- 6 days ago
Hollywood's first female stunt coordinator, Zoë Bell, on her early daredevil days to her latest Tarantino project.
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00:00Action!
00:14Doing Kill Bill, Quentin's big thing for me was,
00:17when you're in the costume and you're in front of the camera,
00:19you are part of the bride. You are the bride.
00:21And it was sort of something that I think I'd always believed,
00:23but I'd never verbalized or heard it verbalized,
00:26that is, it's not Zoe doing this on set.
00:28It's not Zoe getting this attention,
00:30it's I am part of this character, I'm a piece of the whole.
00:41Definitely need to get a tight one on that one.
00:45That's one of my new favourite photos of me.
00:47I just love this face.
00:49Just in awe.
00:51I was born in New Zealand on a little island called Waiheke,
00:55which is just off the coast of Auckland.
00:57I've always enjoyed the sensations of being up high, of going fast.
01:03I was a massive tree climber.
01:05The higher I could get up, the kind of more exciting and fun it was.
01:09Like, if I could get to the top and have a view from the top of the tree,
01:12I was like, that went down in my favourites' favourite tree.
01:16I would just disappear into the forest and catch tadpoles or make forts in the forest.
01:24And then when it started getting dark, I would come home.
01:28I mean, it's sort of, when I think back at it now, it's like dreamy really, the sort of childhood that I had.
01:34And the weird thing about life is that because it was so normal and I had no other comparison,
01:38it was just, that was the norm.
01:41Maybe I was different and just different enough that I just didn't notice.
01:44That's about as girly as I got at that age.
01:48That's sort of the feminine Zoe.
01:51This is me, the most Friday night.
01:54It happens.
01:56It sounds obvious, but my strengths have always been the things that I'm most passionate about.
02:00So English, I always did really well in English.
02:03PE, physical education, obviously, photography.
02:06And it was sort of concerning to me at some point when I realised I should be considering, you know, a career or something at some point.
02:14I was like, where in the world do those three things apex in something that I could monetise?
02:22When you're selling your hat, it's all about, for me, if I'm going to hit you, bunk straight in the face,
02:27if you imagine that whatever this is travels out the other end.
02:31So if I'm hitting you in the nose, it's like something's pulling you on the back of the head.
02:34So after high school, did you go to university?
02:37No, I took a year off after high school because I didn't know what I wanted to be.
02:41My dad would have been a doctor, my mum had been a nurse and a real estate agent.
02:45I was toying with the idea of going to med school, but I didn't have sort of a passion for it.
02:49So the plan was to take a year off, see what was going on in my life and my world before I'd committed to going to university.
02:56And in that year, basically I'd finished doing gymnastics when I was 15, 16, but I'd stayed training because I just sort of loved it.
03:03And I had met a man by the name of Peter Bell, no relation, who turns out was like a stuntman in New Zealand.
03:11It just sort of popped up in a bunch of different places in my life, including my dad was working at an ER.
03:17And he had had a stuntman come in that had a concussion and a bump on the head.
03:22And I had been banging on about it at home because I'd seen an interview with a stuntman on TV and I was like,
03:28I'm sorry, people get paid to do what? You know?
03:31And dad then came home with the phone number of this Pete Bell guy that I had been training with.
03:38And it's funny because suddenly now I had direct access to it and then I was terrified.
03:42I was like, hell no, I'm not calling that guy. Like, what am I going to say?
03:45And what am I going to tell him I think I'd be good at it? Dad was like, yeah.
03:48I was like, ugh, that goes against every grain in my body.
03:51And he basically locked me outside with the phone and was like...
03:54And he wasn't trying to be profound. He was just speaking sense.
03:57But he said, here's the thing. You could not make the phone call today.
04:00And you'd wake up tomorrow in exactly the same place you are, which is great.
04:03You've got a good life. You're healthy. You're happy. No big deal.
04:06You could make the phone call and wake up tomorrow and nothing's changed.
04:10Or you could... That's going to make me cry.
04:12Or you could make the phone call and you could wake up tomorrow a stuntwoman.
04:17But if you don't make the call, you definitely won't wake up a stuntwoman.
04:23Thanks, Dad.
04:26That is so weird. I don't think I've ever cried telling that story.
04:32That's Amazon High, the first job that I ever did.
04:35I wish I could zoom in, like, new school technology so you could look at just how full, like, whatever tomboy face I had.
