INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSIONAL STUNTMAN JULIEN PIGUET

We speak to the man who's crashed more cars than we've had hot dinners

Meet Julien Piguet, stuntman. He may be stood in front of us on a cold, wet and windy day in Paris, but there's a certain glint in his eye which tells us that his life is more exciting, dangerous and exhilarating than we could imagine. Along with his team, Julien has performed stunts in films such as The Bourne Identity, Ronin and James Bond movies. Not a bad CV, you might think... and he's just 24.

So how did the former French GT driver find himself in the adrenaline-fuelled shoes of a stuntman? "I was a very good race driver," he told us, with typical French modesty, "but I was quite reckless. I was spotted by a team and offered a contract to become a professional stuntman."

But what about the danger? We can barely leave our desks here at THQ-Games.com without requiring multiple stitches and our leg joints reset, so surely stuntmen must take a few hard knocks. "Well I've never been to hospital," said Julien. "Safety is really important - a good stuntman is someone who reaches the age of 50 and still has the ability to walk without assistance!

"Preparation is very important to minimise risk; we plan so much so there is very little risk. The managing director of our company is 60 and has been in a lot of movies - I don't think he's ever been to hospital!" Reassuring words for budding stuntmen, we're sure.

Proving he's a dab-hand at video games as well as real-life stunt driving, Julien took us through a scene from Stuntman: Ignition. A dune buggy raced towards a ramp and leapt over a building, smashing a billboard to pieces before landing on the ground and speeding away. "It's quite easy with a controller; it's more difficult in real life, but everything you see in the game is achievable in real life.

"This jump would take two days' work, using a team of 10 to 12 people," he said. "First we would have to find the right location with the director. Preparation of the car is very important too; we have to work on the entire car, including seats, tyres and the body.

"Once we've configured the car, we secure the setting (the landing and the jump). Up until a year ago we used cardboard boxes for the landings but now we use giant airbags," he added. "The stunt coordinator calculates precisely where the car will land based on the weight of the car, speed and angle of ascent."

So, the stunt is planned to the finest detail, but what if something goes wrong? "To shoot a scene like this we have only one or two attempts, so we run lots of tests. Once we feel we're ready, the cameras are set up (we'd use four or five cameras but for some stunts you may need up to 10 cameras)."

Any performer suffers from nerves but a stuntman needs nerves of steel to survive. How do they cope with the pressure and how far will they go to create the ultimate stunts? "The atmosphere before a stunt is tense. There may be 80 to 100 people on set but when the stunt is a success, everyone is happy - it's very much a team effort.

"We had to refuse a stunt two months ago. A tree was supposed to fall on a 4x4 (this was originally planned to be created in post-production) but the team refused it because the car had not been prepared for it." Just when we thought Julien was revealing a safe, sensible, dare we say ordinary side to himself, he reassured us that a stuntman just doesn't know the meaning of the word 'no.' "We postponed the stunt by two days but we still did it."

Danger might not be Julien's middle name (we didn't ask - he'd been speaking with us for some time and was clearly itching to jump out of a window or leap over a helicopter) but he certainly knows how to put himself slap bang in the face of it. "In my latest movie we were filming on a ring-road around Paris, which was closed off to the public. We filmed a car crash involving cars, trucks, caravans and other vehicles. The stunt was really spectacular."

Stunts can be planned, coordinated and executed flawlessly, but is there any room for improvisation? "For big stunts there is no margin for error; the stuntman follows the instructions of the stunt coordinator and the director - just like in Stuntman: Ignition - but when filming car chases you can be a bit more creative, so we might get one or two takes without direction."

Speaking of Stuntman: Ignition, how does it match up to the high-octane world of a professional stuntman? "The game is quite close to reality, with stunt coordinators and directors giving you direction," said Julien. "I had lots of fun with it. Stringing tricks and stunts together [to boost your score] is not possible in real life, so it's great to be able to do this in the game."

And with that, we bid Julien adieu, glancing back as we left to see him setting himself on fire before leaping out of the window and onto a passing motorbike. Possibly.

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