Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: How Stuntmen (and -women) Work About this episode They get blown up, shot, drowned and thrown out of windows on the silver screen - and we don't even know their names. Stuntpeople are the unsung heroes of the movie industry. Learn the ins and outs of the stunt world and how one becomes a stunt person.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Let's be real, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and yes, it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off.
0:47 Josh Clark? Introducing Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio, hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everybody. Back to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie Playlist, and this one is from January 2013. It's our How Stuntmen and Women Work episode. I think your socks are going to be knocked off by how hard these people work for our movie viewing enjoyment. You enjoy too.
1:28 Speaker 02 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from howstuffworks.com.
1:38 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff You Should Know.
1:45 Speaker 03 Well, Jerry had an itchy trigger finger today. Did you hear in there?
1:47 Josh Clark? Yeah, she's ready to go home.
1:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, she was like, come on. Three, two, one, go.
1:52 Josh Clark? You guys aren't my entire life.
1:54 Speaker 03 I know. We like to think we are, but that is where we're like 0.1% of Jerry's life.
1:59 Josh Clark? Yeah.
2:00 Speaker 03 She's giggling in there. She's quite the adventurer.
2:03 Josh Clark? Uh, how you doing, man?
2:05 Speaker 03 I'm great, man. I'm ready to jump from a tall building or roll a brand-new car.
2:08 Josh Clark? Man!
2:09 Speaker 03 Sorry.
2:10 Josh Clark? That's what I was gonna ask you, so I guess you did the intro for us.
2:13 Speaker 03 Oh, go ahead. Let's pretend like that didn't happen.
2:16 Josh Clark? Nah, it's fine.
2:17 Speaker 03 Okay.
2:18 Josh Clark? Uh, you were just doing, what, the theme from The Fall Guy starring Lee Majors? 1980's awesome TV show with probably the best truck ever featured in a TV show?
2:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, that GMC man, that thing is sweet.
2:31 Josh Clark? Yeah.
2:32 Speaker 03 You know dudes recreate that truck. If you Google it, there's a lot of guys that have like made that truck for themselves.
2:37 Josh Clark? For good reason, too. It's a cool truck.
2:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, and it's interesting that The Fall Guy points out a couple of... The show itself points out a very important things as far as stuntmen go. One is that he had to moonlight as a bounty hunter. And that's kind of one of the things we'll learn, is that there's not a lot of work out there. And to go around, you know, like, it's tough to make it as a stuntman.
3:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, you get punched.
3:01 Speaker 03 Yeah. And B, he's, if you look at the lyrics to that theme song, man, he is really salty about not getting the glory and the girls.
3:10 Josh Clark? Yeah, mainly the girls.
3:12 Speaker 03 And the glory.
3:13 Josh Clark? He, uh, when he winds up in the hay, it's only hay?
3:17 Speaker 03 Hey, hey.
3:19 Speaker 03 Uh, so the song complains about not getting glory or women, and that is one of the hallmarks, though, of the stunt person is to remain anonymous.
3:28 Josh Clark? And to be bitter about it.
3:29 Speaker 03 I guess so. Very few stunt people you've ever heard of.
3:32 Josh Clark? Well, yeah, the, uh, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, they give out the Academy Awards, the Oscars.
3:39 Speaker 03 Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
3:41 Josh Clark? Yeah. Um, they don't have a category for stunt people.
3:45 Speaker 03 Nope.
3:45 Josh Clark? Never have. And the reason some people give is because they like to maintain the anonymity and the illusion
3:52 Speaker 03 Sure.
3:53 Josh Clark? that's provided by stunt people filling in as doubles for stars.
3:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, but you can win a, what, what's the award?
3:59 Josh Clark? You can win an Emmy for best stunt coordinator.
4:02 Speaker 03 True, or the stunt award, they have their own stunt awards.
4:05 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, the Taurus World Stunt Awards.
4:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, you can win a Tory.
4:09 Josh Clark? They took a, they took a hiatus. I saw that there was 2010, and they're having stuff for 2012. Couldn't find anything about 2011.
4:18 Speaker 03 Really?
4:19 Josh Clark? Yeah, so if you know what happened to the Taurus World Stunt Awards for 2011, we are curious.
4:25 Speaker 03 Interesting.
4:26 Josh Clark? Let us know.
4:27 Speaker 03 So, thanks for listening.
4:29 Josh Clark? So, anyway.
4:30 Speaker 03 Oh.
4:30 Josh Clark? Well, let's talk about the history of stunt people. They pretty much have only been around as long as you've had motion pictures, right?
4:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:41 Josh Clark? There wasn't much of a need for them before then.
4:44 Speaker 03 No.
4:44 Josh Clark? I mean, maybe for like a show or something like that, like a Wild Bill Hickok show.
4:48 Speaker 03 Oh, I guess I see your point.
4:49 Josh Clark? You call them stuntmen, but, but really, you, you kind of want to differentiate because you can also say, all right, so people who ride horses on, standing up on a horse's back, that's a stunt person.
4:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:59 Josh Clark? Right? A, a guy who like is in the X Games, those extreme sports kids.
5:04 Speaker 03 Sure.
5:05 Josh Clark? That all the kids are into these days, that's a stunt. These are by, you know, technically stunt people. What we're talking about are movie stunt people.
5:14 Speaker 03 Sure.
5:15 Josh Clark? And the whole point to their, their craft isn't to like, you know, do a 580 on a bike, unless somebody asks them to.
5:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:24 Josh Clark? What they want to do is create what you would just take for granted, like, oh, that guy just got clocked.
5:29 Speaker 03 Right.
5:30 Josh Clark? No, he didn't actually get clocked. That was a stuntman who knows what he's doing, and that was a carefully choreographed scene that just flew right past you, but it's still, your brain still just absorbed it as that man just got punched, even though that didn't really happen.
5:44 Speaker 03 That's right, and we will probably slip into the word stuntman here and there instead of stunt people. Of course, there were tons and tons of stunt women. But we'll say stunt persons are stuntmen and. Like luckily, there are women now. In the, back in the day, they would dress men as women to do stunts, many times.
6:02 Josh Clark? Yeah. There's a lot of cross-dressing back in the day.
6:05 Speaker 03 There was, until they decided, hey, women are people too, and they can act and do stunts.
6:09 Josh Clark? Right.
6:10 Speaker 03 Just like guys can.
6:11 Josh Clark? We could put them in danger just as much as well.
6:13 Speaker 03 Exactly.
