Nick Gillard - Stunt Coordinator

 

Nick Gillard- stunt coordinator for the new Star Wars trilogy- began his professional life in the circus, and toured the U.K. for 6 years with a mediaeval jousting tournament: this is where he learned his fancy swordplay. He started doing stunts in ’79.

 

Becoming a qualified stuntman in England takes 8 years’ “hard labour”. It’s similar here in Australia: there are grading procedures. A stuntman must be an Instructor in 6 sports, be agile and- many don’t think of this- generic-looking. Nick has it down: he appeared on screen both as the young blonde German soldier inside the tank in Indy & The Last Crusade and as a handmaiden in Star Wars Ep One! Stuntmen aren’t daredevils: they’re required to do multiple takes.

 

Before coming to work on the Star Wars films, Nick performed and coordinated stunts on Notting Hill and Waterworld. Waterworld had 50 stuntmen working 10 months solid on it. By contrast, Phantom Menace had a total of 20 stuntmen, 3 on-set, the rest on call. His biggest day involved 8 of them rising on wires... so it really used stuntmen quite frugally.

 

Nick’s first task on any new project is to read the script and get across the plot and characters. Next he tears out all the action scenes and writes a blow-by-blow description of what would originally be written as FIGHT SCENE. “I get wasted and write it while leaping about acting it out... then I desperately try to get the producer/director to do it my way.” 

 

When shooting, they always do a master shot to get the whole fight in one hit. On Star Wars, however, they’re given animatics- video storyboards- which the stunt scenes are supposed to conform to. He doesn’t find ILM easy to talk to: “they’re geeks.” But he likes doing big Hollywood-type films for money: it gives him the chance to do quality small films for love.

 

 

                            Reported by David Williams, August 2000