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Click here for more info!
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Tue 10 Jan 2006 | 10h46 GMT+1
Info: www.stuntdawgs.com
Arnie stunt double to recreate famed scenes
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Stuntdawgs is a 13-part documentary action-series that takes viewers into the unknown world of movie stunt professionals.
Featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double Peter H. Kent and his team of veteran stunt performers, technicians and
riggers (known as "The Dawgs"), Stuntdawgs takes viewers behind-the-scenes as they concoct high-impact action movie stunts
inspired by cutting-edge action scenes from recent movies.
The stunts - or "gags" as insiders call them - are a shopping list of famous Hollywood movie action scenes like the famous
motorcycle plunge from Terminator 2 and the car stunt from The Fast and the Furious. Each half-hour features The Dawgs as
they put a rookie through an unimaginable stunt, while revealing the planning, science and execution that goes into each
act. Watch as a rookie stuntwoman leaps off a high-rise and lands on her feet, a young stunt driver crashes through an RV
and rolls his car down a city block, a stuntman races over a row of cars as they explode under his heels, and a stuntwoman
skates on a chunk of metal down a steep track in an abandoned mine.
Many of the stunt performers on Stuntdawgs are rookies, "stuntpups" as Kent calls them. They've paid their dues working on
small stunts, trained for the big ones, yet never had the chance to prove themselves in a big gag. Some cry, others ask for
the blessing of the stunt coordinator, and many just need to gather themselves before the cameras can roll.
These spectacles are set-up to look real and dangerous. Yet, while these stunts are organized by industry veterans, no stunt
is ever guaranteed to be safe. The Dawgs walk a fine line and behind the bravado are people who love to live closer to the
edge than most. Lives are always on the line and in the world of make-believe movies, it doesn't get any more real.
TF remark:
Be sure to check out Episodes 2 and 3: 'The T-2 Motorcycle Jump' and the inside Kent (Terminator) carreer info in Episode 13:
'Best of... and more'
- Episode 1: Peter Kent recreates his famous motorcycle jump from Terminator 2, only this time higher and longer.
But the best laid schemes quickly go awry.
- Episode 2: After a bruising close call on a motorcycle, the dawgs find that things go really wrong as they try
to set up a stunt in which a car is supposed to plummet down a cliff and explode.
- Episode 13: Peter Kent reviews the highlights from Stuntdawgs, while sharing a few insights about the stunt world,
his own career as stunt double to Arnold Schwarzenegger and anecdotes from the series.
Stuntdawgs is produced in association with The Movie Network,
Movie Central and Super Écran, with the support of the Canadian
Television Fund, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit and Film Incentive B.C.
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Interview Peter Kent, Canadian Press. By Victoria Ahearn (link)
Being a longtime stuntman for a big action movie star certainly has its ups and downs, says Peter H. Kent, North Vancouver
daredevil and former stunt double for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I've broken my nose and had it rebuilt with bone off my skull ... because it was crushed right flat with my cheekbones,
I've woken up peeing blood a few times, I've had both my knees torn out," he stated, almost proudly, during a recent
interview to promote his new series Stuntdawgs, about a group of stunt professionals recreating death-defying scenes from
major motion pictures.
"I reached (my limit) when I was on a racer and I got hit by a 2 1/2 tonne overseas shipping container which broke my
shoulder and collarbone and messed me up. The doctor told me if I hadn't been wearing the vest I was wearing ... it
probably would've killed me."
Kent, 48, was a stunt double for 15 years in Los Angeles, motivated by an urge for physical danger and adrenalin highs.
"Ever since I've been a kid I've been doing insane stuff," he recounted, wearing a T-shirt that showed off his large,
tattooed biceps.
"I've been in numerous car accidents, motorcycle wrecks ... fractured my skull, broke my jaw on both sides and was DOA
in a car accident when I was 17, destroyed my mom's car in another accident when I was 18. That was God's way of saying,
'Well if you like pain ... why don't you go and be a stunt man?' which I did."
With his chiselled jaw and pumped-up physique, Kent was a perfect fit as stunt double for Schwarzenegger, whom he shadowed
for 13 years in films like Commando, Last Action Hero, Total Recall and three Terminator movies.
"I learned to walk like Arnold and also to talk like him," said Kent, slipping into the California governor's trademark
Austrian accent.
Despite numerous close calls, fractures, breaks and bruises, Kent did enjoy some big perks on the job.
"It was good," he said of his relationship with Schwarzenegger on and off the set. "We were skiing together and I was
over cooking at his house all the time. Pretty much 24-7, face-to-face."
Kent even credits "the Governator" with saving his life.
"Working with Arnold, I had the luxury of being able to go, 'No, I don't think that's safe and don't push me on this,"' said
Kent.
"And if they did (push it), I would just call Arnold on a walkie-talkie and say, 'Arnold, this isn't safe and we're not ready
to go yet,' and he'd (speak) to somebody like the first director and buy me more time."
That's "a luxury that very few have" though, said Kent, admitting many stunt pros "get hurt because it's push, push, push."
That kind of pressure got to be too much for Kent and in 1999 he moved back to Vancouver to finish his autobiography, write
a few screenplays and create the Stuntdawgs concept.
The 13-part documentary action series features a team of stunt professionals and rookie "stunt pups" performing daring and
sometimes dangerous acts based on scenes from big films, including a motorcycle plunge from Terminator 2.
"I'm going to send (Schwarzenegger) a copy of (the episode). He's looking forward to seeing that," said Kent, who helped
develop the Vancouver-based series, which airs Jan. 13 in Canada on The Movie Network's MExcess and Movie Central.
"I told him I was using his voice a little in it, so we'll see what he thinks. It'll probably be, 'Yah, Peter, you bastard."'
Click top link for StuntDawgs website!
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