Top 304 Stunt Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

Through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imagining our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.

We have amazing stunt performers and in Miguel Sapochnik, a director who's so good at spending hours and hours and hours on every shot beforehand, so that he knows exactly what he wants when he gets to the battlefield on the day. We only shoot ten-hour days, so you have to pack a lot into those ten hours.

Ive never been a popular person, but it doesnt matter. I have everything in my life that I want. Im not a walking publicity stunt. Im not an anarchist, or bitter. Im not trying to be subversive. I just try to remain unguarded, unprotected by fear, and agents and publicists, and I feel comfortable that way.

Even before 'Moon,' I did a short film called 'Whistle,' and it had a lot of the things that I thought I would need to be able to do on a feature film: I shot on location, there was special FX work, there was stunt work, we used squibs, I shot on 35 mm film.

I had a stunt double for 'The Bronze.' She's literally the most amazing human being I've ever seen. She's NCAA women's gymnastics champion. She was incredible. I would poke her thighs, and my nail would break because it was like poking a rock.

No question that 'Birdman' is a breathtaking technical achievement, not a stunt. Shot in 30 days after a long rehearsal period, with the actors' and the camera's movements calibrated to the inch and the millisecond so the action flows smoothly, the picture has the jagged energy of a long guerrilla raid choreographed by Bob Fosse.

Well, for me, the real excitement of doing physical things in films, whether you're talking about a fight scene or a stunt sequence or even a love scene, for that matter, is by necessity it has to be choreographed very much like a dance. That being said, you have to rehearse it over and over again and find a mathematical precision.

I think the biggest thing you take from the stunt world is your understanding of the filmmaking process. For years, you've worked with every other department closely. You know hair, makeup, wardrobe, special effects, and you know what everybody's needs are and their expectations. You also know how to collaborate with them.

Whenever actors tout off about doing their own stunts, it's always ... they're so protective of you that I always know these stunt guys are so good [and] they're never going to put you in danger. But it's fun to do something kind of exciting, even something as simple as driving 70 through a tunnel with five motorcycles ... it sounds simple, but it's actually really nerve-wracking.

Putting a man in space is a stunt: the man can do no more than an instrument, in fact can do less. There are far more serious things to do than indulge in stunts. . . . I do not discard completely the value of demonstrating to the world our skills. Nor do I undervalue the effect on morale of the spectacular. But the present hullabaloo on the propaganda aspects of the program leaves me entirely cool.

I like being able to do all of my own stunts. I appreciate stunt guys and what they do and, of course, the time and the effort that they put in, but for me, I'm young. You only live once, so to be able to do all your own stunts, train, become a real fighter... I feel like I can hold my own.

Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people in the right parts. Stunt casting and being gimmicky does the theatre a great disservice. You have to lure people by getting them excited about a theatrical experience.

I did an action series back in '97, and did very intense training; weapons, knives, hand-to-hand combat. The more an actor trains in that way, the more we can do on screen and the better it looks. Nowadays, they want the actors to do as much as possible and stunt doubles are primarily used for the dangerous things that aren't covered by insurance.

If the shot is going to be epic, if it's going to be awesome, and to make it epic and awesome you have to hit the ground and possibly hurt yourself, I choose to hit the ground and possibly hurt myself. Because in my silly stunt man mind, an epic shot that lives forever on film, I'll get over it in a couple of months!

Warner Brothers had to hire [a stunt double] and no one thought a child could do this. Billy Friedkin came to me before we were filming [The Exorcist] and said "if you do not do all of this film, the film will be a joke." It's why they stripped the makeup down to the bare minimum, a piece on my chin, piece across my mouth that disfigured my mouth. You have scars here. Take away my eyebrows. It was my real hair. Shampoo was put in it that dried.

Nobody has really gone out to Russia to fight somebody like Kovalev. A lot of people are paying attention to it and can't believe what I'm doing. Some people think I'm going to pull out. I've seen comments saying 'Oh this is a good publicity stunt' and I was just laughing. They don't understand.

CEREMONY OF FLIES hits the road like a nitrous-fueled GTO...and then pulls the ultimate stunt of getting better. What starts as a deceptively simple hard-boiled noir story twists on itself and adds layers and grows stranger and before you know it, BAM - it's the end of the world and all you can do is hang on by your fingernails. This really, truly is one of the best novellas I've read in years.

I always kind of aim with the action stuff to make it feel like, as an audience member, you're experiencing what the people are experiencing. As soon as you go into slow-mo or repeated edits, shooting it like it's a stunt, it takes it out of that reality. The more real you make that stuff, the more tense it will be.

The majority of Russians considered Pussy Riot's stunt to be an act of religious hatred, rather than criticism against the close ties between the President and the Patriarch. So yes, in many ways their message was lost in all the noise. On the other hand, Pussy Riot chose a format that would make sure they would be heard. A silent protest would have failed, or perhaps even led to harsh punishment without much interest from the world around. So they chose a form that would be noticed. Who can blame them for that?

