Matt

SPOTLIGHT
SIMON
NORTHWOOD’S
NEXT STUNT
imon Northwood can take a hit, and now he
wants wants to star in in one.
The 42-year-old British-born Torontonian is
an established movie movie and TV stuntman — 300,
Outlander
Outlander, Flashpoint — but he’s also an actor.
However, it isn’t easy convincing
fi lmmakers that the guy who throws himself off a building
can also deliver killer dialogue. “When you are a stunt
performer you get really pegged into, ‘Well, he’s just a
stunt guy, he doesn’t practice acting,’” says Northwood
on the line from the Toronto home he shares with his wife
and son. “So you just hope the casting agents will have
an imagination.”
The producers of this month’s Saw 3D had such vision,
casting him as the leader of a SWAT team. “It’s my job
to lead the six guys through the catacombs where all the
people are being held. We are going room to room to
room, fi nding all these people in various states of death
and disarray,” he says.
Northwood’s wise to focus on his acting career as an
increasing number of Hollywood actors — Tom Cruise and
Matt Damon to name two — are determined to perform
their own stunts, leaving stuntmen on the sidelines.
“I think it’s great,” says Northwood of the new breed of
rough-and-tumble actors.
Surely it can’t be all that great. For example, what’s the
number one mistake made by actors who perform their
own stunts? “They think it’s too easy,” he says quickly. “The
most basic thing for a stunt guy to do is to fall down onto
concrete from a standing position, and people think that’s
a really easy thing to do, and it’s not.”
Having two careers keeps Northwood busy, but he
doesn’t mind, in fact he craves action.
“Before these jobs I was working as an animator for
Disney out of Toronto and I thought I could handle it,” he
remembers, “but sitting down at a desk for 13 hours a day,
even though I loved the art, I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt
like a caged lion.” —INGRID RANDOJA
16 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | OCTOBER 2010
“When you are a
stunt performer
you really get
pegged into, ‘Well,
he’s just a stunt
guy, he doesn’t
practice acting.’
So you just hope
the casting
agents will have
an imagination”
Saw 3D hits theatres
October 29th
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