This essay is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What do we fear? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page.
What’s worse: the fear of dying or the fear of not living? As a stunt double, my job was to be the living embodiment of many people’s fears. But I wasn’t born fearless.
During my childhood, I discovered that gymnastics was the perfect sport to help me overcome my fears and anxieties. I started at age 5, and the lessons I learned as a young athlete helped me throughout my life.
Once, I was learning a discipline called the pirouette on the parallel bars. The technique required swinging up to a handstand and performing a 180-degree turn across the two bars before coming back down again. After some initial failed attempts, I started to cry. My coach, Nick Inns, turned to me and said, “Don’t go home without attempting the pirouette again. Because if you don’t, you’ll be scared of it forever.” Still shaking with fear, I tried again, this time executing the move perfectly.
Then, at 14, I landed a stunt double role in the movie “Lost in Space.” (I had auditioned because my gymnastics coach at the time, Jeff Hewitt-Davis, also worked as a stunt double.) On the film set, my bravery was celebrated, and I learned this was a viable career option. I fell in love with moviemaking. I also fell in love with the adulation I earned after executing a stunt. It was very different from the applause I’d heard during gymnastics competitions. The shouts and cheers were more visceral.
As a stunt double, your job goes beyond performing the death-defying feats for the actor you are doubling. You need to truly understand the physical capabilities of who you are working with and, if you can, help them expand what they can do. This involves studying exactly how the actor moves and reacts. When a stunt is too risky for an actor to achieve, you step up, put on the costume and risk your own life and limbs.
The big stunts require managing fear and harnessing adrenaline to get into a state of hyper focus. You must block out all external influences and focus on the stunt itself. I used to close my eyes and visualize how the stunt would appear on camera, similar to how I would rehearse gymnastics routines in my head before a competition. By doing this, the fear of the stunt itself went away. My fear of getting it wrong and looking like I wasn’t the best person for the job was far greater than my fear of getting hurt.
I was later hired as the stunt double for Daniel Radcliffe during the “Harry Potter” movie series, where I logged more broomstick miles than anyone else in the franchise. That is, until January 2009, when I performed my last stunt ever. Something went wrong during a rehearsal, and my neck was broken. The injury paralyzed me instantly. I was 25 years old, and forced to accept a whole new life, body and fears.
I soon learned that navigating paralysis as a quadriplegic was a special sort of journey — one I hope nobody reading this will ever have to go through. Today, I use an electric wheelchair and deal with anxieties and stresses I’d never previously imagined. Air travel as a paralyzed man requires an extreme act of bravery equal to the days when I used to set myself on fire for a living. In my old job, I was suspended on wires daily, and now I’m suspended in a medical hoist every day just to get out of bed.
Everything changed after the accident. I went from being able to spend 10 minutes standing on my hands to not even being able to sit upright independently. In addition to navigating post-traumatic stress disorder, new fears developed: the fear of being lonely; the fear of being left behind by my family and friends; the fear of being helpless and having no one to call; the fear of being a burden. The list went on and on.
But I refuse to bow to fear. I’ve lost friends to suicide and cancer, and when my fight seems too overwhelming, I revisit the lessons these friends taught me about how I want to live. Sometimes just getting through the day is much harder and scarier than any stunt I’ve ever performed. Post-accident, I had to rediscover the inspiration to keep fighting for life.
My paralysis is slowly getting worse, and the loss of independent breathing is potentially in my future. Instead of accepting this reality, I’ve leaned into the fear. Currently, I’m working with a free-diving expert who’s helping me learn to achieve a five-minute breath hold. I’ve accomplished many other amazing things. I made the documentary “David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived” alongside my good friend Daniel, and I work to raise money for Britain’s Royal National Orthopedic Hospital. There have been bumps in the road, yet no way am I giving up. Instead, I return to my question — what’s worse: the fear of dying or the fear of not living?
We’re given the gift of life, and as we grow up, we start to understand that things can and will be taken away. Every human being will experience the loss of their loved ones and then, finally, the loss of their own abilities — both physical and mental. At 25, I learned this the hard way.
But there’s a saying in stunt work I like to remember: You’re only living when you’re nearly dying. That’s why I still push back on fear. I laugh at the Grim Reaper. And given the opportunity, I’d set him on fire, kick him down the stairs and run him over with a car. Then, I’d ask him if he’s brave enough to do a second take.
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