The Fall Guy

Andy Pilgrim is staring down a 100 ft drop.

All that separates him from a potentially fatal injury is an inflated airbag and the concrete building he stands on.

One wrong step could alter Andy’s life forever. Safety precautions have been put into place, but there is only so much you can prevent when jumping off a building.

It’s all up to him. There’s no-one left to help him. No turning back. The only thing he can rely on is his years of training and the trust in his team.

He gets into position, takes a deep breath and leaps off the side of the building.

It’s a nightmare for some. For Andy? It’s just Tuesday.

Considering Andy faces the risk of catastrophic accidents day to day on set as a stuntman, he doesn’t seem overly fazed. Sure, there is always fear attached to each stunt he completes, but it is quickly overpowered by his supreme confidence in his own ability.

Crazy? Maybe. Calm and composed? Unquestionably.

“If you’re doing a 100ft high fall into an airbag, you’ve got to be crazy, but you’ve always got to have a very level head and control that adrenaline… I love it,” he explains.

Andy, 47, after an illustrious career as a stuntman, has now decided it’s time to give his body a rest and be a stunt co-ordinator instead.

The chances are, if you have watched a movie in the last 30 years, you have seen him in some sort of bother. There’s a possibility you might have seen flames engulfing his body. Or maybe you have watched him launch himself off a building. You may have even seen him get a smack in the face.

That’s been his life for the last 30 years, and he loves it. There is nothing he looks forward to more than his next job.

“Once you get me talking about stunts, I’ll be here all week. I try not to talk about it, but once you open that can, I can go on forever and ever.”

It was at a young age that his love for stunts would start. Ever since he started doing gymnastics at the age of five, he found he had a knack for flips and tricks. Luckily for Andy, his gym coach was a stunt co-ordinator, so he had insight into the career from an early age.

“I started gymnastics when I was five, and I had a few little stints on TV, such as Blue Peter. When I was young, I also did high diving and Judo, so I grew up doing the right sports initially,” he says. He had built a strong foundation, and he went full steam ahead into it.

“I was big into sports, and in college I got involved in some theatre. After I did my A-Levels, I did some shows in Europe,” Andy says before adding, “It’s the best job for me. I tried other things, but this was the best way for me to earn a crust.”

From that point onwards, Andy didn’t look back. It was full steam ahead with flips, tricks and hits. “After doing stunt shows and various theatre stunts in the West End, I decided to join the British Stunt Register in 2005,” he says.

The British Stunt Registry is the créme de la créme for a stunt worker. Founded in 1973, it has established safety and performance standards for the industry. For stunt workers looking for a way into the industry, it’s the place to be.

Andy quickly rose through the ranks, training in new skills and upping the difficulty as he went along. Being a part of the Stunt Registry helped him gain pathways into the industry, but it was his own dedication and love for it which propelled him to where he is now.

“Even though it takes the average fit person to become a stunt man as long as it does to get a law degree, you can’t go to University and get a qualification to be one. You have to do it on your own training,” he says.

“The qualifications are seen on the job; that’s where you get your next job. Sometimes you have to take a knock and do it again and again, so there are different characteristics that are involved in that. The reality is, until you actually do it and you’re under that pressure and you’re on fire and you’ve got your guys next to you … you need to have that experience.”

The further Andy fell, the higher he rose in the industry, and it wasn’t too long until he was working on some of the biggest film sets in the world.

“My first film was Children of Men. The Dark Knight was also one of my first. I actually got a Taurus award for that, which is the equivalent of the stunt man’s Oscar,” he says, humbly.

“My fight was where the SWAT team went up the building, and Batman was wrapping guys up in cable, and then he kicked me off the building… That was pretty cool,” Andy says.

I’m not sure he quite fathoms the gravitas of what he has done over his career. I’m sure if you ask most people, getting kicked by Christian Bale’s Batman would qualify as more than pretty cool.

But that’s not who Andy is. Despite being a regular on Marvel and DC projects, it’s the work itself which he loves the most. Not even the big Hollywood actors he has doubled for — such as Tom Hardy in Inception, Robert Downey Jr in Sherlock Holmes, Jake Gyllenhaal in Life — or working with Christopher Nolan and Tom Cruise gets him going. He believes what they do is amazing, but the allure of big-name celebrities isn’t what gets Andy up in the morning.

“The stunts are what definitely get me going and everything around them.”

It’s his cool and calm demeanour which has driven his success in his career. Andy doesn’t come with any theatrics. There are no pre-stunt rituals. Arriving early, staying calm and visualising the job is all he needs to prepare. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I don’t do any crosses on my head, and I’ve not got to wear three pairs of socks. .. I’ve got no weird things,” he jokes.

Despite a belief that stunt workers are crazy individuals, Andy maintains that his composure in the face of danger is his most important quality. Naturally, there are risks involved when doing some of the set pieces Andy and others do. No matter how much a film set tries to keep them safe, there is always the chance for injury.

Especially in a career as long as Andy’s, a few bruises and breaks are to be expected. But it is his cool nature which helps him get through the setback both physically and mentally.

‘I’ve picked up a few bits and pieces. I’ve broken my leg as well as my ankle, which was quite a bad one,” he says blasé, as if he is retelling a story of him stubbing his toe.

“Ultimately, it’s a risky job, so mentally you have to get past those things. These things come along, and you just have to manage them when they do.”

More often than not, it’s not the physical pain that is the biggest issue; it’s the lying around resting. Stunt workers, by nature, are active people, so having to stay at home and keeping in the right frame of mind mentally is more of a challenge. Especially if you love it as much as Andy does.

“You have to have a very strong mental health…. The time in between when you are managing the injuries and you’re kind of wearing out the carpet in your front room, that’s where you need to be strong mentally.”

The throughline to Andy’s job is just that. Keeping your mind right, managing the adrenaline and training.

Yet, there is something he dislikes. There is one thing that no amount of training can prepare him for. A sign of weakness that proves that he is human.

“It’s the words for me. It’s just when there’s any amount of dialogue… When you’ve got to learn that and put it together with the physical stuff, it gets tricky,” he says, like a true stunt man.

“Which is why I think just leave the stunts to the stunt people and leave the acting for the actors; that’s what I say.”

Luckily for Andy, his transition into a stunt coordinator doesn’t come with any lines. However, it does come with a set of new challenges.

“It’s like starting again, really. I never really made contact with the producers before, and now I’m working for different productions instead of working for different stunt performers,” he says.

He has spent his whole career in the hands of some of the best stunt coordinators in the world. He takes on board what he learnt in each set he goes to. He uses his own lived experience to make sure the sets he works on are as safe as he would want them to be.

“I’m more than happy to step back and give the younger guys the work. They have a long career ahead of them, and you want to keep them safe because when I was in their shoes, I had people looking out for me, so it’s the same principle.”

Stunt workers can be the unsung heroes of a film set, and now they are finally getting their chance to shine. The Oscars will be bringing in a stunt category to recognise the work of individuals such as Andy starting from 2027, a long overdue inclusion.

“It’s very odd that stunts haven’t been recognised for so many years, but finally they are being recognised as a category, so that could only be a good thing,” he says.

Not that he is overly bothered. An empty spot on his shelf for an Oscar hasn’t kept Andy awake at night. He does this for the love of it.

“I’ve never been chasing awards; I do my job because I love it.”

I’m sure everyone wishes they loved their job as much as Andy. Though, I’m not sure everyone wishes they had to throw themselves off buildings. He really is cut from a different cloth.

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