My strengths, I think, are that I deal really well with people. I like people. I'm fascinated by how they work so I'm good at handling situations between departments on set or pre-production or post.
I'm not fighting to be treated like a dude. I don't want to be treated like a man. I want to be treated as a talented stunt-person, or I want to be treated as an intelligent person.
Neverending Story' was one movie I did see when I was a kid. On the little island I grew up on, they put up a sheet in the town hall.
I mean, being a stuntwoman never occurred to me until I gave up gymnastics and started doing martial arts and met people that were stunt people. I was like, 'What? Wait. You get to fight and flip and get paid?' I was like, 'Mum, dad, check this out - I could do this stuff and get paid instead of having you guys pay for me to do it.'
I did drama at school and when I was doubling Xena, one time for my birthday mom and dad bought me an acting course 'cause I've always liked the performance side of anything.
I really love being a part of the creative process. I love having an opinion that gets heard, and then it's all up for discussion.
I was injured at the end of 'Kill Bill.' I hit the ground, instead of hitting the mat, pretty hard and busted my ribs and had to have surgery. I was being blown out of a trailer in a harness and actually landed on my coordinator instead - who broke my fall a little! My arm smacked into the ground and obliterated one of the ligaments.
I would love to do a comedy, and I think physical comedy is something I probably have a knack on.
I don't know, I'm still a little bit like, when you blend CGI well with real life, it's impressive, but if you remove real life completely, I still get pulled out of the movie a bit.
I got a pair of roller skates for Christmas when I was 4 or 5 or something, so I had a pair as kid. But I also lived on a gravel road so I wasn't really skating up and down the street.
I've always had a fascination with gymnastics, since I was a kid. It was the one thing at the Olympics that I would be like, 'Mom can I stay up late to watch gymnastics?'
As a stunt woman, I took it upon myself to be a bit of a jock about it. So you wouldn't see me vulnerable, you wouldn't see me hurting or sad because I was there as a professional to do my job. Nobody likes to see a girl get hurt - that's the truth of it - so I had to put them at ease so they would let me do my job.
I had done maybe three lines of dialogue, ever, before doing 'Death Proof.'
Having been a stunt girl for so long, a big part of my job, when being a stunt double, was to not just make the other person look as cool as they could, but also to act as support.
You've just got to know yourself, and know what you're worth, and know where you're going, and know that you can always, always learn more.
The producing thing has come quite naturally to me. I feel like for directing, I would like to be more technically-savvy. I want to have the language under my belt, and I also want it to be a project that is very personal to me, for my first one.
I stepped away from stunts and into acting right around when stunt people started getting put into motion-capture stuff.
