Lots of actors prefer to do their own stunts when possible. Tom Cruise has built his latter-day career largely on the fact that, at the age of 62, he still insists on doing his own stunts, to the point that he has fired insurance companies that won’t let him. However, not every actor is quite so freely willing to put their body on the line. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon still do a lot of their own stunts, but Affleck admits there’s a limit, and it’s getting harder.
Later this month, Ben Affleck will appear in the long delayed The Accountant 2. In an interview with GQ alongside his frequent collaborator Matt Damon, the 52-year-old actor spoke about handling his own stunts in that film, and it indeed sounds like Affleck took on a lot of the work himself. But make no mistake: he was also more than willing to let the stuntman come in and do it. Speaking to his shifting mindset from early on his his career, Affleck said:
Yes, definitely. I used to be very gung ho about like, ‘Oh, I’ll do the fights, I’ll do the stunts.’ And now I am very much, ‘At what point is the stunt performer going to come in and do this?’ Part of it’s because I know they’re just better at it than I am, and you want somebody who looks good doing it. From a totally selfish perspective, you just get banged up and tired. It’s one of the things I was talking to Matt about—he’s going off to do this Chris Nolan movie and doing a lot of stunt rehearsal, and it was kind of like, Boy, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Where you really have to go learn the fights—this is Bourne Identity kind of territory.
Matt Damon is leading the cast of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey, and it sounds like the actor is really going all in on the stunt rehearsal. There’s certainly a lot of value in actors doing their own stunts. Whenever a stunt performer is used the camera has to try and hide that fact. When an actor is doing the work themselves, there’s more freedom in how to shoot the scene.
At the same time, some actors are largely against doing their own stunts. Sylvester Stallone says he has ongoing physical problems due to doing some of his own stunts. Danny Trejo has pointed out that an injury to a star on a movie can result in other people losing their jobs. There are completely legitimate reasons for actors to not do their own stunts.
Once upon a time, Matt Damon was all about doing his own stunts, even talking about it with Tom Cruise to learn how the Mission: Impossible star makes sure he’s able to do stunts himself. Even if Damon is looking to do it all himself in The Odyssey, he hasn’t made such an action-focused film in a while, so it sounds like the learning curve is steep.
At the end of the day, not everybody can be Tom Cruise, and you can’t blame an actor for not wanting to do all the stunt work themselves. As Affleck says, you can get banged up, and eventually it takes your body longer to recover from that.
I’m all for actors doing their own stunts if that’s what they want, but I also have zero problems with actors of any age bowing out if they don’t feel comfortable with stunts for any reason. They are professionals who do amazing work. There's no harm in letting them do it.
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