6:14 Josh Clark? So, um, so there wasn't much call for stunt people for movies before movies, just by definition.
6:20 Speaker 03 Sure.
6:21 Josh Clark? Don't be ridiculous. But right out of the gate, when we started making movies, we started needing people to do stunts. And the earliest people who were doing stunts were actually comedians, slapstick comedians. Like Buster Keaton had a very famous early stunt.
6:35 Speaker 03 Steamboat Bill Jr.
6:36 Josh Clark? Is that what it was in?
6:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, the very famous, you've probably seen it in, uh, like, you know, Hollywood, uh, legends of screen clips and things like that on AMC.
6:44 Josh Clark? Yeah.
6:45 Speaker 03 Uh, it is the famous shot where the front facade of a house falls down and, uh, on, well, would have been on Buster Keaton, but he, uh, is saved because the attic window, uh, or attic door was open. So it just falls all around him. And there was some careful measuring in place, because if he would have been off by a few inches, he would have been dead.
7:04 Josh Clark? Yeah. And, um, that was a real thing. Like, the earliest stunts were nothing but the real thing. Like, um, apparently if you had, uh, I don't know, somebody hanging from like the construction, the skeleton of a steel skyscraper.
7:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:21 Josh Clark? You needed that shot. That's what the guy did.
7:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, and they, Ed the Grabster wrote this one, of course. And Ed points out that back in the day, before there were, were like, you know, before they called them stuntmen, they were just like, let me go find someone crazy enough to go do this.
7:36 Josh Clark? Exactly.
7:37 Speaker 03 And that guy, uh, that, that guy at craft service looks crazy enough to do it, and let's go see if he wants an extra 20 bucks.
7:43 Josh Clark? Yeah, and he does.
7:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:44 Josh Clark? Because back, you know, in 1902, 20 bucks was a lot.
7:49 Speaker 03 Sure.
7:49 Josh Clark? So as the film industry grew and grew early in the 20th century, we went from just nothing but slapstick comedies to things like westerns and action flicks. And all of a sudden, those people who really can ride on the back of a horse standing up became stunt people as well. And as stunts became more and more complex, the idea of having somebody whose job and specialty was to just do the stunt and make it look like the actor, the star,
8:23 Speaker 03 Sure.
8:24 Josh Clark? was doing it, started to really develop.
8:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, and then flash forward even more, the 60s and 70s is when things really came to their own as far as stunt technology, developing things like squibs, which we will talk about for gunshots, and air rams, is that what they're called?
8:45 Josh Clark? Yeah, it's like a pneumatic lift.
8:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's pneumatic now, I think.
8:50 Josh Clark? It just shoots you up into the air, like with a human cannonball.
8:53 Speaker 03 Right.
8:54 Josh Clark? But like, so if somebody, if a grenade blows up by somebody.
8:58 Speaker 03 And you see the dude fly through the air.
8:59 Josh Clark? And he was on a ram.
9:01 Speaker 03 That's right.
9:03 Speaker 03 And then other things like airbags and, you know, more technology with cars, with the roll cages, like it just got more and more complex.
9:10 Josh Clark? Right.
9:11 Speaker 03 And now, of course, you have CGI, which replaces a lot of stunts in many cases, sadly.
9:16 Josh Clark? Yeah, not necessarily to a better effect. Like, all I have to say is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
9:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:24 Josh Clark? Where it was like they suddenly cut to drawings of Harrison Ford swinging on a lasso.
9:30 Speaker 03 He's famous for doing his own stunts, though.
9:31 Josh Clark? He didn't do them in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
9:34 Speaker 03 Well, that's because he's 89 years old, and he would die.
9:38 Josh Clark? He was awesome in Bruno.
9:41 Speaker 03 I didn't see that. Was he Harrison Ford was in it?
9:43 Josh Clark? Yeah, for about two seconds.
9:45 Speaker 03 Did they do like gay jokes to him or something?
9:48 Josh Clark? They didn't even get that far.
9:49 Speaker 03 Oh, okay.
9:49 Josh Clark? Yeah.
9:50 Speaker 03 Did he just shut it down?
9:51 Josh Clark? Yeah.
9:52 Speaker 03 Awesome.
9:52 Josh Clark? It was hilarious. But anyway, so stunts, like the, I guess, throughout this progression of the field of stunt people,
10:03 Josh Clark? safety's gotten better and better, is what I think we were just trying to say.
10:06 Speaker 03 Sure.
10:06 Josh Clark? To the point now where they're not even used. It's CGI.
10:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:10 Josh Clark? But there's, there's always gonna be room for stunt people.
10:13 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
10:14 Josh Clark? And the fact that it's gotten safer is, is much better, but there's still, there's an element of risk to it, no matter what, as Grabster points out. If a stunt didn't present some sort of risk, there'd be no need for stunt people at all.
10:28 Speaker 03 That's true.
10:28 Josh Clark? The actors would do it.
10:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:30 Josh Clark? But the actors can't always do it.
10:32 Speaker 03 That's right. And when you wanna call in a stunt person is when they either have a specific skill that they're really good at, like fake martial arts, or, I mean, real martial arts, but fake hitting and kicking, or...
10:45 Josh Clark? Fake martial arts, like Chi Kwon, like stuff you just made up. It's a lot of like just front kits in the air.
10:51 Speaker 03 That's what you practice. I've seen you do Chi Kwon.
10:55 Speaker 03 Sword fighting, stage combat, like we've talked about, stuff like that. They are trained to fall, they are trained to, you know, safely fall, I guess I should point out. And it just, basically, it's a safety factor on one hand, and it's a financial factor on the other. Because you can't have your main actor or actress going down with a broken leg
11:16 Josh Clark? Yeah.
11:16 Speaker 03 for four weeks. So you put your stunt person in there and keep your actor all nice and safe in their trailer.
11:20 Josh Clark? Yeah.
11:21 Speaker 03 Or you wanna be shooting two things at once, so you have your second unit out there shooting the, the fast cars whizzing by in the car chase. Then you have your first unit shooting the actor inside the car. Driving a lot slower and acting like it's really fast.
11:38 Josh Clark? But shouting and like moving the steering wheel back and forth a lot.
11:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:42 Josh Clark? And maybe there's somebody rocking the car. What's that called?
11:45 Speaker 03 Uh, poor man's process.
11:47 Josh Clark? Yeah.
11:48 Speaker 03 Is, uh, yeah. So when you, oh, I guess we should say this. When you're in a car, you either have a camera rig on your car, where it's the real car with cameras attached to it.
