A man who is on fire at work

Who hasn’t dreamed of fighting with swords in childhood, of defeating five people in hand-to-hand combat in youth, and of walking on a razor’s edge at least once in adulthood? Stuntmen do this all the time. Despite his busy schedule, the famous stuntman, president of the Truk school-studio center, Yuri Salnikov, found time to meet with Kommersant correspondent Vadim Grigoryan.

— When did the profession of “stuntman” appear in Russia?
— Probably, even during silent films - just remember the film “Galoshes”. And Igor Ilyinsky was our first actor who did all the stunts himself. Then they started inviting athletes. For example, in the film “Jolly Fellows,” boxers were invited to film the famous fight scene.
“But the Ministry of Labor officially recognized the profession of stuntman only in June last year. What was your status before this?
— Previously, the work of a stuntman was considered something like a hobby or a side job. A certificate from the main place of work was required. Some got jobs as janitors, others as something else. I was listed as a coach.
— How did your career begin?
— During my childhood, and I was born in 1953, everyone dreamed of being an astronaut. Stuntman - and there wasn’t even such a word. And I got into stunt work by accident. I went in for sports - scuba diving. Naturally, like all athletes, I had a direct path to a physical education university. So, as a student, I once looked into the dean’s office. A film crew had just arrived there, making a film commissioned by the traffic police. About cyclists breaking traffic rules. In particular, they had to drive along the railings of the bridge. And we were asked to protect them if they fell into the water. My friend and I took scuba gear and went to the set. And suddenly the cyclists gave up tricks - it turned out that they had a competition coming up and they didn’t want to take risks. The director told us: “Help us out!” I was able to ride along the railing from start to finish - and maintain my balance. That's how my stunt work began by accident.
— Do you remember how much you were paid then?
“A quarter for being in the water and a quarter for going over the railing.” We paid immediately after the shooting. I was happy. My scholarship was 35 rubles a month, but here it was 50 per day.
— Did the payment depend on the complexity of the trick?
— After actor Urbansky crashed his car during the filming of “Director,” Goskino decided to pay stuntmen as actors. Actors received twelve and a half rubles per day of filming, honored ones - 25, superstars - fifty dollars. Based on this, stuntmen were paid from twelve and a half rubles for a simple fight to 50 rubles for a complex stunt when you risk your life. And, for example, for a fall from a height of five to 150 meters they paid a little more than from a height of up to five meters. And experienced stuntmen did everything to earn more money. For example, back then it was believed that if you fell out of a chair, it was a trick. And you have to pay for it. Payment was based on takes, so we said: “The more takes, the more rubles.” And they resorted to tricks - as if by accident they did a bad trick in order to film a second take.
— Are stuntmen’s finances better now?
— When the Russian Stuntmen Association was created, we took the prices of the International Stuntmen Association as a basis and reduced them five times. Our minimum cost for a trick is $100 (for example, for a fight with falls), the maximum is $1000 (for burning). In the West, calling a stuntman to the set costs $400, and a burning stunt costs up to $5,000.
— Is the professional level of Western stuntmen also very different from the level of Russian ones?
- This is heaven and earth. But not because we are worse, we just have poor technical support. Let's say, on the set of the film "Waterloo" our people worked together with French stuntmen. So they brought a carload of equipment, and our guys arrived with sports bags. They are asked: “Where is your equipment?” And they answer: “Yes, the train was delayed.” It was getting ridiculous. Foreigners received money in thick bundles, and we received thin ones. And the French said with admiration: “Wow! At what rate does the ruble go to the franc?”
— Do you need to study specifically to be a stuntman?
— Previously, there was no stunt school. And you could only learn on the set. "Aquatrick" became the first stunt school in Russia. Now we teach people who have nothing to do with cinema in various areas: athletics and gymnastics, automobile stunts, underwater, complex shooting, rock climbing, hang gliding, etc. During training, future stuntmen must complete 20 stunt jobs in films and show programs. Tuition here costs 400 new rubles per month, in the West - $500.
— Anyone who wants to enter a stunt school must be in good physical shape. And what else?
— Abroad, the selection process for admission to stuntmen schools is very strict, but we, on the contrary, try to accept everyone. Who comes to us? Well, for example, a master of equestrian sports who does not know how to drive a car, or a master of sports in hand-to-hand combat who is afraid of heights. And we were the first to invite children to school. All the hooligans in the area are our “clients”. For example, we had a well-known regional hooligan called Window, who climbed into apartments through the window.
— What if mercenaries and bandits start training?
— What to hide, there were a lot of “official” criminal offers for training. After all, we teach everything - hand-to-hand combat, and shooting, both in movement and in the fall. It got to the point that even the Duma came with proposals to train security teams. But we try not to mess with it.
— Do stuntmen specialize in stunts?
— When I first became a stuntman, I specialized in underwater stunts. And then he began to engage in hand-to-hand combat. In the West there is usually a clear specialization. This has its advantages - specialization guarantees a high level of performance of the trick. But there are also disadvantages. Thus, stuntman Usen Khudaibergenov, on the set of the film “Dauria,” jumped from a great height into a ditch on horseback. He jumped, the horse began to sink and pulled him down. And he didn't know how to swim. I had to save him.
— Do stuntmen often have accidents?
“When performing serious stunts, they rarely happen, because the stuntman specially prepares for them. But he begins to do tricks that he has performed many times with his “left foot.” He relaxes and gets injured. Often injuries occur out of nowhere and through no fault of their own. One day a stuntman had to jump from the wall of an old castle. We made a fake wall, and the carpenter didn’t drive one nail in completely. The stuntman caught his trouser leg, and the trajectory of the fall changed. Very little. But he fell and broke his hip.
— Tell us how stuntmen fall and burn?
— For tricks with falling, the Americans make a special inflatable mat, which, by the way, is very expensive. For jumping from five meters, the mat must be two meters thick, for jumping from a height of 10 meters - four meters. The stuntman falls flat, and not like a candle, and it is better to fall with his back so that he does not turn in the opposite direction and damage his spine. And for the burning trick, a protective suit is put on, the clothes are lubricated with a special solution (previously gasoline was used) and set on fire. And the face is hidden under a special mask.
— Among the tricks of the famous stuntman Jackie Chan was this: he ate chili pepper and washed it down with industrial alcohol. Was there such “exoticism” in your work?
- We have such Jackie Chans - half the country. But the exoticism in my work was of a different kind. For example, in Shakhnazarov’s film “We are from Jazz” there was a scene when bandits eat a pig. The scene was filmed on the pavilion for about nine days. The piglet was brought specially from Prague. For the first four days, the director forbade anyone to touch him. And when it came to actually eating, the pig was already smelling. And stunt doubles were needed to eat this pig. Or, on the set of “Crew,” Filatov had a love scene with Yakovleva. I came specifically to see what Lenya was capable of. I had to do a lot of takes: this was wrong, then that. And in the pavilion it was hot, there was dust all around. Filatov came up to me: “It’s already the twelfth take. I can’t hug her, kiss her anymore. Yura, double me.”
— To duplicate an artist, you need not only to master the technique of the trick, but also to have acting skills?
- In this sense, it is easier for an actor to work in cinema - he transforms himself once. And the stuntman transforms into not just an actor, but an actor playing a certain role. I once dubbed Albert Filozov in the film “Keychain with a Secret.” Filozov, frankly speaking, is not athletic, has a club foot, and cannot swim. And if I had not copied his walking style, but easily jumped onto the train, it would have been visible on the screen.
— How did you manage to duplicate women? It is known, for example, that you were Gurchenko’s understudy in “The Secret of Her Youth” or the Polskikhs in “Keychain with a Secret.”
— I dubbed actresses twenty times. How? Eyelashes are tinted and breasts are made larger. I had one case in “Count Nevzorov”. There, according to the scenario, a brothel is on fire and a girl runs out of it. That's what I duplicated. I was already made up and dressed in a woman’s dress - and then, as luck would have it, I had an urge. I went behind the dunes. I unbuttoned my overalls and stood there. Suddenly I feel: someone is grabbing me by the back seat. I turn around - a broad-shouldered guy with a mustache looks into my eyes. He begins to lower his eyes and sees painted lips, breasts, and so on. When he saw “so on,” his eyes rolled out, like his neighbor Aunt Asya’s in the bleach ad. I had already left, but he still stood rooted to the spot. In general, it is difficult for male stuntmen to duplicate women. That’s why they are now inviting female stuntmen. In addition, there are young desperate actresses who do their own stunts. Olga Kabo, for example, in one film herself fell from a motorcycle.
— Nowadays the quality of computer filming has increased sharply. Aren't you afraid that the computer will completely replace the stuntman?
— Abroad, perhaps, this is where everything goes. But even there they do not refuse stuntmen. But everything comes to Russia twenty years late. So as long as the Russian stuntman costs less than computer graphics, it will work.

