“The Margin Of Error Is Literal Inches”: 11 Insider Facts And Tiny Details I Learned After Training With A Hollywood Stuntman For A Day
I admire actors who perform their own stunts since I, a nonathletic nihilist, could never. I'm a writer, not a fighter — 'action hero' is so outside my casting! But I'm finally following my therapist's advice this year to step out of my comfort zone and at least try to live the life I daydream about. So, I reached out to a Hollywood stuntman for a stunt training session.
Y'all, meet Dustin Stern-Garcia — we take acting classes together. Besides being an actor, Dustin's a professional stuntman who specializes in fight work. He's been in the game for almost a decade, and has worked stunts on several high-profile films and TV series such as Birds of Prey, Mulan, The Gray Man, WandaVision, and most recently Babylon.
Dustin was down to give me a crash course in stunt fighting and teach me a few moves, so we took a visit to a local stunt gym he frequents for a training session. Here's what I learned:
1.It's all in the body (control) — being able to move smoothly and precisely is the foundation of everything in stunts. So, if you're new to stunt work like me, it's best to start with the "boring" basics and master your own body.
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I thought Dustin would show me how to do stunt falls or how to be (safely) slammed into the ground. Instead, we started off a very basic foundational stunt move: Spinning in a straight line. And honestly, I struggled with that.
"A lot of actors want to immediately dive into weapon work or extreme falls," Dustin explained, "but it's so important to have control of your own body, and be precise with it."
And that's why our training session was mostly foundational stunt moves: throwing/receiving stunt punches, basic sword combat, spinning, and rolling over the shoulder forwards and backwards.
2.I don't need to be the most ripped person in the room to be a stuntman. However, core and tendon strength is crucial — both help stunt folks hold a position, and prevent injuries to themselves and others. After all, the margin of error in stunt work is literal inches.
"When I'm 'punching' someone in the face, I’m punching so close so that it reads like a true hit on camera," Dustin said. "So, it's important for me to be able to stop a punch early if an actor leans a little closer than planned, for example.
That's why body control and spatial awareness in stunt fighting is key."
3.It's the reactions that really "sell" a stunt. That's why there's a lot more acting that goes into fight performance than most people would expect.
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Part of what makes the above move look so powerful is Dustin hitting the floor with his arm (in another take, he even slaps the floor) before letting the rest of his body safely land.
"As a stunt person, a lot of times you have so much power in a scene," Dustin said. "If a punch is making contact, it's not a full-contact hit. It's more of a tap. But it's the stunt person's job is to make it believable, whether we're hitting or getting hit. And people don't think the acting part of stunts is a physical activity, but it sort of actually is."
He drove his point further by teaching me the flipping move above, the same stunt Margot Robbie performed on him eight times in a row while filming Birds Of Prey.
Warner Bros. Pictures
All I did was fall to my shins and pull Dustin's arm — he launched himself over me and did a stunt landing that made me look WWE-worthy.
"Our job as a stunt person is to make the actor look good," Dustin said.
And damn, did I look good!
4.I learned that part of being an actor doing your own stunts is being honest about your own strengths and weaknesses so that you look best on camera. For example, Dustin said my punches were pretty good!
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However, my reactions to getting stage-punched? "We'd probably cut to your stunt double for that," Dustin said. A shady response, but the movie would truly look better for it!
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"In stunts, we want to maximize the performance of the actor," Dustin said. "Even when we work with actors who aren't as trained to the point of Charlize Theron or Tom Cruise, we still want to see their faces as much as possible. So, if I flipped you over my shoulder, we'd likely get that first motion with you in it, then cut to your double being slammed to the floor — a pro stunt person is just going to be able to make any fall look better, because they've done it so many times."
5.There's a need for speed in stunts — you have to know how to land a stunt punch or dodge a hook the right way, and it needs to be quick. That takes A LOT of training.
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Reacting fast takes practice, too. So, don't come for me and my delayed reactions!
Above, Dustin demo'd the fight combo I did with him at its intended speed. Yeah...my stunt double will be dealing with that.
6.Many people, myself included, think stunts are all about explosive motions, or going all out, each take. But I learned stunts also requires regulating energy — many shoots are at least 12 hours, and stunt people are expected to perform stunts multiple times, hitting their mark (safely) each time.
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Dustin explained: "'Everybody can be a stuntman...once.' I like that quote a lot because the joke there is that you might really hurt yourself, and others, if you don’t know what you’re doing or paying close attention to everything going on."
7.Stunt people are paid for their experience, readiness, and being adaptable at a moment's notice. Because on a professional shoot, things move (very) fast.
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"I recently worked on a movie with a scene that had me hanging off a moving truck," Dustin said. "After a take, the director called, 'Cut,' walked over, and asked me if I could instead hang on a cable from the back of the truck, and swing to the other side. They were so excited about it! So, I had about the time it took for the director to walk back to video village (where the camera feed is set up) to think how I was going to make it happen. That's normal."