11:56 Josh Clark? We've done that.
11:57 Speaker 03 Or the car's on a process trailer, which means a lot of these shots you see of someone driving, you're like, they're not even paying attention to the road.
12:03 Josh Clark? Yeah.
12:04 Speaker 03 It's because the car's sitting on a trailer, being pulled by a truck.
12:07 Josh Clark? Right.
12:07 Speaker 03 Or-
12:07 Josh Clark? So it's got a little rock to it.
12:08 Speaker 03 Little rock to it. Or you do the poor man's processes when the car's not going anywhere.
12:13 Josh Clark? And you have PAs pushing on the outside.
12:15 Speaker 03 Pushing on the outside, little tricks with lighting to make it look like headlights going by.
12:19 Josh Clark? We've done that.
12:20 Speaker 03 It's really neat in the end to look at a scene that's poor man's process and think, wow, they're really not even moving and it looks so good.
12:26 Josh Clark? Yeah.
12:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:27 Josh Clark? See if you can pick it out in the Stuff You Should Know TV series.
12:31 Speaker 03 Uh, they can probably pick it out.
12:33 Josh Clark? So, um, yeah, it's financial. It makes sense. Also, uh, one of the other reasons people use stunt people is they come with a set of skills that the average actor doesn't have.
12:43 Speaker 03 A particular set of skills?
12:44 Josh Clark? Exactly. That makes them very dangerous to you. Uh, and so it's, you can either hire a stunt man who looks like your star to carry out like a combat scene, or-
12:54 Speaker 03 Sort of look like your star.
12:55 Josh Clark? Or you can teach your star, you know, spend all this extra money and time to training the star to this skill in a crash course. So it's just, most of the time it makes sense to just hire a stunt person.
13:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, and you know, chances are these days you're gonna get a mix, in a big action movie, you're gonna get a mix of all three. You're gonna get some CGI.
13:12 Josh Clark? Yeah.
13:13 Speaker 03 You're gonna get some stunt people, and these days you're gonna get real actors doing some of the real fake fighting.
13:19 Josh Clark? Doesn't Tom Cruise do a lot of his own stunts?
13:21 Speaker 03 Yeah, I got a list of actors who prefer to do their own stunts.
13:24 Josh Clark? I didn't mean to jump the gun.
13:25 Speaker 03 No, the Cruise is famous for that.
13:27 Josh Clark? I was reading this and I was like, I wonder if I would do my own stunts. I would do some. I, I would say, sure, I want to learn how to sword fight. Teach me. Like, that's something I want to know. And I'm certainly not gonna shell out for it myself ever, so let's go ahead and, and learn now.
13:42 Speaker 03 That's a good point. I would do my own stunts.
13:44 Josh Clark? It depends. Heights? No way.
13:46 Speaker 03 I would do that. I would jump off of something. So California state law, and of course they're shooting movies all over the place now. And the union rules in Hollywood have really made it pretty safe these days. But you're still gonna find injuries and your occasional death on set, which is really awful.
14:06 Josh Clark? Yeah, well, there always have been, pretty much from the beginning, deaths and injuries.
14:11 Speaker 03 Howard Hughes?
14:12 Josh Clark? Yeah, the movie Hells Angels, which we must have talked about in the Hells Angels podcast. I'm sure we did, because I think we talked about the origin of the name.
14:21 Speaker 03 Which was from the air combat?
14:22 Josh Clark? It was, yeah, that's what they think.
14:24 Speaker 03 The Fighting Hellcat.
14:25 Josh Clark? I think that was one of the theories.
14:28 Josh Clark? But there were three, maybe four fatalities.
14:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:32 Josh Clark? Because they were doing like real dogfights with airplanes and there were a lot of crashes.
14:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:37 Josh Clark? So that was a movie where people died.
14:39 Speaker 03 Yes, very famously, The Twilight Zone, The Movie. Jennifer Jason Leigh's father, Vic Morrow, and two little Vietnamese kids died when a helicopter crashed into the water where they were crossing a river.
14:56 Speaker 03 That's on YouTube, by the way.
14:57 Josh Clark? I know, it's pretty awful.
14:59 Speaker 03 It is, and I saw it recently because I was just curious. I'd always wondered how it went down in my head, because I've heard the story since the movie came out, since I was a kid. And I always wondered like exactly what was the logistics and how did that go down?
15:11 Josh Clark? It's pretty bad to watch.
15:13 Speaker 03 It is.
15:13 Josh Clark? Because it just goes totally out of control.
15:15 Speaker 03 It does, so I would not recommend that.
15:19 Speaker 03 But you do have to enter your age, by the way, to watch that video.
15:22 Josh Clark? I saw.
15:24 Speaker 03 And on set, the A D is ultimately responsible, the assistant director, for everyone's safety. And in fact, on our own little TV show, when we had fake guns on set, just as props.
15:37 Josh Clark? Yeah.
15:37 Speaker 03 Like, we didn't even use them in the scene. But just to have a fake gun on set, the A D has to announce to the whole crew and show them the gun. Say it's fake, it's not real, look at the barrel, there's no bullets, there's no nothing, it will not be fired. We will not be shooting blanks or dummy cartridges. And it's just, you know, even on a stupid, little, silly show like ours, you gotta be really careful with that stuff.
16:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, so Chuck, because of this incredibly high-risk profession, work, the stunt people must be paid out the yin yang. True or false?
16:14 Speaker 03 They make a good rate, but like we said earlier, there's not a ton of work for the amount of stunt people trying to get work.
16:20 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
16:21 Speaker 03 And that was when I used to work out in LA as a PA, I would always try and talk to the stunt people when I worked on jobs where they had stunt people. Cause they're just really interesting.
16:31 Josh Clark? Yeah.
16:32 Speaker 03 And to say the least, and they would usually bemoan the fact that there's not a ton of work and, you know, they're all kind of scrapping for the same piece of cheese. But that's like everyone in the film business.
16:42 Josh Clark? Sure.
16:43 Speaker 03 From crew to the lead actor. You're all, you're all after that same piece of cheese.
16:47 Josh Clark? Yep. We've worked with some stunt people too.
16:51 Speaker 03 Yeah. You'd be surprised when you need to call in a stunt person. I worked on this one commercial where the, it was just like bad traffic on the highway that the shot was. And cars had to just sort of pull over to the side while another car came through. All the cars that pulled over to the side of the road had to have stunt drivers. Yeah, I was like, I could do that. But then I'd be taking bread off the table. It was stunt person.
