounds like a pretty sweet life right?
That can sometimes be the case for Hollywood stunt doubles!
Stunt and body doubles do all the dangerous stuff an actor doesn’t want to do, or can’t
do.
But sometimes, actors want to do their scenes for whatever reasons.
Sometimes on the day of the shoot, an actor decides to be brave and do their own stunts.
So what happens then?
Well, you let the actors do their thing!
These are the situations that stunt doubles train for day in and day out but sometimes
all of that training doesn’t get put to use.
When this happens the stunt double is no longer needed but that doesn't mean that they are
out of a job.
In fact, they’re still paid even if they’re not ever used in any of the scenes.
Stunt doubles often work the exact same hours as actors.
That’s for just in the case that directors decide to shoot an unplanned scene.
Or if actors chicken out of a scene at the last minute.
The life of a stunt double on set can change day by day, and maybe even minute by minute!
It’s all up to whatever the director or actors want.
Getting paid Speaking of getting paid, how much DO these
Daredevils make?
Well, we can assure you that it's nowhere near what the feature actor they’re standing
in for makes.
Stunt doubles often get paid day-to-day or flat fees for their services, rather than
by the hour.
They can even negotiate their rates based on the number of falls or stunts that they
have to perform.
This can obviously result in a wide range of pay.
However, the Screen Actors Guild set a minimum rate of $899 per day for stunt double work.
This rate goes down as the work increases.
For example, the minimum for 3 days of work is approximately $2,400 and the weekly minimum
is around $3,200.
So yeah, seems the more of a beating they take, the less they get paid!
But just like anything in life, the higher the risk, the greater the reward.
Some stunt actors can negotiate really high rates if their stunt is particularly dangerous.
The average stunt actor in the Screen Actors Guild brings in about $60,000 to $70,000 per
year.
But some of the highest-paid stunt actors supposedly make around 250 thousand dollars
per year.
However, all this is just an estimate.
There just aren’t stuntmen who get salaries.
No one is exactly out there adding up all the jobs for the average stuntman!
But sometimes it really just depends on a movie’s budget and the luck of the stuntmen.
For example, for Paul Walker’s last Fast and Furious movie, they went all out on the
special effects.
You might have wondered how they pulled off some of those ridiculous stunts.
It must be CGI right?
No one in their right mind would ACTUALLY drop cars out of airplanes with humans in
them right?!
Wrong!
That's exactly what they did in Fast & Furious 7!
Most of the time, movie producers have shell cars built to mimic expensive exotic cars
in order to save on money.
But with a 200 million dollar budget, and a practically guaranteed hit, because it was
Paul Walker’s last time on film…..why not?
Stuntmen on that series really got paid!
What it takes So what if you do want to be a Hollywood stuntman?
At first glance, it seems like the only requirement is to be a daredevil and enjoy thrilling tasks.
But you may be surprised to know that it’s a much more technical profession.
Stunt actors often spend years under the tutelage of a veteran before they can get their foot
in the door.
There are even schools for stunt doubles to go to so they can perfect their craft for
the big screen.
Basic classes teach you how to fall or “tumble” as it’s called in the industry.
More complex classes teach about wirework and fighting styles.
It's probably good to have a martial arts background if you’re interested in stunt
work because different fighting styles are required within stunt choreography.
The less they have to teach you, the more likely you are to get the part.
Other things you may need to know include other stunts such as rappelling, sword fighting,
and catapulting.
Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like, you have to go to school to learn how to get beat
up properly!
History of stunt doubles So where did using stunt men begin?
For that, we’ll have to go back to the Wild Wild West.
Back in the day, Vaudeville performers would put on giant shows re-enacting gun battles
and fights that they heard about.
One of the most famous shows was about Buffalo Bill and his criminal antics.
Later on, these shows moved into theaters in the form of plays.
It didn't take long for these action stories to make their way onto the Silver Screen in
the early nineteen hundreds.
The earliest stunt actors were actually just actors who were willing to risk their bodies
for a shot at making a lot of money.
Action stars in the earlier part of last century were actually War veterans.
These were people who were already in shape and used to danger.
The first confirmed stunt actor was hired in 1908.
He jumped off of a cliff in The Count of Monte Cristo!
As the profession got more popular, fewer soldiers were hired.