04:42My first job was down there for three weeks.
04:45I met this group of stunt people and it was like I had found family instantly.
04:50And we're all loads, a variety of different personalities.
04:53But whatever that mutual joy or appreciation of the work is, I had not felt it like that before.
05:00I don't know. I was just like, I'd like to do this forever.
05:04These are quite classic Xena days. This is obviously the same episode, but it was often me and a bunch of stunt guys, a number of whom are now my forever brothers.
05:17Lucy, without a doubt, has been such an informative role model, really.
05:24I knew when I watched her, that's the kind of person I wanted to be on set.
05:29She was the lead. She took her work seriously, but she always set this sort of tone that was, like, lighthearted.
05:37She was super accessible, was really impressed by how she conducted herself.
05:42Lucy had said, you know, you and I are often the nucleus of the mood on set.
05:47And it's important that you accept and respect that responsibility.
05:52And I remember being like, that is one of those I should write it down lessons.
05:57And it turns out I didn't need to write it down because I'll never forget it.
06:00The first real injury I had was on Xena. We were doing a gag where Xena, she flips off the platform and lands in the town square.
06:11She's, like, two stories up. And Pete Bell, who was my coordinator at the time, was like,
06:15I don't think it's, you know, physically possible to get you to clear this platform before you flip.
06:19And I was 19, I guess, at the time. And I was like, I can make it work.
06:22But so I under-rotated and I hit the end of my wires flat with my back towards the ground.
06:29And my hips stopped. And everything else didn't.
06:33First thought was, oh my God, what if I can never work again?
06:36And then I had a moment where I was like, what if I can never walk again?
06:40But, you know, the funny thing is, that wasn't when I learnt the lesson.
06:43I then went to hospital. I had fractured one of the little nubby bits in my vertebrae.
06:47I had to, like, rest for whatever. But I went back to work a couple of weeks later.
06:51And I walked onto set that day and Paul, the director, the second unit director, looked at me and he was like,
06:55why are you here? And I was like, I'm fine, look, I can do things, you know, fine.
06:58And he was like, okay, well, we're breaking a chair over your back.
07:01I was like, I know, I've got two back pads on, it'll be fine.
07:03And we rolled cameras and they broke this chair over my back and it just dropped me.
07:08I was, like, crying involuntarily. Like, wasn't, but tears were rolling.
07:13I couldn't breathe. I was in, like, the most severe pain ever.
07:17And Paul looked at me and he was like, go home, don't come back until you're better.
07:22Because we need you, but you're no good to us broken.
07:25That was the lesson.
07:27It's not about being strong, it's about being competent.
07:32I was working on Xena and one of the ADs came to set and was like,
07:39Zoe, there's a call for you on the set phone.
07:41Her name is Amanda McKaylee and she was the director of Double Dare.
07:44And I guess her story is she had been wanting to do this documentary on Hollywood stuntwoman.
07:49And I was like, shit, no, I don't want to do that.
07:51She was like, what do you mean?
07:53I was like, no, because you're going to expect me to be fit and healthy
07:58and working out all the time.
07:59I eat McDonald's. I drink all the time.
08:01I smoke, like, a pack of cigarettes a day.
08:03I am not the person you want.
08:04Like, if you're going to splice that, I'm going to have to fake it and I'm not doing that.
08:08And so she rang back and was like, I don't know how else to say this,
08:11but I like that you swear and I'm down with the fact that you smoke cigarettes
08:14and I don't care that you don't work out.
08:16And at that point I went, sure, you know.
08:19And through that, in a random sort of a way, I ended up at the auditions for Kill Bill.
08:27That's me and Uma in China.
08:30Cute, that one. I don't have very many with her, so that's rad.
08:32This is me in the Crazy 88 and Quentin, squished in the middle there.
08:38Killed all of them.
08:40We drive into the Beijing Film Studios.
08:43And my memory is such that I walk in and I'm in the studio with, you know,
08:47the 20 Chinese fight team members.
08:50And that's kind of it. I'm just there.
08:53There was a woman, Satya, who was there to do all the, like, wushu sword stuff for Uma.
08:58I remember at one point watching Satya be taught some of the fight beats.
09:01And then they walked away and left her to it.
09:04And she got about sort of four or five beats in and I could see her sort of not know what the next,
09:08she couldn't remember what the next move was.
09:10And I remembered what the next move was.
09:12I just didn't know how to do it.
