Podcast Podcast, Season 3, Episode 11: Riley Harper on the thrills of being a stuntman

There are moments when time stands still. Moments where you find yourself on the verge of greatness. Moments that stand the test of time. The Edge is a series of conversations where extraordinary people tell intimate stories of one moment that changed everything for them. A world record, a world championship, an epiphany, a life-changing decision. They relive their moments, minute by minute. How they overcame pressure, fear, pain and pushed themselves to the limit. To The Edge. 

Our guest this time is Riley Harper, stuntman, stunt coordinator, occasional photographer, and car enthusiast. Riley plays stunt double to some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. In this episode, he tells us about his action-packed life on set and the secrets behind his craft. We also explore his love for cars, photography, motocross and of course, watches. Presented by your host Teo Van Den Broeke, this is The Edge, a podcast by TAG Heuer.

Here are a few snippets to put you on the starting line and get the adrenaline pumping. But don’t forget to subscribe to our Podcast so you can listen to the full, unfiltered episode later. The Edge is a series of conversations with extraordinary people operating at the edge of possibility. It’s about the thin line between taking part and tipping into victory; it’s about what gives us our edge and what we can do to go beyond it.

I think becoming a stuntman was kind of ingrained in me since I was born. I grew up around a family of stuntmen. My dad, my uncle, all of my dad’s closest friends. Everyone I was basically growing up around was a stuntman. So growing up here in Los Angeles, it was just a very normal thing to be visiting my dad on set or visiting him in other states or countries.

For me, it was always trying to do as many things as possible within stunts and having my own personal bucket list of things I want to accomplish. Whether it’s flipping a car or crashing a motorcycle or doing a huge jump on a motorcycle or doing a fire burn or a high fall or a car hit — all these different aspects of kind of big stunts to me. So my personal arc is always working with great people first and foremost, and being in cool locations and having a lot of fun, but trying to check off my personal list of accomplishments.

Every job is challenging for sure, and every job has its own, its own challenges in every aspect. But for me, one of the biggest challenges is just being gone and not being home and living somewhere new all the time and always being surrounded by the same people and the same environment. And it’s really fun in that aspect, but it’s also kind of tiring.

Working with someone like Chris Nolan for four or five months, you just can’t help but be amazed by someone like that. So that’s always gotten me interested in directing itself and the creative side of a film and coordinating. You’re really working hand in hand to make a scene come together. But I love every aspect of filmmaking. So I think directing for me would probably be the most important thing I’d like to do, whether it would be even car commercials. I love vehicle work and simple things like that…up to second unit directing big action sequences, that would be great.

There’s two categories of those [demanding stunts]. There’s mentally demanding, which is, for instance, something that I’ve done my whole life, like riding a motorcycle. And there is a very specific thing you have to do, which is go down this mountain, jump off this ledge, land in between these trees, and then dodge an explosion and come out the other side. If all those factors weren’t there, I could do that with my eyes closed. But you add in all these factors of a big cliff on one side and all these things that can play into ruining what you have to do. And those for me are the most mentally demanding because there are such high consequences of getting hurt or dying.

You really have to grasp your mind of what’s going on and just do the feat that you have in front of you. And then there’s the really physically demanding ones. That could be a very simple task, whether it’s being on a cable and getting flung across a room and you hit the ground and roll ten feet and it’s going to hurt, no matter what. And it’s just the act of trying to make it not hurt as much as possible and having to do that potentially three, five, ten times, waiting for everyone to get the shot as they want.