17:14 Josh Clark? Right.
17:14 Speaker 03 Which is not good.
17:15 Josh Clark? The whole production would shut down.
17:16 Speaker 03 That's true.
17:18 Josh Clark? Okay, so the most stunt people, you say because there's just so little work for so many people, it's not a high paying job. A lot of people do it for the love of it, right?
17:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, you can make money if you're experienced and get tons of work, obviously, but.
17:34 Josh Clark? Right.
17:35 Speaker 03 I'd say those are the few and far between.
17:37 Josh Clark? But you'd have to love it because the hours are usually very, very long.
17:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:41 Josh Clark? To do a stunt is not, you don't just walk up and get in the car and drive it and all of a sudden it flips and there's an explosion. And you're hoping for the best.
17:51 Speaker 03 Right.
17:51 Josh Clark? Like when you see a stunt, these things are rehearsed over and over again. Say for a car chase, they'll go through the entire car chase, but they'll do it at a low speed.
18:01 Speaker 03 Right.
18:02 Josh Clark? So that it's choreographed, rehearsed, and everybody knows what's gonna happen when.
18:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:06 Josh Clark? That takes a very long time. If you need to flip a car, you need to do measurements. The pyrotechnics guys are probably involved.
18:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:15 Josh Clark? There's a lot of standing around, there's a lot of practicing, there's a lot of measuring, there's a lot of talking. And then if for, say, you're doing something like in, in water, you're probably standing in water the whole time. So you're doing that for 14 hours.
18:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:28 Josh Clark? It sounds like. You would have to love your work to do this.
18:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's definitely not a glory job, especially factoring in the anonymity factor.
18:37 Josh Clark? Right, when you do all this and you do it absolutely perfectly, no one notices.
18:42 Speaker 03 That's the goal.
18:43 Josh Clark? Yeah.
18:43 Speaker 03 In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is when you do notice and you see that one shot of the dude with a wig on that's supposed to be Clint Eastwood.
18:52 Josh Clark? Right.
18:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's disappointing.
18:54 Josh Clark? So you were saying the second unit director handles this. The second unit director is in charge of shooting stunts, but the person who's in charge of the stunts themselves is the stunt coordinator.
19:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:07 Josh Clark? And that person hires the stunt people.
19:09 Speaker 03 Yep.
19:10 Josh Clark? Plans the stunts, oversees the stunt's execution, does everything but actually sets up the camera and all that, or handles the camera shooting it, right?
19:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's basically, it's like a film crew is broken up into many departments and that's just sort of its own little department headed by the coordinator.
19:26 Josh Clark? Gotcha.
19:27 Speaker 03 Like they'll have a budget to work with and all that kind of stuff, just like any other department.
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21:45 Josh Clark? You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next, unless something starts to feel off. Because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.
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22:48 Josh Clark? So let's talk about how they do some stunts.
22:51 Speaker 03 Okay, and actually, the second unit director, a lot of times, is a former stunt person or stunt coordinator.
22:57 Josh Clark? Right, that makes sense.
22:58 Speaker 03 Comes in handy.
22:59 Josh Clark? Sure.
23:01 Speaker 03 Let's talk about stunts without fire.
23:03 Josh Clark? How about punches?
23:05 Speaker 03 How about them? Stage fighting, man. Something we have not learned yet.
23:09 Josh Clark? That's pretty much a must. If you want to become a stunt man, that's lesson one, is go take stage fighting courses.
23:17 Speaker 03 Yep, learn how to sell a punch as the giver and as the receiver. Without looking corny and hokey and fake, like pro wrestling.
23:23 Josh Clark? Right, but it's very much similar to pro wrestling, especially if you've ever seen somebody throw a punch in pro wrestling and you can hear the skin slap.
23:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:33 Josh Clark? That's because that person was actually just punched.
23:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:35 Josh Clark? The key is they weren't punched very hard. Certainly not as hard as the jerk of their head would say.
23:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, and you've got camera angles, and you've got sound effects, and through the art of movie magic, it looks like a good knockdown, drag-out brawl.
23:50 Josh Clark? Right, and if you've got a really good stunt coordinator, there'll be like a punch that's sold, and the person who's being punched is on a ramp, so they fly through the air afterward.
24:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's awesome.
24:03 Speaker 03 All right, gunshots. We talked about squibs. A squib is, basically, you're gonna have a chest, metal chest plate with a squib on the front of it.
24:13 Josh Clark? Right.
24:14 Speaker 03 To protect your body. And it's basically a little blood packet that's rigged electronically to explode when it's supposed to.
24:24 Josh Clark? And so the plate in between the squib and your chest protects you?
24:27 Speaker 03 Sure.
24:27 Josh Clark? And maybe you are in charge of, you, the stunt man, are in charge, you have a little button?
24:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, maybe.
24:33 Josh Clark? To explode the charge, or there's somebody else doing it remotely. And it's pretty awesome, releases theater blood, opens a hole in the shirt.
24:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:43 Josh Clark? Pretty awesome.
24:44 Speaker 03 It is very awesome.
24:45 Josh Clark? This I didn't realize, though, um, how they make bullet holes in like a, like a wall, like a stucco wall.
24:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:52 Josh Clark? I, I thought this was pretty ingenious. They drill the hole.
24:55 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
24:56 Josh Clark? Ahead of time, um, and then they cover it up with like putty or paper or something and, and paint with a squib in there.
25:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:04 Josh Clark? And they blow that squib out.
25:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:06 Josh Clark? And it makes a bullet hole.
25:07 Speaker 03 It's pretty cool.
25:08 Josh Clark? It's ingenious. It's simple, it seems like, but it's very ingenious.
25:11 Speaker 03 Well, especially when you watch a movie, ideally, you're getting lost in the movie, not paying attention, but if you watch like a John Woo film or something.
25:17 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:18 Speaker 03 And you see just like a wall get riddled with bullets, just think about all the time.
25:22 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:22 Speaker 03 Took, uh, took to set up all those squibs.
25:24 Josh Clark? And like, what if the actor trips in the middle of it? You're just like, uh, we have to do it again.
25:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, which is no good. And in fact, big stunts, uh, they go with many, many cameras on stunts that you don't or can't recreate because of either danger or money.
25:38 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:39 Speaker 03 And like, some of these shots have like, you know, a dozen or more cameras shooting.
25:42 Josh Clark? Right. Which makes a lot of sense.
