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“Well, she’s walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that’s running wild
Butterflies and Zebras
And Moonbeams and fairy tales
That’s all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.”
When asked about whether or not they have, well just about any special skill, most actors will immediately say yes . . . at least to get the audition. Can you ride a horse? Born to ride. — Have any martial arts training? Brown belt, working on my black belt. — Have any teleportation abilities? . . . Not sure what that is, but I’m willing to learn. Once you land a regular role, though, you can usually say no to the more strenuous requests — and, heck, there are stunt people for that anyway.
I grew up watching a lot of action-adventure series which regularly used stunt doubles. William Shatner as Captain Kirk on a deserted planet leaping from the rocks to ambush the Gorn, Mrs. Emma Peel/Diana Rigg effortlessly tossing a baddie over her shoulder, Adam (Batman) West and Cesar (The Joker) Romero trading BAPS! and POWS! When you go back today, though, and watch “Star Trek,” “The Avengers,” or “Batman” — the outfit and hair may be the same, but you’ll wonder how you were ever fooled by the so-clearly different person (probably in a wig) performing those feats of derring-do. It isn’t so much that we were gullible back then (although we were), but as the technology of the hardware (our monitors and TV sets) and the software (restored transfers of old shows in high definition resolutions) have improved over the years, it has become almost impossible to NOT tell the difference.
In modern shooting situations, there are still plenty of stunt people engaged in the pursuit of realistic looking physical exploits, but the threshold for the substitution is much higher. If you have a somewhat unlimited budget, you can digitally replace a face (among other computer effect acts of legerdemain) to preserve the illusion. With weekly TV, however, budgets are more limited and so the director and DP need to be much more clever in how they make the handoff from the actor to the double. Actors sometimes are urged to learn more and more parts of the stunt themselves to stay in the picture even a bit longer before the edit to the stunt footage is made.
On a few occasions, if the actor is sufficiently adept, he or she might actually do the whole stunt themselves. Such is the case in this photo. Our star, Candace Cameron Bure, worked hand in hand with her stunt person, Nikki Stanley, for days to learn how to do her part of this wrestling sequence which involved leaps, flips, and other moves — and she really got into it. Though we had Ms. Stanley dressed to match Candace, wig and all (she can be seen just at the right edge of the frame) if you look closely at the final edit — I believe nearly every frame (if not all) used is actually Candace. Not to lessen the value of Nikki’s contribution, she supervised Candace on each and every move, was there to step in at any point, and (along with Stunt Coordinator Danny Wayne, who appeared on camera as the referee) made sure that Candace was safe at all times.
This is really an exception to the rule. It is unusual to find an actor with the skills, coordination, and the bravery to take on such a huge assignment — not to mention the time to learn the stunt choreography — oh, and still do their day job, acting in the rest of the episode. Kudos to Candace, though. A few weeks before this, she (and her co-stars, Jodie, Andrea, and JP) had done a complicated dancing episode (along with guest stars who she met during her experience on “Dancing with the Stars”). In addition, she traveled back and forth to NYC on her hiatus weeks to cohost on “The View,” and all the while, she and her husband were raising three teenaged children. I’m not sure where she found the energy, but my nickname for her at the time was “Supergirl.” Good thing we were shooting at Warners. They also own all the DC properties, so it was OK to call her that.
To one and all, Be Safe-Stay Healthy