I punch a lot of guys on set. It's much easier than in real life as your hands don't hurt afterwards. The key is that you miss.
Hollywood is a far safer place to work than working abroad, because of the skill level, and because of the safety considerations that experience and unionization have created.
God help me if I ever do another movie with an explosion in it. If you see me in a movie where stuff is exploding you'll know I've lost all my money.
The worst was practicing a stunt for John Wayne in 'McQ.' I lost two teeth, broke six ribs, cracked a vertebra and punctured a lung. I spent 12 days in the hospital.
In an action film you act in the action. If it's a dramatic film you act in the drama.
Actors are always nervous about not only hurting each other, but maybe perhaps hitting each other's face and ending one's career.
When I was doing a movie called 'The Seeker,' I was fortunate enough to be able to do a lot of my own stunts.
It was bad for a stuntman to have a reputation for being hurt, and worse yet to report it.
I had done a lot of running in 'Texas Chainsaw' and sword-fighting in 'Percy Jackson,' which taught me to fall properly.
There are a lot of big action movies that we've worked on where the attitude has been, 'Let's just get through this scene.' Then you get those jumpy, what-were-they-thinking action sequences.
I did put on weight for the last half of the film, but the Ferris wheel scene was shot with a harness on me so that if I fell I wouldn't fall all the way.
We take safety very, very seriously on every film I make, and that's why I've never had a serious accident or anybody killed when I make a picture.
It's a very, very rare moment when another actor hurts you. That's not normal. If anything, it's the actor accidentally punching the stunt double, which happens quite a bit.
I have made 70 or so films. In all my films not a single actor, a single extra, was hurt. Not one. So statistics are on my side when I say I'm clinically sane.
Kamal Haasan makes sure that his co-artists wear the safety gear when they perform stunts.
To do a train wreck and make it look real on screen is tremendously skilful.
Actors say they do their own stunts for the integrity of the film but I did them because they looked like a lot of fun.
Every time you do a big sword fight surrounded by a couple of hundred extras, it's a fun day at work.
A film set is a workplace for me; it's my office, and nobody really wants to be in a stressful work environment.
When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.
We made sure nobody died on the show. We made sure nobody ever drowned on 'Baywatch.'
People used to say, 'Well, how do you fake that?' Two words - we don't. When you got hit with the chair, you got hit with the chair.
As an actor, I can still play a cop, but the bullets are fake, I don't have to get injured, and I'm not faced with the day-in-day-out of what cops have to deal with, which is tragic and dangerous.
When you're dealing with a shoot day that's costing somebody $300,000; when you're responsible for making that day; when you've got a half-million-dollar stunt that you've got to make sure you cover properly. You don't want to be doing that early in your career. You want to be making your mistakes when not many people are watching.
Stunt coordinating is a good training ground for directing because you have exposure to all the departments in film.
