It was a blast. We had so much fun. I know it sounds
so cliché to say that, but I got on so well with the girls and
Quentin. We all had so much fun with the action and the dialogue. The
whole crew loved making that movie. Every night we’d go out have
some beers and watch what we had filmed that day, and we’d say
that looks so cool. There was always a great sense of excitement while
making that movie.
Without giving too much away what’s
the film about?
Death Proof is Quentin’s homage to stunt people,
car movies and slasher movies. It’s a combination between a slasher
movie and a car movie. It’s a story about Stuntman Mike who goes
about his business slaughtering women, using his car rather than a dagger,
somewhat successfully, and the women that interact with him.
What was it like working with Quentin
Tarantino again?
He’s a pretty stunning guy and very easy to work
with. He’s so passionate, inspired and contagious, so it’s
hard not to be as passionate about the movie as he is.
I’ve worked with him on Kill Bill before as a stuntwoman and it
was pretty similar. He demanded the same sorts of things from me as
a stunt woman as he did an actor. He doesn’t expect anything from
us that he’s not willing to give back.
What were your initial thoughts
after you read the script?
My initial thoughts were is this man crazy. But the
thing that drew me to the film was that I was in forty pages of it.
It wasn’t a matter of reading the script and thinking this sounds
great I’d like to play that part, it was a matter of he came to
me and said I’ve written you into this script, you have to be
in it.
I was shocked and concerned at first. For all I knew I wasn’t
going to be any good as I hadn’t ever done anything like that
before.
Then I was honored and quite touched that he had the faith in me that
I’d be good enough and that he thought I had the personality worthy
of a Tarantino character-that was pretty cool.
After seeing the film were you pleased
with the way it looked on the big screen?
I think it’s fantastic. I love it. I found myself
cringing at moments where I knew what was going to happen. I love all
the colors. I can see so much Quentin in it.
Although
it probably sounds stupid asking a stunt woman whether she gets scared
of performing stunts, do you get scared?
Yea course I get
scared. There are often situations that might look scary to people that
I don’t find scary. But it’s part of my job to make things
look scary even if I don’t find them frightening. That’s
where the acting comes in. But if I’m working on something, being
scared is beside the point. I do the task that’s been put in front
of me.
Do
you still really enjoy all the stunt work and what is it that you enjoy?
Oh yea, I love it.
I don’t know what it is. It’s a combination of the adrenaline
and the joy of performance. I really enjoy the satisfaction of having
got something right or making it look incredible on camera. The team
work that is required to make it look like I’m not going to fall
off and die is huge. There’s just something really satisfying
about pulling that off and having it captured on camera and making it
look really cool.
Have
you ever hurt yourself quite badly?
I hurt my back really
early on when I was 19. I also damaged my wrist at the end of Kill Bill,
where I dislocated a number of bones and damaged a load of ligaments.
I had to have surgery and pins. That was pretty boring because I was
out for about a year and in a lot of pain.
It was a bit of an identity crisis as it was the first time I had been
that laid up and I questioned whether I wanted to hurt myself for money.
I thought how would I feel if I couldn’t play sports again or
swing off things. It made me ask a load of big questions.
Were the stunts
in the film as dangerous as they looked?
I was as safe as
I needed to be to be able to push it to the limits that we pushed it
to. If I had been less safe than I was, the chase wouldn’t have
looked the way it did. We wouldn’t have been able to get it to
those speeds, you wouldn’t have got me hanging so far off the
edge as I was and you wouldn’t have had real cars ram me while
I was on the bonnet.
Having said that if something had gone wrong while I was on the bonnet
of the car there would have been no surviving a crash. But you choose
not to think about those things as I wouldn’t have been able to
give it 110 percent.
How
did you get into stunt work?
I did gymnastics
from a really young age and then got into martial arts. But I just met
people who were doing it really, and it sounded ideal getting paid to
do fighting and stunts.
Do you think it’s
hard for women in the world of the stuntman?
I think it can be
hard for women, but it can also be hard for guys too. There’s
more work for men, but there are a lot more men wanting that work. The
hardest thing for women in my opinion is earning respect from the men.
Finally, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to break into
the industry?
My advice
would be work hard but keep in mind you have to live with yourself.
If you’re a good person to be around, and you’re easy to
work with and you work hard and you’re keen and you’re fairly
talented, there’s a place for you.
interview by James Davies
