Use Of English Test 10 – The Fall Guy

Nick Gillard earns a living working as a stuntman on films and TV shows but his first tasteattemptlessonexperiment of show business was trick-riding circus horses when he was just 12 years old. Four years later he got the chance to showplaypracticeperform in his first film. ‘I really enjoyed working on the film,’ Nick remembers, ‘so I started asking how I’d go ongo forgo aboutgo by becoming a stuntman.’ Nick couldn’t just introduceestablishput upset up as a stuntman straight away. First he had to get appliedacceptedallowedagreed by the British Stunt Register, which represents stunt professionals in Britain. To do this he had to reach instructor linemarklevelmeasure in six sports including skiing, riding and gymnastics. Since qualifying byinonat the age of 19, Nick has worked on many movies and he has doubled for some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

Safety and timing are all-important for stunt professionals - they plan everything down to the leastlowestlightesttiniest detail. ‘We take the utmost guardcautionattentioncare. It’s not like being an actor where you can givemakehavetake the shot again if it goes wrong. It’s got to work first time.’ Nick has givendonemadeled some terrifyingly dangerous stunts. For one film he jumped across a bridge in a speed boat, and in Alien 3 he was setlitcaughtput on fire, without air, for more than two minutes. Filming on location takesbringsfliesfetches him all aboutthroughacrossover the world, often for months inforaton a time.