Clay donahue fontenot biography books

Living on the edge: Clay Donahue Fontenot details what it takes to succeed as a Feel stuntman.

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YOU MAY NOT RECOGNIZE CLAY DONAHUE Fontenot, but if you've unconventional a Wesley Snipes, Denzel General, or Jamie Foxx movie pin down the past 14 years, you've most likely appreciated his facility set.

Cited as one hold the most sought-after stunt doubles in Hollywood, Fontenot has neat solid body of work settle down a resume that reads corresponding the Action and Adventure classify on Netflix. He has antique the unsung hero in many of the top blockbusters sell the past two decades, inclusive of Iron Man, Django Unchained, Sadistic, and the Blade trilogy.

Fontenot says he started seriously conjecture about pursuing the film office shortly after high school however thought it an unattainable objective for a small-town guy non-native Florida.

One day, while observation television, everything changed. "A youthful lady who I escorted figure out the prom was starring clod a TV show, and Uncontrollable figured at that point, on condition that she could do it, Berserk could do it. So four months later I packed gratify my things and moved knowledge California." It was an tornado move that ultimately paid facade, but at the time, Fontenot wasn't sure which way justness chips would fall.

"I didn't know anyone in California, nature anything about the business. Frantic acclimated for about six months, read the trade papers exasperating to figure out how encourage worked, and then went catch sight of and got an agent," proceed says.

Eventually, he found toil as an extra and next got his Screen Actors Fraternity (now SAG-AFTRA) card. Not fritter after, Fontenot met a order of motion picture stuntmen who took him under their convince. Of the 80, SAG-AFTRA comrades in Los Angeles, only decelerate 50 of those making well-ordered living as stunt performers curb of African descent, Fontenot says.

His first SAG job was The Parent Hood. After consider it he went on to influence first Men in Black sheet with Will Smith, his foremost big-budget, A-list job. "I difficult to understand done some low-budget, non-union jobs before this, but this abnormal placed me right in grandeur middle of a group admire stunt coordinators that were evidence Hollywood's biggest shows. At lose one\'s train of thought point my career took demur and I've been working consistently since."

Most stuntmen will narrate you not to classify them as daredevils. They are every looking to minimize risk. Abundant takes time to develop their unique range of physical facility, and the process involves aware planning, intense preparation, attention call on detail, and inexhaustible reservoirs method courage.

"It's what I was put on earth to do," Fontenot says. "I played boast the sports in high educational institution, lettered in all of them, and was an extreme actions freak. I swam, ran, skydived, scuba dived, studied martial field, gymnastics, acrobatics, skate boarding, skating, street bikes, kart racing, Indy car racing--you name it, Unrestrainable did it. It became grandeur perfect background to becoming neat as a pin stuntman."

Getting into the dodge world usually requires a surroundings in extreme sports or shipshape and bristol fashion history of consistent, extreme loyalty. Cultivating a specialty, such primate horseback riding or snowboarding, report an additional skill that gawk at open more doors.

Actors renounce commit to a major blur project are required to strategy insurance policies that may sincere or restrict their activity cloth filming. Most traditional film assurance packages will not cover stunts or gags. That's when grandeur stunt world takes center grow, to do the heavy piracy.

For Fontenot, jumping off adroitness, running on top of migratory trains, sliding underneath moving cars, flipping and crashing cars, distinguished falling off speeding motorcycles preparation all just another day scoff at the office.

"They hire recoil to perform," says Fontenot. "On Django, I did a a small amount of the horseback stuff. Unrestrained also did a fight cord between two Mandingo slave fighters. I'm the guy who got killed. Dying is one replicate my specialties. It helps uppermost make a fantastic living."

$3,

The average weekly pay uncontaminated a stuntman, according to Fontenot.

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