25:44 Speaker 03 Of course.
25:45 Josh Clark? And Grabster points out that another reason why you don't want to do a big take like that more than once is because every time you do, the danger for the stunt person multiplies.
25:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:54 Josh Clark? And I was like, how? And then I thought, oh, well.
25:57 Speaker 03 Doing it more.
25:57 Josh Clark? Right. Your, your chances of, of injury are increased the more you carry out, the more times you carry out a dangerous act. So that's how it multiplies.
26:06 Speaker 03 Uh, getting back to squibs, these days, a lot of directors are opting for CGI, blood and, uh, and bullet wounds.
26:16 Speaker 03 But supposedly Quentin Tarantino, and this is out by the time this comes out.
26:20 Josh Clark? Django Unchained. Man, I can't wait to see it.
26:22 Speaker 03 Supposedly, he, uh, had 100% real squibs.
26:25 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
26:26 Speaker 03 And the blood, like, they're supposed to be the bloodiest, nastiest squibs that Hollywood has seen in years.
26:31 Josh Clark? Is that right?
26:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's supposed to be pretty awesome.
26:33 Josh Clark? Huh.
26:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:34 Josh Clark? Have you seen Machete?
26:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:37 Josh Clark? That was pretty bloody.
26:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, that was bad, though. I didn't like it.
26:40 Josh Clark? I agree it was, but it was still pretty bloody.
26:42 Speaker 03 Uh, they also blanks. If you're firing a gun on set, it is probably a blank.
26:48 Josh Clark? You would hope so.
26:49 Speaker 03 It's not the same as a dummy cartridge.
26:51 Josh Clark? No.
26:51 Speaker 03 A blank actually fires gunpowder, has gunpowder, and fires what's called a wad. It's like paper, or wood, or plastic, and, um, but it does not obviously have shot or bullet.
27:04 Josh Clark? No, but there's sometimes when the bullet explodes, bits of metal can end up being shot out as well.
27:11 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:11 Josh Clark? That's how Brandon Lee died when they were filming The Crow.
27:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, his was actually an accident. There was a bullet lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about.
27:18 Josh Clark? What? I thought, okay, well, then I'm thinking of somebody else who like was messing around with a gun.
27:23 Speaker 03 That was, ah, man, I can't remember his name.
27:25 Josh Clark? And put it to his head, and he pulled the trigger, and like the wad or like the gases or something killed him.
27:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, that was, uh, I can't remember his name, but it was on a TV show set, and he like goofing around, put it to his head as a joke. So you should never mess around with blanks.
27:39 Josh Clark? No.
27:39 Speaker 03 It's very dangerous still.
27:40 Josh Clark? No, but there was a bullet in the...
27:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, there was a bullet. They got the guns mixed up, and there was a real bullet slug lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about. So it fired a blank, but it ejected that other thing, and Brandon Lee died.
27:53 Josh Clark? Wow, I didn't know that.
27:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:55 Josh Clark? Man.
27:55 Speaker 03 It was one of the biggest oopses probably in Hollywood history.
27:59 Josh Clark? Yeah?
28:00 Speaker 03 You know?
28:01 Josh Clark? I guess you could call it that.
28:02 Speaker 03 And I think he, they thought he was still acting and continued to roll cameras for a bit afterward.
28:07 Josh Clark? Oh, geez.
28:07 Speaker 03 Even, yeah. Very sad, tragic. Um, are we to falling?
28:14 Josh Clark? Yeah, which you'll do. I won't do.
28:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'll jump off of stuff. I've always done that.
28:18 Josh Clark? Well, they use these huge, huge airbags, right?
28:21 Speaker 03 Well, back in the day, they did. And if you, and if you're doing a fall today, they still will sometimes, but generally these days, they have like a bungee-type contraption.
28:29 Josh Clark? I would still demand an airbag. They apparently also for shorter falls, they'll take some cardboard boxes and they'll cut the sharp corners off.
28:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:39 Josh Clark? And then you jump onto that. Did you do that when you were a kid?
28:43 Speaker 03 No, no, no. I always would jump into water.
28:45 Josh Clark? I would jump like onto the ground off of like the credenza or whatever. And now I'm like, I wouldn't even do that. It's dangerous.
28:54 Speaker 03 Falls used to be the thing. Like, I'm sure you remember as a kid, falls were a really big deal for stuntmen. And Dar Robinson, remember that guy?
29:02 Josh Clark? No.
29:02 Speaker 03 He did the Sharky's Machine fall.
29:04 Josh Clark? Okay.
29:04 Speaker 03 In Atlanta, in the Burt Reynolds movie.
29:06 Josh Clark? Nope.
29:07 Speaker 03 Very famous fall out of the Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
29:09 Josh Clark? I was up in Toledo at the time.
29:12 Speaker 03 It was still, it was released in Toledo.
29:14 Josh Clark? Not in Toledo.
29:15 Speaker 03 Sharky's Machine, yeah.
29:17 Josh Clark? Wait, off the, off the which hotel?
29:19 Speaker 03 He, he went through a window of the Peachtree Plaza and into, onto an airbag. And it's just, it was one of the famous early falls and, and, or not early falls, but one of the famous falls.
29:28 Josh Clark? What floor did he jump out of?
29:30 Speaker 03 Oh, man, I can't remember.
29:31 Josh Clark? Was it pretty high?
29:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, it was over, over like a hundred and fifty feet, I think.
29:34 Josh Clark? Oh, wow.
29:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:36 Josh Clark? That's nuts.
29:37 Speaker 03 It was pretty cool.
29:37 Josh Clark? But see, so imagine planning that stunt, how many times they measured.
29:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:42 Josh Clark? Everything to figure out where the airbags needed to go. And then they probably supplemented it with additional airbags and if they loved the guy at all, they did all this.
29:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, stuntmen, you, when you go to talk to one, if you're on set, you'll be disappointed by the fact that they aren't these crazy dudes like you want them to be. They're actually really sensible because they want to work and earn money.
30:02 Josh Clark? Right.
30:02 Speaker 03 So they want to be really, really sure that no one gets hurt. It's, it's a little more boring than you would think talking to them.
30:08 Josh Clark? Sure.
30:08 Speaker 03 But they are a little nuts.
30:09 Josh Clark? Yeah. Well, you'd have to be at least a little. What else? Chuck Fire? How about Fire?
30:15 Speaker 03 Yeah, I just saw Anchorman the other night. Remember when the, they had the street brawl and the guy on Fire just walks by?
