Stuntman

Welcome to Stuntman .

I have always believed

that stunt professionals, stuntmen and women,

are the backbone of the film industry.

And without them, Thor couldn't fly.

Luke wouldn't have defeated the Emperor.

There would be no Infinity War .

And, most importantly,

your favorite Disney character, Captain Frank,

would have never seen the backside of water in Jungle Cruise .

Now what you are about to see

is the story of a professional stuntman, Eddie Braun.

He's a friend of mine who, with the support of his family,

pursues his dream of stepping foot in the shoes of his childhood hero.

Now I cannot stress this enough,

that the stunts you are about to witness are extremely dangerous.

They're very real.

And they feature highly trained stunt professionals

with decades of experience.

So please do not, in any way, try any of this at home.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado,

I welcome you and your families to please enjoy our film, Stuntman.

I'm the face you never see.

You see what I do.

You're supposed to see our actions.

But you're never supposed to see me.

'Cause the star's face is the one you see.

Go, go, go, go!

- Yeah, go first. - Hey, just so you know,

I expect no problems. I'm gonna be out of town this week.

-Where? -Vegas.

So any issues, I don't wanna hear about it.

We're filming nights, which means I'll be half asleep during the day.

I don't want Mom calling me saying, you know.

That's the one time I'm saying it. I won't bring it up again.

- Can we come? -No. You go to school.

- What if you get lonely? -I won't. I'm working.

Praise that.

Hey, you guys are working on my car.

I will be taking this car up to a speed,

probably 70 or 80 miles an hour.

And at a certain point, I'm going to hit this button.

We call it the easy button. I've had this over the years.

And all he has to do is hit that.

It will detonate a bomb that is rigged in the car.

On the big screen, you'll see this car exploding and all of that.

But what you won't know is inside that car,

I will be in here flipping and flopping down the road.

Another hard thing is climbing out of these things.

I'm too old to be doing this still.

And usually, when I climb out of it, they're upside down.

...coming down this way, right?

You want me to give him a two-minute warning?

Get him out...

Yeah, cleared on back.

...try and get up to the speed.

Eddie? Easy.

It's okay, buddy. Just stay right where you're at. Good job.

I know you are.

- I'm just gonna get your belt. - I'm good. Thank you.

- I'm going to get you out now. - I'm good. I just need a second.

I know you do. How do you feel?

Yeah, it went over. Good shot, good flame. You'll see it.

Good shot. Are you okay?

I know you did. But you're okay?

Leave the cord. Leave that on. Let's get you out.

For me, it's home 'cause this is where I was born and raised, so...

I'm gonna show you, and I think-- You were talking about, do I pass places

where I've done stunts and think about them.

You asked me that earlier.

I'll never forget the day, the tone--

One of the stunts I did was take a car at about 65 miles an hour

and flip it for The Fall Guy and end up on the beach.

- I remember that. -And-- Right.

And every time I drive by here, I think of it.

I will show you the spot. It was right here on the road.

Every time I drive down here, I look down at the ocean.

I think, "Wait. I flew a car off of this."

I know the spot exactly.

Right here.

All right, Eddie.

Now a lotta stunts in this picture.

You're jumping, punching people. Flying through windows.

You ever get injured doing any of these stunts?

-I don't do my own stunts. - Oh, you just...

Well, Eddie Braun is my stuntman. Let him do it, you know?

- He's the guy that looks like you? -He looks a lot like me.

I never thought about, like, stunt people, stunt doubles.

-It was always... -Most people don't think about us.

You don't-- It never really occurred to me

about a stunt person until I met him.

It's like, "Oh, I thought it was Tom Cruise doing all his own stunts."

I met my wife through her sister.

And the funny thing is, at first my wife didn't like me at all.

Thought, "Who is this Hollywood stuntman?"

Yeah.

That was the hard part, is trying to describe what I did for a living.

And then he made some little videos of himself going to work,

and like, "Oh, that's what you do."

Here's the harness.

There's my ramp. That's me.

Blood type, O positive. No penicillin.

Meg, I miss you and, uh, what else?

I'm doing all of this so we can pay our bills. Okay?