My exercise regime for the film was really intense. I'd work out with a trainer six days a week, and then I had a stunt rehearsal team that would do boxing, stretching, and a little bit of parkour. And yet, people don't get to see me shirtless in this movie. I don't know if you've seen the trailer, but this Aladdin wears a shirt.

I do have a stunt double because there are certain things that they won't let me do. Like they won't set fire to me. They won't like let me jump off a 20 story building. There are certain big stunts that it's just impossible to get insurance to let me do, but for the most part I'd say I do probably 75% of my stuff.

I have an Honors Degree in Drama from the University of Alberta, but when it was done I knew a life in modern theatre was not for me. While figuring out what the hell I might do instead of theatre, I spent a couple of days on a horror film doing stunt work. I'd never been behind the camera before, and I loved everything about it. I joined the local film co-op - The Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta - because you could trade skills for experience. These indie filmmakers were making their own stuff their own way, all the time. Instant education.

Here's the thing that I think really pushed me, was my versatility. Because when I came in to the movie business, all the stunt men were specialists. If you did horse work, that's all you did. If you did cars and motorcycles, you did that. But when I came in, I taught myself how to do everything.

It's all choreographed; it's a routine. So I told everyone I really wanted to try fighting in action films. I had no stunt experience, but I had the dance background, and I was very agile and coordinated. And the best thing about being a newcomer to acting is you can afford to try new things.

Doing all the rig work and the stunt work has actually been wonderful. It's a whole new skill set that I've learned that I'll get to take onto my next jobs. We get to do that all the time, the fighting and the learning new moves. It's quite exciting.

I watch a lot of television and I watch a lot of film and I hate when you watch the action sequences - and I always tell when they use a stunt man - and then they put the actor in and you can tell these actors haven't done anything.

Working with Jean-Claude is a lot of fun. Because he's a great actor who also happens to be a fighter. That combination doesn't usually come together anymore. Usually, you have to fight the stunt double and then act against the actor. In his case, you are fighting with a real guy. It takes a minute to get used to that. Because it doesn't happen any more.

When a male stunt performer falls down a flight of stairs, he has a lot of clothes on and can wear all this padding. But because actresses never have a lot of clothes on - they are always falling in their underwear - you can't wear any padding whatsoever.

Well one of the times I did a stunt was in the devil's snare room and they lifted me up on a harness and a safety rope really, really high, and they just dropped me down into the devil's snare.

When I started to trust myself to be an actor, and to be considered that way and consider myself, that is when people started to see me in that way because that was the truth then, as opposed to me being a stunt girl going, 'Please see me as an actor, please see me as an actor!' when I didn't see myself that way.

I was raised around a lot of artists, musicians, photographers, painters and people that were in theater. Just having the art-communal hippie experience as a child, there wasn't a clear line that was drawn. We celebrated creative experience and creative expression. We didn't try and curtail it and stunt any of that kind of growth.

The way that you have cut the film, you can take the audience out of the action if it becomes evident that there is a stunt double doing it rather than the actor. I'd rather stay with the character and the story point behind the fight, rather than cutting to a wide angle of the fight.

On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!'

I was proud of 'Robin Hood,' even though critics wrote negative things. But I had to laugh when this big, shaven-headed Hungarian stunt guy first saw me. He said, 'You Jonas? You playing Robin Hood? You need to go to the gym today.' So I thought, 'I'm going to show people.'

At the height of rush hour, people on the London underground actually say "excuse me." Imagine what would happen if you tried an insane stunt like that on the New York City subway. The other passengers would take it as a sign of weakness, and there'd be a fight over who got to keep your ears as a trophy.

Every morning, I get up, get out of bed, and get on my knees and thank God for waking up in America ... (She is) the light of the world ... A nation of heroes ... The real stars are wearing body armor on top of their battle dress uniforms in 130 degree heat and they do not have stunt doubles to come in for them when the going gets rough and the bullets and the shrapnel start flying. They are the real stars, fighting terrorism and trying to free a nation.

As a stunt woman, I took it upon myself to be a bit of a jock about it. So you wouldn't see me vulnerable, you wouldn't see me hurting or sad because I was there as a professional to do my job. Nobody likes to see a girl get hurt - that's the truth of it - so I had to put them at ease so they would let me do my job.

Because I do so many action-oriented films, I started working with stunt people doing fight training, then I found it to be just great exercise. Also I like to be fit, so I've continued on with fight training. Right before I got to do 'Conan,' I was fighting off four guys. Its great fun. And strange.

Watch the walls come down, whether it's in the South or on Wall Street. When the walls come down, what do we find? More markets, more talent, more capital and growth. Which means that the race and sex discrimination stunt economic growth. It's not good for capitalism. It's not good for America's growth. And it's not morally right.

Work wise, as a stunt woman, I enjoy telly - or TV - because - and, as an actor - I kind of enjoy the urgency of it. I enjoy the problem-solving that's happening. Right now, we don't have time to rehearse for hours. And, if something goes wrong, we don't have time to shoot something else for four days until we sort it out.

