Action Stunts

During the movies, you may hold your breath and bite your nails during all the action scenes—but you know everything on screen is all planned and not real. Filming these scenes, however, is another story. Dangerous stunts require intense planning and careful execution. Unfortunately, all the planning in the world can’t prevent some stunts from going awry. For example…

• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Harry), partakes in multiple broom riding scenes. During one of the flying sequences, an explosion knocked Radcliff’s stunt double to the ground, causing him to lose the feeling in his legs.
• While filming Nicholas Cage’s new movie The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a stunt driver lost control of a speeding Ferrari in Times Square and careened directly into a pizza parlor. Two bystanders were injured, but the driver was unscathed.
• During the 1983 filming of The Twilight Zone, the tail end of a low flying helicopter exploded causing it to spin out of control. The horrible incidence, which was caught on tape, decapitated cast member Vic Morrow and killed two children actors who were only six and seven years old. Since then, there have been amendments to regulations regarding children actors and the pursuit of a decade long lawsuit.
• Top Gun may have been Tom Cruise’s claim to fame but it was also the end of professional air stuntman Art Scholl’s life. During one of the many airplane stunts, Scholl was unable to regain control of the airplane–he just spun and crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
• The Lord of the Rings’ Viggo Mortensen (who played Aragorn), was constantly getting injured on set while performing his own stunts. At one point, he even knocked out one of his own teeth.
• Will Ferrell’s comedy Semi-Pro may have been a side-splitting comedy on the big screen, but the behind the scenes aspects weren’t quite as lighthearted. After Ferrell successfully completed his scene wrestling with a giant grizzly bear, Stephan Miller (cousin of the bear’s trainer Randy Miller) fell victim to an unpredictable attack by the 7 foot grizzly and couldn’t be saved.