By John Stead
Congratulations, Paul, on being the 2023 recipient of the ACTRA Toronto Stunt Award! What does this award mean to you knowing that you’ve been honoured by a jury of your peers?
It’s an honour being recognized by such a talented group of performers and coordinators. I have had a 40-plus-year career and it feels amazing to have my own skills and talents recognized at this level.
I’m curious as to how you first started your career in stunts?
As a child in the ‘60s and ‘70s, there was a lot of television involving westerns and all the crazy cowboy stunts. I could ride; I learnt in Australia at the age of six and never stopped. I was pretty much just turned loose on the horses and surprised my parents when they saw me blasting past them riding bareback. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a stuntman. Particularly involving horses.
So in my 20s, I figured if I was ever going to do this, I needed to just try. I knew a guy who by happenstance knew a stunt coordinator named Bobby Hannah. I called Bobby out of the blue, he didn’t know me from Adam but I said, “if you ever need horse stunts, I’m your guy.”
Two weeks later, he called me back and said “I got this job, can you do it?”
He said, “What do you need? Let me pick the horses and give me a week to work them and I’ll be ready.”
And the rest is history. The stunt couldn’t have gone any better and I haven’t looked back. It was a tricky stunt, it was for still photography and I had to jump from galloping horse to galloping horse in a creek, wearing a suit and holding a briefcase.
What were your training and unique interests that led you down this road?
Mostly I was self taught with horses. I did attend a vocational college in California where I learned a lot of western riding, training and horsemanship.
For other stunts… I took performance driving courses and pretty much tried anything I was offered. I was pretty much able to do any stunt I was asked to do, from air rams, high falls, car hits and fights.
How did you make the transition to stunt coordinator and, further to that, are there difficulties in moving back and forth between the professions of animal wrangler and our field of stunts?
I transitioned to Stunt Coordinator when Ken Quinn let me do some coordinating on Due South. I was one of the lead stunt doubles on the show, doubling Paul Gross. It was an invaluable lead in which I participated in production meetings and such. The show was heavy in stunts and a wide-variety of stunts, so I learnt a lot. On the final season of Due South, they did a two-hour episode in Alberta and since they had two units I coordinated one and Ken did the other. It was a real eye opener.
It’s like anything, once you put some time in and do some good work, you get a name, get networking, friendships, and start getting more and more jobs.
The difficulty going between Stunts and Wrangling? Mainly the difficulties come when I work with a Stunt Coordinator who doesn’t understand horses or is scared of them. Or on occasion, they want their buddies to be the ones riding or working with the animals doing stunts. I’m always willing to audition people they suggest, but generally it doesn’t work out. I have extremely high standards of riding, driving or animal handling. My horses are well trained and valuable. There can be a lack of respect for horses and animals on set, even within the stunt community.
As an example, currently there is language in the IPA that speaks to Stunt Driving Guidelines (A2611), but there is nothing in terms of horses.
Horses have a mind of their own and, if you’ve ever seen a horse wreck, especially a carriage-driving one, you’ll know how dangerous they can get in a hurry. Without anything written, we can sometimes have a hard time with producers and coordinators not wanting to spend the money on stunts and stunt safety. Wranglers have no union and basically it’s the Wild West when it comes to getting what we need in terms of safety on set.
I have set a standard that anything over a trot should be considered a stunt and any time cast is on horseback we have stunt safety horses on set with them. It can be hard convincing some coordinators and producers that we need this. It’s also hard to get actors the amount of prep needed as well as rehearsals. For whatever reason, horses/animals just aren’t given the same respect as other stunts.
Did you know? ACTRA Toronto recently launched a Best Practices for Working with Animals guide, which was created to assist performers and productions by ensuring the most positive and creative interactions when working with animals.
This business can be exceptionally challenging at times. What are the greatest challenges you’ve faced in your career, both past and present?
One of the biggest challenges is balancing career and family. In the past, my first marriage ended and I feel a big part of that was because I was so busy and didn’t spend as much time with my family as I should have. But to tie-in the feast or famine aspect of stunts, it’s also really hard to balance and was also part of that. Financial insecurity is hard on a marriage.
At the beginning of my career, I also had to try and balance having a regular job to meet everyday bills, but still being able to leave at the drop of a hat to do a stunt. Luckily for me, my career took off pretty fast and I was able to do stunts full-time quickly.
For the present, the biggest challenge is that I’m older and I just don’t get as much work as the young guys do. I don’t feel old; I’m still pretty capable of doing a lot. I’m not going to step out in front of a car, but other than that. I just spent four days riding a horse over jumps for a show so I’m still fit, but in our society it sometimes feels that once you hit a certain age you just get sidelined.
You’ve worked with some great stunt coordinators, actors and directors during your near 40 years in this business. Was there anyone in particular who had a strong impact on your life either professionally or personally?