- It was an easy day at work. - It was supposed to be--

It was a commercial. Easy precision driving.

I'm trying to put the baby down.

She's like four months old or six months old,

and I get this phone call.

"Meg. Meg. Eddie's just been in a helicopter crash."

I remember I was in the lead car.

And I slam on the brakes, and I jump out of the car, and I come running up.

You're laying there on the ground.

I'm going, "Eddie, you okay?" And you're going, "My back. My back."

We get you over to the side. We lay you down.

I'm going, "Eddie, you gotta just stay still. The ambulance is on the way.

Everything is on the way. Just relax like that."

And you go, "No, no, no. I need to sit up."

I go, "Don't sit up." "No, I wanna sit up."

Three minutes later you're standing up, going like, "We gotta finish the day.

We gotta shoot up in Malibu."

I'm going, "Eddie, you just crashed in a helicopter.

Now you're gonna go back to work?

You're gonna drive from Palmdale to Malibu to finish the day?" And he did.

I'm never calm until I hear his voice.

When I hear his voice, I know he's okay.

I got on the phone with him, and I'm like, "Are you sure you're okay?"

And he's, you know, "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. It was just-- It was scary but I'm fine."

So I said, "Well, since you're good, can you stop by and get some milk,"

because I've got four kids, a newborn, she won't go down for a nap.

And I need, you know, milk. So, "When are you gonna be home?"

Yeah. My family has a great way of keeping me real and keeping me grounded.

Did you call his wife or did someone else call his wife?

I believe I called her to let her know that they crashed and that he was okay.

- That's gotta be a tough call. -Meg. Oh, yeah.

Not the toughest, because we've had other ones that were tougher than that

when they didn't make it out the other side, so...

And we have to call their parents and go... you know.

And we wanna be the first-- the first ones to say so, you know?

That they're not gonna hear it on the news

or from some production assistant or whatever that--

That the stunt family are-- We're very, very close,

and there's all these political entities in the stunt world.

You know, there's this stunt group and that stunt group

and this gag and that gag.

But when it comes down to when you're on the set, no matter what group--

What your affiliation is, what your political things are--

When it's that guy's day in the barrel, we're all there for them.

And when it's my day in the barrel, they're all there for me.

Because it's a very, very close-knit family that we live in and work with.

I love Eddie like a brother.

I want him to stop doing these dangerous things.

Start rolling the GoPro...

Because eventually, law of averages, you're gonna get taken down.

- Action. -

- Poor Eddie. -

Day at work today.

-Say, "Hello." -Hello.

How the hell did I end up here?

Right, can you roll your foot straight up?

-How's that? -Sorry.

- No, no, no. It... -That's good.

All right.

This is not fun.

Can I pass out now?

- Can you pass out now? -Yeah.

No!

When I first got in the business, one of the elder stuntmen said to me,

"You know... you don't really ever retire from this business.

This business retires you."

And that always stuck with me.

Here I'm in my early 50s.

How long am I really gonna do this?

I started reflecting.

Growing up the guy that inspired me to be a stuntman was Evel Knievel.

I met him, I was a kid.

This Sunday, a daredevil hustler named Evel Knievel,

who's made a national reputation jumping motorcycles,

will try to cross a 1,700-foot canyon in Idaho riding a rocket.

If he makes it, he'll be many times a millionaire.

If he doesn't, he'll be dead.

I remember, I think I was like eight years old, nine years old,

watching Evel Knievel strapped in that rocket in that up angle.

He can do anything. He was like a superhero.

I remember the hype around it. I remember all of that.

I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything like this.

- Four. - Four.

- Three. - Three.

Two, one.

Whoa! It looks like a good one!

Whoa!

There's been a mistake. He looks like he's going into the canyon.

-The ship's going down. - He's going to crash.

He's just cleared the rocks there.

This canyon, this cliff. It's Evel Knievel's kryptonite.

And it got him.

Robert Craig Knievel did not clear the 1,600-foot Snake River Canyon.

But he's alive and well and he tried.

You got an e-mail or something.

And he's like, "Hey, somebody is building a rocket