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Tuesday 7 October 2008

Me and my stuntman

I’m like a nervous schoolgirl with my stuntman

The actor's stunt double makes him feel like a schoolgirl

We’re getting close to a ‘take’ and it’s as if all the fears in the world that have gathered in my head are ready now to explode and humiliate me . . . what kind of man is this? I test the plank a few more times . . . I beg forgiveness from Steve, my understanding double, for my pathetic angst. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says and comfortingly adds, ‘There are skilled stuntmen who won’t do anything on heights.’ Sounds a bit unlikely but am somewhat appeased by his story. What a gulf of fear, and whence does it come? And on the set, exposed, undressed in front of my colleagues.

But the director is satisfied that at least I can stand on the thing, although no doubt he had a more ambitious scenario worked out. But he is a cultivated man and makes allowances.

As the magic moment of the ‘take’ grows nearer, there seems to be an almighty bustle and everyone appears to be inspired by my fear to leap on to the scaffolding as if in some crude display of mockery; lights, carpenters, fous pullers! Suddenly, it’s like the Cirque du Soleil! We do the take. It’s OK and I can’t look down because I’m facing the actor, one of Austria’s most celebrated, Tobias Moretti. It’s over, but this time I won’t climb laboriously down the ladder. I walk across the scaffolding and climb over the balcony just like everyone else. But not quite. I still seize the arm of my protector, but I get through it. And I suppose that is the main thing.

© Steven Berkoff

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