30:23 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's a pretty serious stunt.
30:24 Speaker 03 Sure.
30:25 Josh Clark? Like when you are, when you set yourself on fire.
30:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:28 Josh Clark? Um, and there's a lot of safety precautions, but even still, it's, you're on fire, whether you like it or not.
30:34 Speaker 03 Yeah, you're wearing all kinds of, uh, fire protective clothing and fire retardant, and then you're smeared with the flammable gel.
30:40 Josh Clark? Yep, you have a hood on that protects you.
30:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:43 Josh Clark? As well, um, and there's an oxygen tank in there. So you're basically just completely wrapped in this outfit.
30:49 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:50 Josh Clark? But yeah, the flammable gel's on and, uh, they light you and then film you and you're going, uh, uh. It's always the waving arms and the, uh.
31:00 Speaker 03 Kinda looks the same.
31:01 Josh Clark? And then, um, the people run over and put you out with fire extinguisher.
31:06 Speaker 03 That's right.
31:06 Josh Clark? But they time it very closely as well.
31:08 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm sure.
31:09 Josh Clark? Cause I, I think it's kinda like, well, if we go 12 seconds, he actually will catch on fire. So we can shoot for 11.
31:16 Speaker 03 11.5.
31:16 Josh Clark? Right.
31:17 Speaker 03 Uh, explosions are a big deal, obviously, these days. There are so many explosions in movies.
31:24 Speaker 03 Sometimes they cheat a little bit when what's called a technique called forced perspective. To make it look like the actor is closer to the explosion. Um, and if there's an explosion, you're probably also going to be propelled with the air ram that we were talking about. It's very, it's almost, I would call it a Hollywood trope at this point. The explosion and the dude's flying like 20 feet in the air.
31:43 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
31:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:44 Josh Clark? Yeah, that was big in, uh, Commando.
31:47 Speaker 03 Oh, yes.
31:47 Josh Clark? Weren't there a lot of air rams used in Commando?
31:50 Speaker 03 Many, more than I can count.
31:52 Josh Clark? That was such a good movie.
31:54 Speaker 03 Uh, car chases and crashes?
31:56 Josh Clark? Yeah, they use rams as well. They may be attached to the car. So if a car needs to flip, um, you see people like going up on a ramp or whatever.
32:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:05 Josh Clark? Um, and they'd probably use that if you're just trying to stay on two wheels, but if you're trying to flip, there's usually a ram that pushes the car, pushes it off.
32:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:13 Josh Clark? Of the ground and it flips. Or if you have one coming out of the rear, it'll make it jump really high.
32:19 Speaker 03 Oh, true. Like in, uh, Hooper.
32:22 Josh Clark? I don't know all these movies you're talking about.
32:24 Speaker 03 Oh dude, Hooper was the stuntman movie with Burt Reynolds.
32:27 Josh Clark? I didn't see it.
32:28 Speaker 03 Oh my god. Hal Needham, very famous stuntman turned director directed.
32:32 Josh Clark? Founder of the Cannonball Run.
32:34 Speaker 03 Well, yeah, and director of the movie The Cannonball Run and Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper. Hooper was about an aging stuntman, Burt Reynolds, who was challenged by the up and comer Jan Michael Vincent. And of course, there's the love relationship with Sally Field. She was in that too.
32:49 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
32:50 Speaker 03 And it was good. It was like the best, it's sort of the best stunt movie ever because it was about stunts.
32:55 Josh Clark? Huh.
32:55 Speaker 03 And he had a rocket car in that one. That was a big rocket car jump. It was the big climax.
33:00 Josh Clark? I did not see Hooper.
33:01 Speaker 03 Oh dude, you need to see Hooper.
33:02 Josh Clark? What was I watching back then?
33:05 Speaker 03 What were you, you were probably watching TV and stuff.
33:07 Josh Clark? I guess.
33:08 Speaker 03 Yeah. And it was a little before your time.
33:10 Josh Clark? Secret of Nim.
33:15 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.
33:24 Speaker 03 That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.
33:37 Josh Clark? Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic Forerunner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.
33:53 Speaker 03 That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.
34:17 Josh Clark? You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off, because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.
34:33 Speaker 03 That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction. Signals moving between the gut, the brain, and the immune system. The constant back and forth we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance, and why they seem to be on the rise, to how digestion changes as we age, and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.
35:01 Josh Clark? Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
35:20 Speaker 04 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
35:23 Josh Clark? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.
35:26 Speaker 03 That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience, and Alan's master plan made it all possible.
35:42 Speaker 04 It was going to rival anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
35:50 Josh Clark? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
35:56 Speaker 05 Through Alan's whole crew design, we connected the event visitors to the world.
36:02 Speaker 03 And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
36:05 Speaker 05 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.
36:09 Speaker 04 What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
36:13 Josh Clark? AT&T. Connecting fans to what they love.
36:16 Speaker 02 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
36:21 Speaker 03 And like I said earlier, stunt drivers, it's not all like, a lot of the stuff you're gonna see on TV is stunt driving even though you might not think it's necessary.
36:30 Josh Clark? Yeah, apparently it does pull off of the highway.
36:32 Speaker 03 Sometimes, sometimes not. How do you become a stunt man, Josh?
36:37 Josh Clark? Uh, well, apparently, as far as Grabanowski says, you basically have to start off as an extra on the set.
36:44 Speaker 03 That's not necessarily true.
36:46 Josh Clark? Okay, if you wanna, if you wanna go from the absolute, from, from zero to stunt man in the slowest way possible, then you would start out as an extra on the set. You have to be a screen, you have to be a member of the Screen Actors Guild in most cases.
37:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:00 Josh Clark? Um, and when you're hanging around the set, you identify who the second unit director or stunt coordinator is, and you hand them your headshot.
37:09 Speaker 03 This Ed painted a path to becoming a stunt person that we've kind of laughed at. It is not the only path. But one thing is for sure, to become a stunt person, you need to get to know someone else in that department. And that's really with every film department. If you wanna be in wardrobe, you should get a job as a P A and start hanging out with the wardrobe people. If you wanna be in makeup, start hanging out with the makeup people. And that's just how it works in Hollywood. There is no degree. You can get a film degree, but come on, that's wasted money. Just go to work on the set. You get to know the people in the department and then start bugging them a little bit when they're not busy. Stunt coordinators are a little testy, cuz there's a lot on the line, you know?
37:49 Josh Clark? Sure.
