On the edge

In the James Bond spoof Mad Mission 4: You Never Die Twice the hero escapes the baddies by jumping his car off the roof of a six storey building and landing on the roof of a building on the other side of the street.

The close-up was of actor Samuel Hui; behind the wheel was New Zealand stuntman Peter Charles Bell.

“With those Hong Kong movies they tended to think up a big stunt and then make the movie around it,” he says. “The difficult thing about that jump was there was only a 75m run up to the ramp. I had to hit at the exact speed because the building I was leaving was 2.5m lower than the one I was landing on. Once I started the run there was no going back.”

The resulting jump is spectacular and epitomises the ethos of Hong Kong action productions. But this is just one jump in Peter’s 40 year career as a stuntman. His filmography spans over 200 movies, has seen him working with stars like Tommy Lee Jones and Lucy Lawless and has had him dangling underneath an aeroplane flying at an altitude of 4000ft.

He says the stunt is actually the easiest part of the job. “In stunt work every single thing you do is all about the preparation. Setting it up, planning it out, calculating everything, but making sure you still keep the danger and visual element to it, and making it as safe as possible. And that’s all done in the prep.”

Peter started his career working as a travelling stunt driver in carnivals and fairs in the United States and Canada, returning to New Zealand in the early 1980s as the local film industry began to take off. “Back then every movie had a car chase,” he says. “I actually retired around 2002 but found myself getting bored so I started Drive Rush.”

Drive Rush is his stunt driving school based in Auckland’s North Shore, born out of a simple idea.“I’ve been in the game a long time and still get a thrill out of it,” he says. “Why not let the general public get the same thrill?”

Learning how to power slide, drive on two wheels and even jumping the car from ramp to ramp are all taught to anyone who fancies having a crack at being a stuntman for a day.

“It’s the ‘wow factor’ of stunt driving. It looks cool and gets the adrenaline pumping. But it’s not rocket science when taught correctly. It’s the real deal, but we’ve made it safe for people.”