Zach Roberts still remembers seeing 1998’s “The Mask of Zorro” for the first time as a child. As he watched the film’s daring stunts and swashbuckling action, he realized that his ambition was to do that.
“I guess I just never really let that go,” Roberts said. “At school, I went to a careers evening and they said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said I wanted to be a stuntman and they said, ‘Go join the Army or become a bricklayer. It’s never going to happen.’”
But happen it did. Roughly 30 years later, Roberts picked up his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Stunt Performance, alongside Gyula Tóth, Chris Cox and Jake Cox, for “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” They’ve been recognized for the fifth episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel, which includes a massive seven-on-seven skirmish led by Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall (Peter Claffey) on one side and Prince Aerion Targaryen (Finn Bennett) on the other.
The sequence is bloody and brutal, filled with flying weapons, rogue horses and intricate choreography. Roberts took over as Aerion from the moment the prince dons his ostentatious headgear: “As soon as the helmet went down, that was all me,” he said. The four-man team (plus 10 riders for the jousts) worked closely with stunt coordinator Florian Robin and second-unit director Rob Inch for a sequence that took around 10 days to shoot, after heavy rehearsals.
“When we got there on the day, they really knew the target for each day, and it meant we had freedom,” Roberts said. “Where can we push a little bit to get those elements that are the magic?”
Though the arena was built for a dry fight, Roberts said “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” creator Ira Parker pushed for the brawl to take place in mud. It added an element of chaos and grounded the sequence, but it also made things heavier, slower and more slippery.
At the same time, Roberts had to work while wearing his character’s intricate armor. As a nobleman of the realm, Aerion sports spike-covered shoulders and a helmet modeled after his own face. But the helmet lacked peripheral vision and limited Roberts’ visibility, while the shoulders created their own challenges.
“What can look amazing can impede us,” he noted. “Originally, a lot of the spikes were metal. Smashing into somebody or falling, you’re on metal spikes, so then you have to negotiate: Is there any way we can rubberize them or cut them to make them safer, so we can have that amazing look without it actually being a danger?”
In the end, the spikes were rubberized. But Roberts still had Aerion’s long, flowing cape to contend with. “We fought to have that cut down,” he said. “If you remember ‘The Incredibles’ when Edna Mode says, ‘No capes!’—there is a really strong reason why. I might try and run forward and a horse stands on it.
The negotiations, Roberts said, are at the heart of a stunt performer’s career—looking at every variable to find the best way to safely render action on screen. With Roberts now serving as the assistant coordinator on Season 2, it’s safe to say his childhood swashbuckling dreams have been realized.
“A lot of people think that stuntmen are crazy or take all these risks, but it’s actually very calculated because it needs to be repeatable,” he said. “So you just learn the parameters. How have we made everything safe? If we communicate well, we’re limiting the chance of risk or something happening, knowing that it is possible. It’s not that you don’t feel alive or on the edge in those moments. You just get into the zone where you feel everything happening.”
This story first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
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