As far as coordinators go, Dwayne McLean, Brent Woosley, Danny Virtue and John Scott. Brent, Danny and John are the legends out West when it comes to horses and I was one of the only Eastern guys that they would fly out to do big horse stunts and shows out there. I also learned a lot working with them. John Scott actually got me my first big wrangling job. When Copper, the BBC America period show, replaced their first season producers with guys from out West, they asked John who to hire and he told them to hire me. It was an honour to be thought of so highly.
Charlie Picerni, Buddy Joe Hooker, and Conrad Palmisano are American coordinators whom I’ve worked with in Canada and the U.S. and who have had a big impact on my career.
Steve Demarco was a director who I had a lot of fun with. The first time I ever worked with him, we were working on Top Cops. I was getting ready to load myself in a vehicle to get to my “number ones” and all of a sudden Steve gets the whole crew to start chanting ‘BONE CRUSHING STUNTS.’ Every single time I saw Steve after that he would yell “Hey Pauly, BONE CRUSHING STUNTS.” I worked with him a lot and he was one of the nicest guys. His death was a huge loss to our community.
I doubled a lot for Robin Williams. He had a big impact on my personal and professional life. I was called after his death to finish Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. They needed some shots showing him in some scenes. It was a really emotional and intense three days for myself and the whole crew. His death was such a tragedy.
I’ve also doubled a couple of other actors whom I felt it was an honour to double, such Willem Dafoe and Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro is really particular about his stunt doubles. They said we need to make sure ‘you’re through the process’ before he sees you and we introduce you to him. Before we get there I can hear his voice. I walk up to him and the AD says “Mr. De Niro, here is your stunt double Paul Rutledge.” He gives me that squinty-eyed look, points his finger at me and says “you look familiar to me.” We laughed and it was all good.
Paul, you’ve been doing this a long time. You’ve seen the industry evolve on many different levels. After doing stunts for several decades now, what are the biggest changes you’ve experienced and how have they affected you in our particular field?
Motion capture, wires, computers, visual effects and VFX have changed the industry so much. Also, the day of the utility stunt performer who can do pretty much anything is coming to an end. There are so many specialized skills and people to fill them now. I’m not sure it has affected me negatively. Not in a big way anyway.
Second to that…what are the new challenges you and others, in your opinion, will face as stunt performers in the future?
My biggest concern is artificial intelligence (AI) and motion capture and whether our union will be able to protect us from losing our rights to our images. I think that’s the biggest challenge.
Other than that I think it will be harder and harder to get into stunts without high-level, specialized skills. Gone are the days when you just had to be athletic, game and brave to get in the door.
The challenges in executing some gags may be both complex in nature, and surprising to many people, as to why it was difficult to achieve.
What, in your mind, was the most challenging stunt you’ve had to perform and/or coordinate?
There were a couple that were really challenging to perform.
I did a stirrup drag at a full gallop. No one had ever done one in Eastern Canada before. I had to figure it out all by myself. They flew me in after the reenactor group had no idea what they were doing.
It was more or less using my wits and figuring out how to get it put together so that neither myself or the horse would get hurt, while being able to do it more than once. It’s physics, rigging a quick release harness, a little bit of common sense, materials, the right horse… and a bit of a death wish. It was on a hard-packed gravel road… there were no mats or soft grass, a few stone walls to bounce off of. We did five takes. No idea why but it was 35 degrees at Mont Saint-Bruno just outside Montreal. It was steaming hot. The first AD, David Warry-Smith, said he’d never seen anything like it. He said it was the most ridiculous stunt he’d ever seen and he doesn’t know how I walked away.
And sometimes you have the pressure of big American Stunt Coordinators who come and think that Canadians are subpar. So on The Scarlet Letter, Brent Woosley and I had to do a bulldog stunt where I tackle him off his horse from a high vantage point. It was pretty much a blind stunt. I could see him start off for the first couple strides, then he disappeared until I was launching off the rock to tackle him. I had to figure out the horse’s canter stride and then count the canter beats and go from that. The pressure was intense because it was such a challenging stunt and they didn’t think we could get it. We did it on the first take and did one more for safety. Then heard the cheering from the camera crew after “Yay Canada!”
Paul, I’ve had the privilege to work with you on many occasions and observe first-hand your exemplary work. If you could, what would you have done differently and what would you advise new stunt performers entering our profession today?
I would have networked better and tried to be better at promoting myself. I’ve never been super comfortable talking about myself. It’s much easier now with websites, social media and cell phones lol. We had pagers back then. But even now I’m not great at talking myself up.
Young stunt performers need to show up, put their egos away. Do the hard work, help out on set, be humble and willing to learn, and take direction and constructive criticism. I won’t hire people who can’t work like that. ‘Set’ is a mind game, you can be the best at your skill but it’s a different story when the pressure of cameras, crews, producers, etc. are there. I’ve seen a lot of people fold under pressure on set.
John Stead has been a stunt performer and stunt coordinator for 35 years. He has also worked extensively as a fight director for the stage and directed on several films and television series. He is the recipient of two Canadian Screen Awards for Best Stunt Coordination and numerous theatrical and directorial awards.
