TRAINING: James was trained by a veteran stunt coordinator to safely perform the tricks. “It’s a combination of gymnastics and martial arts. That sort of background is always a plus.”

BACKGROUND: “I started working out at Rawhide (Western theme park), doing the live stunt shows out there. Slowly I started picking up independent films around the Valley, and it sort of snowballed.”

DELIGHTS: “It really is the best job in the world, if you like adrenaline. Each day is never quite the same… One day you’re going to be a Mexican gangster who’s getting shot up; the next day you’re falling 86 feet off a building.”

DANGERS: “Even if you are trained, there is the potential for death or serious injury. But if you do it when you’re not trained, you’re asking for trouble.”

MOST DIFFICULT PART: Marketing and sending out resumes to get hired on movies and television shows.

DO YOU GET SCARED? “There’s definitely always fear on every stunt that you do. If you misplace your foot a half an inch on a high fall, you’ll fall on the concrete from 80 feet. If you breathe in on a fire burn, you die from that… If you lose

the fear of the stunt then that means you lose the respect of the stunt.”

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SERIOUSLY INJURED? “No, so far I’ve been lucky. It’s all about safety. The object is to make it look dangerous even though it’s safe.”

MOST DANGEROUS STUNT: “One of my first stunts I ever did was a fall from 67 feet, and at the time I had only gone up to about 20 feet or so. So making that jump from three times higher – it was dangerous. You’re never quite ready for it.”

FIRE STUNT: To light himself on fire, James wears fire-retardant gel and a fire-resistant body suit. To accelerate the flames, he uses a mixture of rubber cement and diesel. “It’s definitely dangerous. You can burn on average for 15 to 20 seconds. And of course during that time you’re holding your breath because of course you don’t want to breathe in the flames.”

SALARY: A movie stunt man has the potential to make more than $4,000 a week; the average stunt man makes about $80,000 a year. “Plus they get what’s called a stunt adjustment, where on a high fall you’ll get so much extra money per foot; on a fire burn you get so much extra money per second.”