“Cotton Mather is an innovative force from the Canadian Stunt community. We are delighted to honour his contributions and reveal the skilled performance artistry behind the wheels of some of the most iconic scenes from the North American film canon.”
Kate Ziegler, ACTRA Toronto President
(3-minute read)
From a young age, Cotton Mather was drawn to anything mechanical. He spent hours tinkering
in his family’s garage and it wasn’t long before he convinced his father to buy him a used go-kart. Cotton spent countless hours modifying it and racing it around his quiet cul-de-sac, terrorizing the neighbourhood. This early passion for all things mechanical would lead to a groundbreaking career in the world of stunts.
As a young teen, he developed a fascination for motorcycles, which continues to this day training on a dirt bike for stunt work and keeping an edge for driving his GT1 race car in a National series he has won three times. While completing his BFA in university, he worked as a mechanic in a local motorcycle shop and raced on dirt tracks and road courses, which led to winning the 24hrs of Mosport in Ontario with his team. His passion for racing eventually brought him to California, where Cotton was invited to the set of the Dukes of Hazzard. He knew then that he must become a stunt driver.
After taking on a few background roles in Toronto, Cotton caught the attention of an agent who
represented stunt players as well as actors and a meeting was arranged. Three days later he was working on a TV series chasing a Cessna down a runway on a snowmobile while wearing a dress and pantyhose on one of the coldest winter days on record. It was a wild start to what would become a solid career in film and television stunts.
Becoming a member of ACTRA in 1985 and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) a year later, Cotton also started to innovate on the technical side of the stunt world. As he worked on film and TV, he developed the Motocam, a motorcycle-based camera rig that changed the way stunt action is filmed. Moving to Los Angeles, he was introduced to James Cameron, who invited him to test his rig for Terminator 2. Cameron chose Cotton’s Motocam for the film’s Los Angeles River canal chase scene and the vehicle is now part of the permanent collection at the Peterson Automotive Museum in L.A.
Over the years, Cotton’s career continued to expand with stunt work in films like Last Action
Hero, The Getaway and Patriot Games as well as the technically demanding hotel sequence
that involved the horse/motorcycle chase in True Lies. Cotton also pushed the envelope of
stunt filming technology, creating a snowmobile-based camera rig dubbed by the crew as the
‘Snomocam’ for the ski hill sequence in True Lies and developed other groundbreaking rigs based
on racecars and motorcycles. He pioneered the use of the Steadicam and the Tyler helicopter
mount on motorcycles and taught the use of the Steadicam on vehicles for Cinema Products at
its annual workshop in Los Angeles.
From the mid-1990s to approximately 2015, Cotton had a stunt bag and a rig in L.A., Toronto,
and Vancouver. He was constantly on the move to the next big show – “Not a recommended
lifestyle!”
His work ethic and pursuit of new stunt technologies made him an industry fixture. Today,
Cotton continues to drive innovation and inspire future generations of stunt professionals and
filmmakers alike, with recent projects including IT: Welcome to Derry, Motorheads, Devil in
Disguise and the Reacher spinoff Dutch and Knuckles.