I definitely felt frightened [on Skyfall], but never in danger, because they were always so careful about everything. Some of the driving, particularly on that road around the sheer-drop cliff was actually done by stunt driver Ben Collin, who is otherwise known as The Stig from the TV show Pop Gear. He's a brilliant drive, nonetheless, it was terrifying to be careening along when a wrong turn would mean a thousand-foot drop and you're not in control and you want to slow the car down.

There's always advantages and disadvantages to doing any role. And there's a great sense of achievement, testosterone, fun, being able to live out your masculinity when you play an action role, or an action-adventure, or a real tough-guy role. Really, if you're doing a comedy, you can sit back and relax. And it's good to know that at the end of the day, you don't have to run off for another two hours and go to the gym, or go spend the rest of the night swordplaying with stunt guys. Then I think, "Oh my God, I love comedy.".

If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily "ours" but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinguish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.

I go to this gym full of stunt men. There aren't any TVs or treadmills there. This is a spit-and-sawdust kind of place. It has a lot of great training aids - trampolines and bags and every weapon ever invented to do harm to a human being. If you want to know how to throw a knife, it's great.

Guys like O.J. Simpson and Tony Dorsett can take the ball and run through the line, but I defy them to follow me over a 70-foot cliff or let a horse drag them a few hundred feet. Nobody can beat a stunt man for overall athletic ability.

[Shaquille O'Neal ] walked in and said we were hiring him, so we said, "Yes sir!" Shaq is a genuinely funny guy. He's really funny in the movie. He's not just a stunt cast- he's a genuinely funny actor.

Actors always ask their directors what their motivation is in this scene or that scene, so I've always had this joke where I ask the director what my motivation is too. As a stunt person your motivation is usually to fall over a bench or something.

When you're dealing with a shoot day that's costing somebody $300,000; when you're responsible for making that day; when you've got a half-million-dollar stunt that you've got to make sure you cover properly. You don't want to be doing that early in your career. You want to be making your mistakes when not many people are watching.

The space that I can call mine.. is so small that my ideas have become small. I am like a caterpillar in a cocoon of paper; all around me are sketches for sculptures, small drawings that seem like moths fluttering against the windows, beating their wings to escape from this tiny space.. Every day the ideas come more reluctantly, as though they know I will starve them and stunt their growth.

Well one of the times I did a stunt was in the devil’s snare room and they lifted me up on a harness and a safety rope really, really high, and they just dropped me down into the devil’s snare.

I mean, being a stuntwoman never occurred to me until I gave up gymnastics and started doing martial arts and met people that were stunt people. I was like, 'What? Wait. You get to fight and flip and get paid?' I was like, 'Mum, dad, check this out - I could do this stuff and get paid instead of having you guys pay for me to do it.'

For me, it's very important if I do action movies and I have a stunt person, to work with them. Not only by memorizing the choreography but also it's important to study that individual and it's imperative for that individual to study you because you're not playing two different people, you're playing the same person.

Professional wrestling has moved so far to the athleticism side and people are overly indulging in the stunt monkeys, but that's why there are so many injuries all the time. You need to break open your soul, break open your mind, and remember that pro wrestling is magic.

Having been a stunt girl for so long, a big part of my job was to not just make the other person look as cool as they could, but also to act as a support. My job was to make them as safe as they could be, so that they could be as explosive and as emotionally engaged as they could be.

If you want more people to come to the theatre, don't put the prices at £50. You have to make theatre inclusive, and at the moment the prices are exclusive. Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people in the right parts. Stunt casting and being gimmicky does the theatre a great disservice. You have to lure people by getting them excited about a theatrical experience.

I wouldn't have raced a horse. But you'll then throw back at me that Jesse Owens raced against a horse and he's one of my heroes so I'm not going to say it was a silly stunt. I know too much about horses. They're highly unreliable and they've got brains the size of golf balls.

There are certain things in the scripts that need to be planned: you know, big stunt sequences, battle sequences... you can't improvise that stuff. You can improvise when there's just two of you standing in a kitchen and the most dramatic thing that's going to happen is someone's going to open the fridge.

It's frightening enough with a male actor and not a stunt person. If you accidently punch him with the wrong hand, then you've cost them a week's work and they've got a black eye or a lot of money goes on CG to get rid of it. That was nerve wracking, but it was very civilized. Women tend to immediately take responsibility if somebody messes up with both of us saying it's our fault. Men are quite happy for it to be your fault it seems like.

In South Pasadena, artists were around but invisible somehow. Even though it was just a fifteen-minute drive from Downtown LA, it felt worlds apart. That suburban American experience can both protect and stunt you. I couldn't wait to move to New York to become the person I've always wanted to become.

I'm not fighting to be treated like a dude. I don't want to be treated like a man. I want to be treated as a talented stunt-person, or I want to be treated as an intelligent person.