37:49 Speaker 03 So, you know, if you're a new P A on set, don't run over to the stunt coordinator and start bugging him right away. Pick and choose.
37:56 Josh Clark? Right.
37:57 Speaker 03 Your time.
37:57 Josh Clark? And then give him your headshot.
37:59 Speaker 03 And then give him your headshot.
38:00 Josh Clark? But yeah, what you're saying is that it's apprentice-based.
38:04 Speaker 03 It is.
38:04 Josh Clark? Basically.
38:05 Speaker 03 There are schools. Um, one recommended driving school, the Rick Seaman Stunt Driving School.
38:11 Josh Clark? Yeah.
38:12 Speaker 03 Uh, there's also the International Stunt School.
38:14 Josh Clark? That sounds pretty serious.
38:15 Speaker 03 And this is where you can learn to do some of the stuff, but it's not like you exit with a degree and then show up and say, now I'd like to do stunt work.
38:22 Josh Clark? Right, all the rest of you are fired. I have a degree from the International Stunt School.
38:27 Speaker 03 Uh, and Grabster points out that you should have a large area of specialty rather than one thing.
38:33 Josh Clark? I thought that's a very good point.
38:34 Speaker 03 Yeah, but that, this is not necessarily true. I've talked to some stunt dudes that say... Eventually, you would like to have a wide range of skills, but a good way to get in is to have one really specific skill that you're great at. And you might get that call, like this guy's good with wire work or water work. And, or he's a hell of a driver, or a really good motorcycle guy.
38:56 Josh Clark? Yeah.
38:57 Speaker 03 Or a great skier, if you're doing like, what was that, for your eyes only?
39:02 Josh Clark? Yeah.
39:02 Speaker 03 Was that the one that opened with the big ski chase?
39:04 Josh Clark? Never say never again? I, I.
39:07 Speaker 03 No, it was definitely Roger Moore.
39:08 Josh Clark? Okay.
39:08 Speaker 03 I think it's for your eyes only.
39:10 Josh Clark? Alright.
39:10 Speaker 03 But it helps to have these skills, like a lot of stunt people are former motorcycle, motocross racers, or car enthusiasts. Or they know how to scuba dive.
39:20 Josh Clark? Stand up horseback riders.
39:21 Speaker 03 Stand up horseback riding.
39:23 Josh Clark? Yeah.
39:23 Speaker 03 So a lot of them have these skills just anyway, and they're like, hey, I can, I've been driving dirt track for 20 years, might as well make some money.
39:30 Josh Clark? Yeah, film me.
39:32 Speaker 03 There's books out there.
39:34 Josh Clark? Are there?
39:34 Speaker 03 So You Want to Be a Stuntman by Mark Aspitt.
39:37 Josh Clark? That's a great name for a book like that.
39:39 Speaker 03 The Full Burn by Kevin Conley, Fight Choreography, The Art of Non-Verbal Dialogue by John Kringle. And then Hal Needham's biography, Stuntman, with a ca- a exclamation.
39:52 Josh Clark? Had to be.
39:53 Speaker 03 Had to be.
39:54 Josh Clark? You got, you said you have a list of actors that do their own stunts?
39:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think most people know this, people like Jason Statham, famous for doing his own stunts.
40:04 Josh Clark? Uh huh. I see Zoe Bell's on there, I thought she was a stunt person.
40:08 Speaker 03 Well, she is, and she was in Death Proof though, as an actor.
40:12 Josh Clark? Right.
40:12 Speaker 03 And they were like, I guess they include her now, because she did that awesome hanging, hanging on to the hood scene.
40:17 Josh Clark? I was watching that earlier, and it is just nuts.
40:20 Speaker 03 It's pretty cool.
40:21 Josh Clark? It's like she's, when she's hanging on, it looks like by belts or whatever.
40:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:25 Josh Clark? And then she's, but she's kind of sliding still across the hood.
40:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:30 Josh Clark? All it would take is like, half an inch, and then all of a sudden, she's gone too far, and she's off the side of the car.
40:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:37 Josh Clark? That was it.
40:37 Speaker 03 She's one of the best in the business, apparently.
40:39 Josh Clark? Man, that's scary.
40:40 Speaker 03 Uh, Burt, uh, Burt Reynolds used to do a lot of his stunts, in fact, he got injured. Uh, pretty bad that led to some bad health problems on set.
40:49 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
40:49 Speaker 03 On City Heat, the Clint Eastwood movie. Um, Burt Lancaster, he used to do his own stunts.
40:55 Josh Clark? He's a tough guy.
40:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:56 Josh Clark? Remember the movie Tough Guys?
40:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:58 Josh Clark? He was in that.
40:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. I don't think we mentioned Ben Hur either. That's one of the famous stunts ever, the, the chariot race.
41:03 Josh Clark? Yeah, you want to tell them about it?
41:04 Speaker 03 Uh, go ahead. What do you got?
41:06 Josh Clark? Oh, well, there is a stunt man named Joe Canut, and he was doubling for Charlton Heston. And during the chariot race, this big, long, intense race.
41:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:17 Josh Clark? Um, he falls off the chariot and is about to be run over, but in true stunt man fashion grabs it, is being dragged.
41:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:26 Josh Clark? Pulls himself back up and continues on.
41:29 Speaker 03 Wow. And I think that made it on screen, too.
41:31 Josh Clark? Yeah, it's in the movie, but that was a real thing. Like, it wasn't a planned stunt. Like, the guy saved his own life.
41:38 Speaker 03 That's awesome.
41:39 Josh Clark? Yeah, it is.
41:40 Speaker 03 Harrison Ford, we mentioned, uh, as far as the ladies go, Angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz are known for doing stunts. Uh, Arnie Schwartz in Niagara.
41:48 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
41:48 Speaker 03 Uh, and Jackie Chan, of course, is very famous for doing his own stunts.
41:53 Josh Clark? Sure.
41:53 Speaker 03 And it makes a difference, man, when you can tell it's Tom Cruise on the side of that mountain.
41:59 Josh Clark? Man, that was scary. Is that really him?
42:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, Emily worked on that shoot, on that, just that segment in Moab, the, the rock climbing segment.
42:07 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
42:07 Speaker 03 And that's when famously Tom Cruise was like four hours late and flies in on a helicopter and, like, the whole crew was waiting around all day for him.
42:15 Josh Clark? I hadn't heard that.
42:16 Speaker 03 And then, oh, yeah. I mean, famous in my family.