"I started with the technical — if I'm swinging, I have to position my hand in a way that my knuckles are facing away from the truck; otherwise, they’ll get crushed between my body and the truck. So, I turned my knuckles the other way. The director is prepping to call the shot, I’m getting ready and trying the move out before they call action, and then they call it. And I was ready."
8.Even though I have a long way to go in my stunt journey, training never stops for a pro stunt person either. They devote years to training their bodies to be prepared for any situation, so that they get it right the first time and not make mistakes.
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"Mistakes are expensive in this industry," Dustin said. "If you accidentally punch an actor because you couldn’t adapt, you’re gonna get fired, the actor’s gonna have a black eye, and production is going to shut down for a day."
"So, in between work, I prioritize staying physically active. I personally like to identify my weaknesses and proactively improve them. I mean, I might get a gig where I’m asked to walk a thin plank, so I know I need to strengthen my balance. In stunt work, you never really know what’s gonna come your way."
9.It's unfair for me to compare myself to working actors with stunt training like Dustin, who has been training since he was a kid. The only thing I can do is keep training, and the best place to do it as a local stunt gym!
"My fight work knowledge goes back to my martial arts training growing up, but stunt work really started getting lucrative for me in just the last seven years," Dustin said. "A friend I met through the stunt gym I was training at was making a short film, and I joined him on it. My stunt career kind of naturally grew from there. That's why I recommend stunt gyms — they're a great place to naturally make connections with others who are serious about improving, too."
10.Also, actors are hardly thrown into a scene and expected to know how to make a fight or stunt look good for the screen. Stunts and fight work are prepped and choreographed long before filming through an extremely collaborative process called pre-visualization, or previs.
"Previs is basically a way for the stunt crew to pitch the concept of how a proposed stunt sequence would look," Dustin said. "And we'll often build sets out of cardboard boxes to really sell the vision."
"There's a lot of collaboration, and trust, involved in stunts that most people aren't aware is even happening. Huge stunt scenes are usually written into the script in broad terms, and it's the stunt coordinator who comes up with a more specific vision for these scenes. The screenplay might say things like, 'There's a car chase. He gets out of the car, jumps over the fence, the hero catches up to him, and they fight.' Well, what does that fight look like? What is that car chase like? What wires, if necessary, are involved? The stunt coordinator works with the fight coordinator, the drivers, and the stunt riggers to create these beats."
"And we usually want previs to feel really polished, which is why we'll build stuff — cars, walls, windows, whatever — out of boxes. And it ranges from being filmed on a phone to being 'properly' filmed, like we're shooting our own movie. The more finished it looks, the better."
11.Like most careers in the entertainment industry, stunt work is a profession that requires preparation, perseverance, and patience. For Dustin, it took years before it felt like he'd earned his seat at the table.
"Working on Birds of Prey was the turning point in my stunt career. That's when it started to feel real. That audition was special because they wanted some acting, too. I actually still have the script sides from it."
"It was the first time on a set I truly felt like it was known that I was going to be in the film. And working with Margot Robbie was a great experience — she was friendly, professional, and just willing to play."
"Even though my scene was cut from the final version of the film, a Hollywood rite of passage, the experience still means so much to me. I'll never forget sitting in my car after the shoot, sobbing over the money I made from that job. It felt good."
And when I asked Dustin about Babylon, one of the biggest sets he's worked on in the last few years, his eyes lit up. "Usually, previs is just about five or so people to step in for the actors — for Babylon, there were 30 of us," he said. "It was too much fun. The stunt coordinators on that film are actual legends, and they gave us a lot of creative expression. So, it was us stunt folks who kind of already all knew each other, out in this giant field with swords and axes, beating each other up and discovering what worked."
Paramount
"There is a scene in the film when an army of us just storm down this 45° hill," Dustin said. "That moment honestly felt like being a kid when we'd play with pretend swords. It was just so playfully epic."
"Stunt work is essentially storytelling through movement," Dustin said. "It's always been that. You have to know how to use action in a way that is going to complement the story, and enhance the message of the project. I’ve noticed audiences aren't as interested in action for the sake of action as before — they want it to tell a story. That's more and more present in the work I've been doing, including Babylon, and why I'm excited to keep sculpting stories, as an actor and stuntman."
And here's what training with a stuntman taught me about myself: Not everybody is meant to do their own stunts. And that's okay! Before training with Dustin, I vaguely understood the complexity of stunt work — I wanted to do my own stunts, but didn't fully understand the grueling amount of training that requires. So now, I have a different attitude about actors who don't do all their own stunts: They're simply letting more experienced professionals do what they do best.
And maybe I will be able to do my own stunts in the future, if I keep training — I'll leave that to my stunt double, though.