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RUSSIAN STUNT PERFORMERS FIGHT FOR $100, BURN FOR $1000. WESTERNS ARE PAID FIVE TIMES MORE FOR THIS WORK
A STUNCEMAN NOT ONLY NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO JUMP IN FIRE AND WATER, BUT ALSO EAT ROTTEN EAT OR REPLACE A TIRED ACTOR IN A LOVE SCENE
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Some people in the west

Great stuntmen and their tricks
In the West, some stuntmen are no less famous than the actors they duplicate. One of these stuntmen is the Frenchman Gilles Delamarre, who worked in the 60s. He starred in “The Man from Rio,” where he performed stunts for Jean-Paul Belmondo, and “Fantômas,” where he doubled for Jean Marais (Gilles Delamare was his personal stunt double). Some complex stunts were first performed by Delamar - for example, jumping from an airplane flying at an altitude of 1000 meters, without a parachute, into a haystack.
Delamar died performing the stunt. He had to turn the convertible around at full speed. The car caught the curb and overturned. The stuntman's head was blown off. Soon, Jean Marais's star began to decline - they say that it was precisely due to the death of his personal understudy.
The famous actor Jackie Chan, nicknamed Mr. Trick, who directed about 50 films based on his own scripts and played leading roles in them, began his film career as a stunt double. As a child, Chan studied at the Beijing Opera School, where he was subjected to corporal punishment. Perhaps this is why he performs all the stunts without doubles with masochistic stubbornness. Chan says he has reduced physical sensitivity. Obviously, this helps him do unique tricks.
In Police Story, Chan runs after a moving bus, holding on to an umbrella caught on the window with one hand, and fighting off a gang of hooligans with the other. In "Armor of God 2", he drives a motorcycle at full speed from a river pier into the water, jumps from it and clings to a crane in the air. In Rumble in the Bronx, he jumps from a height of 12 meters onto a balcony of less than one square meter. Chan's stunts include jumping off a cliff onto a flying hot air balloon, sliding through the water behind a boat without jet skis and running across hot coals.
Jackie Chan claims that he has already broken all his bones from the top of his head to his heels. While performing a simple stunt on the set of the film "The Armor of God", he flew past a tree branch, hit his head on a rock and barely survived. There was a dent the size of a thimble on the right side of my head. They say that if you really ask Jackie Chan, he allows you to put your finger in it.

Magazine "Kommersant Money" No. 19 dated May 27, 1998, p. 34