Comedians and clowns in the industry such as Charlie Chaplin actually became the norm,
before it became an entire subset of the industry.
A day in the life What does a day in the life look like if you
were a professional Daredevil?
Usually, you begin with a 4 or 5 a.m. wake up call.
Most stuntmen will start their day with a workout to get out of the way.
They most likely have to report to set afterwards to start shooting some pre-rehearsed scenes
that don't involve the actor.
By the time that’s finished, it's only 8 in the morning.
Now you have to start shooting scenes with the feature actor or film new scenes that
aren’t scheduled.
Sometimes you can catch a lunch break after your busy morning, but in some cases, stunt
doubles work 10 hours straight before they can get some rest.
Once you get back from your lunch break, it's back to the set again to shoot more scenes.
Basically until the director is satisfied!
At this point it's probably 10pm and you're ready to go home!
Plenty of stunt actors hit the gym again or practice more stunts just to perfect their
craft, because who knows what their next role might require them to do.
Stunt actors are well-oiled machines that keep themselves an elite level of fitness.
Oh You run a cult too?
And while you’re on the set of a movie, you never know who you may meet!
Here’s a quick interesting story from veteran stuntman Gary Kent.
He got to meet someone who he probably wouldn’t want if he had known who he was.
While he was working on a stunt on set, a car they were using broke down.
The movie was being shot on the famous Spahn Ranch, which was featured in the last Quentin
Tarantino movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
In case you aren’t familiar with the movie, on any given day you could find quite a few
hippies hanging out at the ranch.
The usual mechanic wasn’t around, so Kent resorted to asking one of the hippies if they
knew anyone who could fix a car.
The person he found was a guy named Charlie.
Nothing really weird happened, until Kent turned on the news a few weeks later.
He saw Charlie's face on TV while he was on trial!
Yep, his makeshift hippie mechanic at the time was none other than the now infamous
Charles Manson!
Future of Stunt Doubles But It kind of makes you wonder, can an actual
machine do some of these jobs?
It actually looks like that’s the direction that the industry is going.
Because why risk the safety of a human when you can just make a robot do it?
Human life is definitely more precious than a robot!
So research began focusing on developing stunt robots to stepin for dangerous stunts!
Stuntronics are autonomous, self-correcting aerial performers that make on-the-go corrections
to nail high-flying stunts every time.
Basically robotic stunt people.
Stuntronics actually began as an aimless research project called BRICK.
That stands for Binary Robotic Inertially Controlled bricK.
When it first began, it was just a metal block with the ability to “stick the landing”
every time.
It had sensors and the ability to change its center of mass to control its spin to hit
a precise orientation at a precise height.
Disney further developed BRICK into a humanoid that’s able to mimic many human-like movements
in mid-air!
This piece of technology is able to make slight adjustments to its center of gravity in order
to pull off high-flying stunts that may just be too dangerous for any human.
This mind-blowing Machinery has already been used in movies such as Star Wars and the upcoming
second Avatar movie.
No Glory Did you know that stunt performers don't get
nominated for Oscars?
It's actually been a highly debated topic in Hollywood for years.
Even though they’re the people who take the highest risk in a film, they get the least
recognition when it comes to award season.
But that's not to say they go completely unrecognized.
After years of under-appreciation, Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz took it upon himself
to organize an award show just for stunt performers called The Taurus World Stunt Awards.
The committee who votes on the winners was organized in 2000 but the inaugural event
didn’t take place until 2001.
Wigging There's a good reason why you hear the word
stuntman more often than stunt woman.
The career field is heavily male-dominated because men are perceived to be physically
superior to women.
This stereotype has led to many stunt women missing out on major job opportunities to
a practice called wigging!
The term wigging is pretty much literal.
It’s where a male actor of a similar frame to the lead actress will put on a wig and
perform dangerous stunts.
Yep, that is a guy who was hired to play Penelope Cruz!
Just why are there so many men hired versus women for stunts?
Well for one, there’s just much more men in the industry.
For example, the British Stunt Register has 394 members back in 2018, but only 62 were
women.
That’s only roughly around 16%!
But more women are starting to break through.
There are other barriers as well, such as no maternity pay in the industry.
That certainly doesn’t encourage women to get into being a stunt double.
It also incentivizes women to continue to do stunts while pregnant!
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