Spoke to the legendary, daring and interesting Jack Gill, veteran Hollywood stunt coordinator responsible for some of the most over-the top action sequences in movie history. Jack has worked on ‘Money Train,’ Austin Powers,’ ‘Date Night,’ ‘Wild Hogs,’ ‘Miss Congeniality’ and most recently the incredible car scenes and vault stealing scene in blockbuster ‘Fast Five’ starring Vin Diesel and The Rock. How did Jack get into this business? “I used to race motor cars professionally back in Florida and as I got out of this race, I ran into a couple of stunt guys who said we’re filming this movie a few blocks away from here so when you get finished you should come over and take a look” said Jack. “And I did and I ended up hanging out for a couple of weeks and they said they were looking for really good motorcycle guys to come out to California because they have a couple of things you can do for me so I packed everything and came out to California and started jumping motorcycles.” Young Jack was 19 at the time and besides motor cross racing he was also racing stock cars and that’s the key he said to making it in the business. ”You have to be good at everything not just one thing, everything.”
Jack who thought he would originally be a professional motor cross racer said. “All my life I have been doing really weird things. Before I met the stunt guys I was jumping off my two-story house just because it was fun.” Well now Jack gets to have fun with the biggest action stars in the world as well as the biggest comedy stars coordinating all those scenes including comedy stunts like Sandra Bullock falling over on her feet in ‘Miss Congeniality’ to car scenes in ‘Fast Five’ going 135 miles per hour that look so easy on screen but actually take much time, effort and smarts to put together. “Some of those scenes you see in there are at real speed they’re not speed-ed up at all. During the filming of ‘Fast Five’ we were on the streets in Puerto Rico and sometimes going 80-100 miles an hour. All this time people are on the sidewalks, crossing streets and background traffic and there’s a lot going on so it’s pretty energetic at time and you really have to stay on top of your game.”
Jack then worked on ‘Dukes of Hazard” doubling as John Schneider then ‘Knight Rider’ which lead to movies and the rest is as they say stunt history.
Jack said, “it’s not really about the money or the fame at the end of the day, it about the adrenalin rush.” Jack’ job is to make sure all stunts go smoothly and everything works out at the end of the day. “And when it does that’s the adrenalin rush.” I’d say, who would want to be responsible for Vin Diesel getting hurt. Perish the thought.
Jack just finished working with Jennifer Aniston in comedy Wanderlust’ you know the movie which was rumored to want the girl next door to do frontal nudity. In the movie starring good movie friend Paul Rudd, Jack had to coordinate a stunt that read: “One actor is on the shoulders of another actor as he walks out of the lake with him on his shoulders.” So of course Mr. Gill’s job was to make sure his million dollar actress didn’t sink in the lake all the while making his audience laugh.
Now what Jack? “I’ve been working on getting the Academy to nominate a best stunt category because it’s such a big part in movie making. I’ve been trying for twenty years and they still won’t. I even got names like Dustin Hoffman, James Cameron, and Arnold Schwarzenegger to write letters and it goes on deaf ears.” Keep writing Jack, eventually the Academy will pay attention, but next time you may have to leave out the ex-governor’s letter.
The stunts were great in this movie! Amazing!