Page 17 of The Singapore Stunt

“I rolled too soon. I can feel it.” An exhausted criticism escapes her lips. We’re on hour three of our afternoon session. It’s brutally hot again, and we’ve been going nonstop. Something I would never do with my normal stunt team. But Wesley on-site this morning reminded me of what is at stake here. We’ll need to master much more than a three-punch combination to get the approval from the studio.

On my daily check-in with Xavier after lunch, he told me the studio execs are working through contingencies. A modified stunt on top of the hotel and a reshoot in Malaysia in three months when Ariana has recovered from her injury. No one wants the second option. It would require more paperwork for us to build a replica of the roof, with Malaysia being a poor substitute. And, of course, a delay to the release schedule.

“We can adjust it,” I offer, already knowing her response.

“No,” she barks back and hops to her feet. She swipes a tendril of her blonde hair from her face and rests her hands on her hips. “I can do it. I know my limits, Mattias. And we’re nowhere near it. If I tell you I can do it, I can do it. Trust me.”

She steps around the masking tape marked on the mat. It’s a layout of the pool and furniture that will be on set. Back in LA, we built a full-scale training mockup with boxes and other objects to simulate the rooftop. Xavier and I walked through every inch of the stunt with the fight coordinator until we knew what I had drawn up in my head was physically possible.

That’s when we brought in the stunt team and the creatives. While we blocked out each sequence, they rendered the drawings the directors would need and an animation the studio needed to approve. I found out later that while I was back in our LA office, working through the designs, Kimberly had visited the mockup with Ariana and had actually done a walk-through.

“You know it’s okay if you can’t.” I pace behind her as she works her way back to the starting spot on the other side of the mat.

She stops suddenly and spins, her unexpected move causing me to nearly crash into her. Her hands rise and land on my chest. Reflexively, my hands rise to take hers, her determined gaze icing me in place.

“If Ariana was here struggling with this move, would you give her an out?” she snaps at me as if I’m the bad guy. And maybe I should be. I’ve been fighting an attraction, which is clearly clouding my judgment.

I shake my head. “Once they approve a stunt, we are paid to execute it. No excuses.”

“So don’t offer me one. This is what I signed up for. I know the studio told you to treat me with kid gloves. But I can take some bumps and bruises. That’s what makeup is for.”

Fire flashes in her eyes, and I see another layer of this complex woman. A determination that pushes her toward the top of her field. The accolades lauding her acting skills were well-earned, interviews with her co-stars on set speaking about her focus and hard work. She’s much more than many of the models turned actresses Hollywood holds up on a platter.

I release her hand, yet her other hand remains on my chest. I doubt she’s aware it’s slipped down and now rests over my heart. Her eyelashes flutter, and her voice lowers. “I’m not being foolish, Mattias. I trust you. You won’t let me hurt myself.”

“Never,” I whisper, and our gaze remains locked. Three silent heartbeats tick. I know it’s three because I count it. Her lips part, and the sound of a soft exhale escapes. Color races to her face, and I feel my body’s reaction.

“Good. Get over there and catch me.” She tips up on her toes. Our noses nearly touch. It’ll be so easy to tilt my head down and press my lips to hers. She spins and races across the mat, and I’m left standing there with a pounding heart and a growing attraction that is going to be the death of me.

I pace backward, my eyes locked on her. She moves with the grace of a dancer. Over lunch, she spoke about her early days in Hollywood. She played bit parts in dozens of television shows, bit parts in long-forgotten movies. I can’t imagine her in any of those roles. The roles may have been insignificant, but her belief in herself never was. For every role, even if it was a background server without a speaking line, she’d study. She’s trained in a restaurant, volunteered in a soup kitchen, spent two nights living on the streets, donated blood every eight weeks for a year to interview staff and donors. She’s lived every role she’s ever taken.

She lifts her hand from the other side of the mat, and I whistle for her to start. In the scene, she is racing from a horde of bad guys chasing her. It’s occurring on the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, a massive structure with three separate spectacular infinity pools. It’s a landmark monument on every tourist site advertising Singapore, an internationally famous icon, thanks to the success of the movie Crazy Rich Asians.

When we film, Kimberly will be in a two-piece swimsuit. It will be impossible to hide any hit pads or protective gear. It’s the reason it is near impossible to find a stunt double for her. There’s nowhere to hide in a two-piece bikini. For this afternoon’s session, she wears pads on her knees, elbows, and ribs.

The benefit of working the stunt with an actress is I get to see the entire scene play out. Normally, I would only work the parts of the scene that involve the stunt. But Kimberly demanded this. She wants to practice everything from her lines to facial expressions to living the scene. I feel honored to watch her technique up close.

She glances over her shoulder. I can’t see the shock that will be on her face when the camera turns on, but I see the desperate need to escape in her eyes when she turns and bolts in my direction.

She hits her first mark; I remind myself to stop gawking and to get to work. Her left foot landing on the edge of a chair, she leaps into the air with a spinning kick that will take out a faceless bad guy. She hits the mat, barely making a sound, but still grunts loudly for the benefit of an audience that doesn’t exist. I watch in amazement at her catlike moves, a little kitten. My kitten.

She darts left, lowers her shoulder to avoid a spin kick, and then races to her right. Rolling, punching, kicking, and racing across the mat in a zigzag pattern, she approaches me on the other side. In the actual scene, she will take out twelve separate bad guys, all while another half dozen chase after her.

She closes within ten yards of my position near the edge of the mat, and I prepare. She performs a shoulder roll and gets kicked by an imaginary bad guy in her rib before sweeping her feet to take him out. She looks back at the bad guys closing in and looks in my direction.

We’re on a training mat, far away from the dangerous rooftop of the hotel, yet my pulse kicks up. This is the money shot.

She performs a double kick at two approaching guards, turns, and races toward me in triple time. Her feet hit the mini trampoline, which will be hidden between the pool furniture on the day of the shoot. She flies directly at me. She strikes a movie poster–quality pose, right fist cocked back to her shoulder, left leg extended, flying. We are a perfectly tuned team. This is our ninth attempt.

Her foot comes within an inch of my face, and I roll. My shoulders hit the mat, and my feet rise in a kangaroo kick on her upper thighs. Between the momentum of the trampoline and my extra kick, she flies beyond the masking tape marking the edge of the hotel property.

In the actual shoot, she’ll be tossed off the roof of the building, fifty-seven stories above the city. She’ll be suspended in the air for 3.7 seconds. The longest 3.7 seconds ever filmed.

There will be eight drones, two other helicopters, and seven different long-range cameras positioned around the city and the hotel to capture it. She’ll be wearing only a thin two-piece swimsuit. No place to hide a harness, a safety wire, or a parachute. There won’t be any green-screen magic or a safety net. I will toss her off the building with a precise amount of force, and she must grab onto a ladder on a moving helicopter. It will be the talk of the industry. At least for a year before some other dumbass comes up with the next ridiculous stunt.

Nothing like this has ever been done before. And if we fail, it never will.

Ladies and gentlemen—I give you the Singapore Stunt.

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