Cox says there is no equivalent of the BSR in the US, where several stunt teams operate on an invitation-only basis and there is no formal training. Joining the British register requires investment; it can cost around £10,000 to train for the driving test alone. But the rewards can be big; nearly all BSR members are part of the Equity union, which sets a minimum day rate for stunt performers of £500 for TV and about £650 for film. Specialists can command much more, while doubles for major actors are paid out of the talent’s contract, and can earn tens of thousands of pounds a week. ‘You can certainly live a very affluent life, but you’ve got to think about how high the standards are, and about the risks,’ Cox says.
The first audited stunts involved fees of $5 during the filming of the 1908 silent picture The Count of Monte Cristo. In one scene, an unnamed man was asked to swim out to sea and disappear underwater. When he stayed under longer than expected, the director was reportedly more concerned about his $20 wig than the performer himself.
Soon cowboys, rodeo stars, war veterans and vaudeville performers including Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton began to fill demand for big-screen stunts. In the 1930s, Yakima Canutt, a rodeo star, worked with John Wayne to develop the first fighting techniques, many of which are still in use. Later, working as a coordinator in the post-war craze for ‘swords and sandals’ epics, Canutt staged the chariot race in Ben Hur (1959), a 78-horse spectacular that took a year to plan.
Greg Powell, whose father and uncle were stuntmen, started working in the 1970s, a golden era for the profession as the rise of martial arts movies and more sophisticated technology pushed boundaries. Meanwhile, the Bond movies were cementing the UK’s reputation for derring-do. ‘We were a different breed,’ Powell says. ‘Even before you train as a stuntman, you’ve got to want to jump off that building, crash that car or get set on fire.’
From the early days of Hollywood, accidents have been the price of action. David Holmes was 17 when he started work on the Potter films and remains a close friend to Daniel Radcliffe, who appears throughout his documentary. The stunt that went wrong is known as a ‘jerk-back’, in which harnessed performers are yanked backwards on a wire to simulate the effects of a big blow or explosion. For reasons neither Holmes nor Powell have discussed publicly, an oversized counterweight was added to the other end of the wire. The jerk-back left Holmes hanging like a rag doll. ‘I knew I’d broken my neck straight away and within a week I knew my career was over,’ he says.
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