Stunt Man
Jeffrey Popick, who lives in Arcadia, moved here from New York six years ago wanting to be a stunt driver. At 25, Popick is one of the few stunt men in Hollywood who works regularly, and he says he makes about $150,000 a year. The most he has ever received for a stunt was $15,000 to climb from an airplane to a helicopter at 3,000 feet. Popick’s credits include such television shows as “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Fall Guy.” The following was taken from an interview with Popick by James Bates, a Times staff writer.
I’m a stunt man. I specialize in driving, but I can basically do pretty much anything.
You don’t want to specialize too much, because if there’s no call for your specialty, you’re not going to work. Guys years ago specialized in nothing but horse stuff when there was nothing but Westerns. Once Westerns went out, so did they.
Most guys specialize in fight scenes because there are always fight scenes. But driving really is my thing. It’s just something I always had a natural gift for.
The first thing I did was slide a car; just basically drove up to the camera and did a 90-degree slide. I waited there all day, but the actual shot took maybe 10 minutes.
The first time I turned over a car there was less shock than I thought. It’s just that you hear a lot of noise--metal crunching. Sometimes you’re harnessed to the seat and you’re sitting upright. Sometimes what you do is grab a strap on the passenger seat. When the car starts to turn, you just lean down on the passenger seat, put your arm through the strap up to your elbow and pull yourself down into the seat.
The problem is, you can’t be too confident because something can always go wrong. No matter how simple a maneuver it may be, whether it’s rolling a car or just driving a car, anything can go wrong. That’s part of being a stunt man. I’ve never been around any serious accidents, fortunately.
A fight scene is actually fun. It’s very demanding because you have a lot of timing involved. If you’re throwing a punch and a guy’s throwing a punch at you, it really has to be coordinated very well. Otherwise, somebody’s going to get hit. A lot of times, somebody does.
Getting a job was a long process. I watched the ends of the television shows, saw who the stunt coordinator was and got out to their sets. I just hung around on the set and bothered them. After awhile, they felt it was time to give me a shot.
The industry is relatively closed. Everybody gets to know you. There’s no way to get into the business without having to know the established guys who are already in it. You can’t go to college, come out and be a stunt man with a diploma saying you’re a stunt man.
There was a time when there were no women involved. Now, if you’re doing a scene and there’s an actress involved, the stunt coordinator has to approach two women to do the job. If nobody qualified is available, then he can get a guy to do it. I’ve done it three times. I just put a wig on.
In California, I would say there are about 600 stunt men. Of that number, about 50% actually make a living at it. There must be thousands of guys just trying to get in. Some guys apply for years and never get in. I guess I got lucky. I discourage people who want to get in. The chances are one in a million.
Even when you’re working, you’ve got to know what’s happening tomorrow, so you’re always looking for work even though it’s kind of through the grapevine. You’ve got to know what’s out there or what’s in development. These days, the kind of shows like “Dukes of Hazard” or “The A-Team” are pretty much gone. There’s “Miami Vice,” but that’s not in town. A lot of the shows aren’t heavy action shows now.
But once you’re working and you’re established, there’s nothing like it. The work to me is really play. If you do on the street what you normally do on a set, you can go to jail for it.
It really takes an attitude that you don’t want to grow up. You just want to play for the rest of your life and have fun. In a sense, you feel like you beat the system. If it wasn’t fun, all the money in the world wouldn’t be enough because you wouldn’t want to risk your life doing it.
The best part is that I’m not tied to anybody else’s schedule. I can work when I want. I’ve never gotten up in the morning and said: “Oh God, I’ve got to go to work today.”
The worst part is maybe some of the insecurity involved in the business, which is really innate in the whole entertainment business. You really never know what tomorrow’s going to bring.