42:18 Josh Clark? Oh, gotcha.
42:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. And now I guess famous to the podcast community.
42:21 Josh Clark? Yeah. Tom Cruise is not punctual.
42:24 Speaker 03 Well, he wasn't that day.
42:27 Josh Clark? Wow, stunts.
42:28 Speaker 03 Have you seen Haywire? The Soderbergh movie?
42:31 Josh Clark? Uh-uh.
42:32 Speaker 03 It's about, uh, assassina- assassins, basically. It's an action movie. Soderbergh's take on an action movie. Uh, but Gina Carano is a former mixed martial artist and, uh, she, she's awesome and does her own stunts.
42:47 Josh Clark? What's her name?
42:47 Speaker 03 Gina Carano.
42:48 Josh Clark? I don't believe I know her.
42:49 Speaker 03 She plays the lead. And she, I think that was her first, like, legit movie.
42:52 Josh Clark? Oh, gotcha, okay.
42:53 Speaker 03 She's known for mixed martial arts. But, um, yeah, she does her own stunts and she's BA.
42:59 Josh Clark? Haywire.
43:00 Speaker 03 Haywire.
43:00 Josh Clark? I'll check it out.
43:01 Speaker 03 I got nothing else.
43:02 Josh Clark? I don't either.
43:02 Speaker 03 Pretty straightforward.
43:04 Josh Clark? Uh, if you want to learn more about stunts, you can type stunts into the How Stuff Works search bar. And I said, "search bar," which means it's time for listener mail.
43:15 Speaker 03 Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh, things we, I guess, say a lot.
43:20 Josh Clark? Oh, no.
43:21 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:21 Josh Clark? Like?
43:22 Speaker 03 No, no, no, that's not in there.
43:23 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
43:24 Speaker 03 Everyone says like, though.
43:25 Josh Clark? I know, but I've, no, people have pointed out here, they're like, you guys say like a lot, and I've started to notice, and I'm, when I say it, when I hear the podcast, I don't hear it when I'm saying it, only later on, when I can't do anything about it.
43:38 Speaker 03 Don't, don't beat yourself up. Everybody says that. Like, there are articles written in, in The New Yorker about the use of the word like in the 21st century.
43:47 Josh Clark? Okay.
43:47 Speaker 03 So, you're part of that crowd.
43:50 Josh Clark? Yeah, I know.
43:51 Speaker 03 You're no millennial.
43:52 Josh Clark? I'm not, I'm an aged person. Something's wrong with me today.
43:58 Speaker 03 Guys, before I start, I feel like I should get out my adoration of the podcast. Always listen as I'm walking my dog, Chloe, keeps me entertained for hours. Um, I love that, uh, you guys are still going strong, and I'm very thankful. I have comprised a list, however, of words and phrases used most often in the show, besides obvious ones, uh, like Chuck or Josh or Search Bar.
44:19 Josh Clark? Let's hear it.
44:20 Speaker 03 In no particular order. Bada bing bada boom?
44:22 Josh Clark? Sure. He left off the Bon Jovi.
44:25 Speaker 03 She.
44:26 Josh Clark? Oh, she.
44:27 Speaker 03 Uh, we'll talk about this later, or we'll get to that.
44:30 Josh Clark? And then, a lot of times, we don't.
44:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, I feel like I say that a lot.
44:33 Josh Clark? I think it's hilarious when we, we say that we're gonna talk about something later, and then we just forget to.
44:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, or I say all the time, I think we should point out, and she didn't put that in here, but I'll go ahead and throw my own on there.
44:43 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, you do say that.
44:45 Speaker 03 Um, I'm making air quotes.
44:47 Josh Clark? Yeah.
44:48 Speaker 03 Uh, I E E G.
44:51 Josh Clark? Yeah.
44:51 Speaker 03 That's one of yours?
44:52 Josh Clark? So pretentious.
44:53 Speaker 03 Uh, that's a good band name, that's usually me.
44:56 Josh Clark? Sure.
44:57 Speaker 03 That's obnoxious. Uh, Sweat.
45:01 Speaker 03 You just talk about Sweat a lot.
45:02 Josh Clark? Yeah.
45:02 Speaker 03 Because of me. Uh, that's a stand-up guy. I don't remember saying that a lot. Do you say that a lot?
45:07 Josh Clark? No.
45:08 Speaker 03 All right, I'm gonna take issue with that one, Catherine. Uh, on the up and up.
45:13 Speaker 03 COA, of course we say that a lot.
45:16 Josh Clark? Definitely.
45:16 Speaker 03 People always ask it what it means.
45:18 Josh Clark? We never tell.
45:18 Speaker 03 We never tell. And then, have you seen the movie? Ironically.
45:23 Josh Clark? That's about right.
45:24 Speaker 03 Yeah. And those are 10 things that we say a lot. And that is, she says she thinks these are great. It comforts her and she smiles. And that is Catherine Phillips.
45:32 Josh Clark? Thanks a lot, Catherine. That's pretty cool. Somebody's out there like, writing lists of things we say.
45:40 Speaker 03 It's nicer to hear people say like, I take comfort in that, except for the emails that we get, like, you guys always say this.
45:45 Josh Clark? You say like, too much. It's John Travolta taking us to task. Word.
45:52 Josh Clark? If you want to take us to task, whether you're John Travolta, or anybody else, or you just want to say, hey, here's a list of things I noticed because of the podcast, or whatever, you can join us on Twitter. Actually, first, before we sign off, let's remind everybody that we're going to be on the TV again.
46:11 Speaker 03 The TV?
46:12 Josh Clark? Yeah, Saturday night, on Science Channel at 10:00 PM will be the premiere of another Stuff You Should Know episode.
46:18 Speaker 03 You can watch us each and every week.
46:20 Josh Clark? Yep, TV show. Stuff You Don't Should Know TV show, 10:00 PM.
46:23 Speaker 03 Or get it on iTunes the following day, on Sunday.
46:26 Josh Clark? That's right, Chuck.
46:27 Speaker 03 Just go to iTunes and type in Stuff You Should Know and see what comes up.
46:30 Josh Clark? Alright, so now we'll sign off, right?
46:32 Speaker 03 Yep.
46:32 Josh Clark? You can get in touch with us on Twitter, @SYSKPodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com/StuffYouShouldKnow. And you can send us a good old fashioned email to [email protected] .
46:48 Speaker 00 For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com.
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Previous SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: How Exploitation Films Work Next SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: Some Movies That Changed Filmmaking Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated