Would you jump off the Great Wall of China for 300 pounds a day?
A stunt (特技表演)person is a man or woman who does all the dangerous bits of acting work in films or on TV. This can be anything from a simple fall into a swimming pool, or walking off the top of a tall building. It sounds like a job that you would have to be made to try, but there are actually lots of people who want to do it.
Sarah France, twenty-four, is one of Britain's sixteen professional stunt women —there are one hundred and sixty stunt men in the country. We asked Sarah how she came to be a stunt woman.
"When I was young I was trained to be a dancer, and for seven years after school I was hardly out of work. A dancer's life is pretty short, though, and my father suggested I should think about doing stunt work after I'd given up dancing. I thought about it for the next two years and decided to have a go. For six months, I worked really hard every day. I had to learn different skills—swimming, jumping, horse -riding, etc."
Sarah finished the course in just five months and applied to the office which decides whether you're accepted as a professional stunt person or not. Two weeks after she was accepted, Sarah was throwing off the Great Wall of China in Superman IV.
"I was very lucky to get work so quickly. I had a small part, playing a traveler who fell off the Wall after an earthquake. The traveler's life was saved by Superman, of course! Actually, I fell forty-five feet into a pile of cardboard boxes! You can't use anything softer than that or you will be brought back into view of the cinema. Instead you just have to learn to fall properly. It's quite dangerous but I enjoy it."
