Lucky 13 Actor-Done Stunts
Check this article from PopCrunch re: dangerous stunts done by actors themselves (not their
stunt doubles). I’m disappointed there are no women on this list (Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill fights and Geena Davis’ doing all her stunts in Cutthroat Island come to mind), but am happy to see Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd there. Do any of you lovely lurkers know if that commenter was correct about the Daniel Craig stunt being done by a stuntman, not Craig himself? ~Jenn
As a viewer of movies, it is a bit disconcerting narratively to see a stunt man – particularly one with a bad wig – so I do see the advantage of using an athletic and willing actor when a stunt requires a close shot. And, admittedly, there weren’t that many stuntmen who could effectively Sly or Arnold’s grotesquely muscular physiques in the 80′s.
However, Matt Damon crashing the cars himself, a 60+ Harrison Ford doing his own stunts (ironically in front of a green screen), or (unmentioned in the article) Mel Gibson insisting on doing the Lethal Weapon jump himself do not feed cinematic realism so much as the action star’s ego.
The frenetic camerawork of the Bourne Identity was such that I would never have known it was Damon. So, why bother? The 4th Indy movie was so laden with CGI-effects, why endanger oneself for “realism” in the stunts? I’ll tell you, all that effort on Harrison’s part to appear vital and virile by dating Calista Flockhart would be for nought if TMZ got wind of him breaking a hip on set. And Mel Gibson? Well, Mel’s a crazy Australian (which may be redundant.)
I remember seeing an interview with Alfred Molina on-set during Spiderman 2 in which he said that he didn’t do his own stunts because he had never heard a stunt man standing by during an acting scene say, “Hey, I think I could do that.” He said that he would never presume to think he could do a stunt half as well as someone trained to do it.
As much as I enjoy movies and stunts, I had never thought about it that way. Stunts on a movie are somebody’s job, and when actors do their own stunts, they’re doing their job plus someone else’s.
Also, if a stuntman gets injured, it doesn’t shut down a movie set for weeks or months. It doesn’t put grips, engineers, caterers, and many others out of work waiting for bones to heal.
I think when it comes to an actor doing his or her own stunts, the question must be asked, “Will anybody be able to tell? Really?” If the answer is “Probably not,” then use the stuntman.
If an action star wants to live out his action fantasies, he should do it on his own dime, not the studios.
@Brady
Good point about the money thing. So would you count Jackie Chan as a $$-waster, or is it just expected he’s going to waste himself? I know nowadays he is working on his own dime, as you say, but I assume it wasn’t always that way.
As far as getting hurt goes, I guess if they get patched up over lunch and come right back like Mortensen did, there’s not an issue.
I so agree about the editing in the Bourne films. But we’ve discussed this before.
Jackie Chan and the Hong Kong movie machine are the exception that proves the rule. Every time Jackie Chan survives a stunt that should have killed him, the statistics of success shrink for everyone else.
As for Mortensen, yeah, he got patched up and went back to work like a trooper, but, the fact that he had to get patched up means something went wrong. The next time something goes wrong, it may take more than a patch. What then?
“Oh, we’ll just finish the movie in a few months after they sew Mr. Mortensen’s leg back on,” or maybe, “Hey does anybody know anyone who looks a whole lot like Viggo Mortensen? Viggo Mortensen. You know, the actor? You’d know his face if you saw it. Here let me scrape it off the sidewalk and show you. Now do you see? Yeah, Aragorn. Oh really? I didn’t know he was in “Witness.’ Imagine that.”
re: Uma in Kill Bill- that was probably mostly Zoe Bell.
If you haven’t seen it before, check out “Double Dare”.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365135/
@Kevin Inouye
Yep, it was Zoe Bell, but I had also heard that Uma did a lot of the fighting too. What percentage she did as compared to Ms. Bell, I don’t know. I’d assume it was a relatively small percentage.
Thanks for the “Double Dare” rec! I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this before–maybe it’s because I’m more involved in theatre than film. I’ll certainly post something about it when I see it. ~Jenn
Just enjoyed seeing Robert Downey, Jr. talking about doing some of the Sherlock Holmes stunts and getting clipped on the jaw and getting stitches. Makes me think again of what you said, Brady, about the liability factor. As cool as it is to do fights, it most often just isn’t worth the money. As the big ticket actor, that is.
Huh? Oh, sorry, just watched a sweaty half-naked Victorian fight scene. ~Jenn