09:14And I'd say to her, I was like, I think it's that thing where you, you know, go over your head.
09:17And she was like, oh, you mean this.
09:19And I was like, yeah, that, that thing, you know.
09:21And there came the agreement, basically, that she would, they would teach her the fight.
09:26I would watch, remember the choreography, because that's what I'd been doing for four years on Zena.
09:30And then I would teach her the choreography and she would teach me how to do the moves.
09:35And then the first day we were on set to shoot the fight, I was sitting there in the costume.
09:39And all I could remember is them going like, we're going to go through this part of the fight.
09:42And Tiger walks through it.
09:44And they were like, uh, uh, sorry.
09:45And I was like, sorry, what?
09:48He was like, we're going to do this part of the fight.
09:50And I was like, okay, cool.
09:53And I got up and I did it.
09:54And afterwards I walked up to Dee Dee and I was like, you never taught me that fight.
09:58Like, and he was like, yeah, but we've been watching.
10:01And that was it.
10:02That was sort of, uh, then I became a bit of everything double.
10:12One of the things that I loved about Death Proof and when Quentin was sitting in my house telling me about it for the first time,
10:18like, you know, that character that's called Zoe, that's called Zoe because it's you and you're going to play that role.
10:23Him talking about the importance of that stunt community and the way that we think and the way that we communicate and having two of the lead roles being stunt people and, you know, was, I was so honored on behalf of the stunt community and on behalf of the behind the scenes.
10:38It was so important to him that the movie wasn't an expose of what's behind the curtains, but like a kudos to the hidden heroes.
10:45And that's, and that's how we really felt about them.
10:49He flipped Quentin.
10:50Words to me on that, my memory is him basically being like, look, your job in this movie is to be as cute as possible and then die good.
10:58And I was like, cute. Can do. Die good. Definitely. You know.
11:04One of the first times you really see me, I'd pop up into the little cut into the carriage and it was the second time we went to do it and Tim Roth was in there and I popped up and I was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
11:14And I looked at Tim and I, and he was just looking at me like, like not in character at all, like completely just like, look at her, you know, when we finished, I finished it and like cut, blah, blah, blah.
11:25And Tim came up to me afterwards. He was like, you're so adorable. I, you're doing such an amazing job.
11:30And I was just like, Tim Roth is telling me I'm doing good acting. That's amazing.
11:36Being a stunt coordinator, it was like a perspective shift.
11:39And it was an interesting, I think an interesting thing for Quentin and I too, because our relationship had always been like, he was like, I want this.
11:46And I was like, let's do it. And on this one, I was like, Ooh, I can't put someone else in that position until I've done all the checks.
11:53And I had to figure out a way to do that with him. It was like being an adult stunt person. It was eye opening and in the best possible way.
12:02I think my magic hour is right after the sun comes up. There's something peaceful about that time of the morning because this isn't happening yet.
12:13There isn't, everyone's not awake and it's not all a buzz and the sun's not a hundred percent up.
12:17Like I wake up very easily. So I'm alert and it's really nice to be alert when the world is sleepy.
12:23I have a little, this is my mum in my pocket.
12:29You know, last year was, there was amazing stuff and there was horrible stuff, but it was like, everything was big.
12:37All the way through all of it, there's been these moments of beauty that have been undeniable.
12:43Mum and dad both when I would come home and, and tend to be a bit like, I could have done this differently and I wish I'd done that differently and blah, blah, blah, blah.
12:51And they were both really vocal and being like, you're where you are for a reason.
12:56And that was always mum's sort of thing was not even a matter of having earned it, but just you've made the decisions you've made along the way.
13:05And you've put in the work where you've put it, that you have led yourself here in some way, shape or form.
13:12What would the little girl running around in New Zealand, what would she be thinking about Zoe today?
13:20I imagine little Zoe would probably be quite enamoured and excited that that's what she had to look forward to.
13:26I think there'd probably be also, if she was emotionally cognizant enough at the time, to probably try and remind me of that freedom that comes from the fearlessness and how to re-engage with that.
13:39That sometimes putting meaning on stuff just makes it harder.
13:47I do this career because I love the work. I've learnt how to sort of play that game with kind of my own set of rules. I'm starting to figure that out.
13:57I'm trying to figure that out.
13:58I'm trying to figure that out.
13:59I'm trying to figure that out.
14:04I'm trying to figure that out.
14:11I'm trying to figure that out.
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