Risk and reward for SA film stunt workers
JUMPING from moving trains, being set alight and driving off cliffs are all in a day’s work for adrenaline junkies in the South African stunt industry.
But the best stuntmen and women are the careful ones.
“If you’re fearless, you’re not going to last very long,” said Roly Jansen. And he would know. Having started his career in 1974, he is one of the oldest stuntmen in the country.
He no longer performs, but his company, Stunt SA, is working on the set of the fourth series of Homeland, currently being filmed in Cape Town, and has worked on Hollywood blockbusters Safe House, The Giver and Blood Diamond.
Jansen estimates that there are about 200 stuntmen and women in South Africa and says the talent level is “world-class”.
“My partner, Cordell McQueen, worked with Paul Walker [of The Fast and the Furious fame] and said he was the nicest guy. A lot of South Africans were really cut up when he died.”
But it is not always smooth sailing. One stunt actor who worked with a major Hollywood actress said she had been “quite difficult”.
“But she had been away from home for a long time, working in difficult conditions, so I can understand why she might have been difficult.”
Grant Hulley of Pyranha Stunts entered the industry 16 years ago and once rolled a car off the breakwater pier in Cape Town, sinking with it and waiting in the murky waters for divers to fetch him.
“When you see a 30-second fight sequence on screen, that’s probably about a week’s worth of rehearsing,” he said.
And it is not just action movies in which stunt doubles are needed. A romantic comedy like Blended, starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, featured several stunts. “There was a lot of safety work and we had scenes in which Barrymore was parasailing and a scene in which Sandler and a kid rode ostriches.”
Most of South Africa’s stuntmen are based in Cape Town, but few specialise in a particular area.
“In South Africa, you must be able to do everything, including rigging. The basics, like fight scenes, are your bread and butter, but then there are more specialised stunts like burns and driving,” said Hulley.
Tom Cruise famously does all his own stunts, but Jansen said insurance companies did not always approve.
Fleur van Eeden was the stunt double for Barrymore and is currently doubling for Claire Danes in Homeland.
“Drew Barrymore was beautiful. So lovely and real, and Claire Danes is an awesome person who is very serious about her job,” said Van Eeden.
She also worked with Meryl Streep in The Giver and has jumped from a moving train for a Bollywood film. “When we rehearsed, we did it with a static train, but when it starts moving at about 60km/h, it gets hectic.”
Kelsey Egan, who has a yellow belt in close-quarter combat and worked with Orlando Bloom in Zulu, said she was most comfortable in fight sequences in which “the female character takes a bit of a beating”.