If you’re a fan of the insanely difficult obstacle course show, “American Ninja Warrior,” you might have seen Jessie Graff crushing it recently.
Graff has been on the show in three seasons, but her full-time job is as a stuntwoman. Her credits include the Transformers and X-Men films, the new “Yoga Hosers” movie, and the TV series “Supergirl” and “Agents of Shield.”
Graff trains as much as four hours almost every day. Earlier this week, I visited Graff at her home — which looks more like a ninja training compound — to chat about her career and to try to keep up with her in a workout.
Interview Highlights:
On the different skills it takes to compete in "American Ninja Warrior" versus doing stunt work:
With "Ninja Warrior," the main difference is that you need grip strength. With stunts, you need to be prepared for everything and anything. But if you're going to be hanging from a ledge for more than a minute, you're probably going to be on a wire or in an environment where it's safe to fall and land on a mat. With "Ninja Warrior," it's grip endurance. With stunts, all the muscles I need for kicking and punching are a lot more important.
What young, aspiring stunt actors should do if they want to pursue this career:
I wish I had done more martial arts. I didn't get started in that until I was like 21 or 22. Boxing, kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do — figure out which one you like and do that constantly. Especially if you're a teenager or a kid thinking you want to get into stunts, get really, really good at something. Train to a really high level. Then you'll be able to transfer the discipline and the skills and the strength that you learned in that one thing into all the other things that you do.
On how she knew she wanted to perform stunt from a young age:
I saw the circus when I was three-years-old. I told my parents, I need to do this. It was the first time they'd seen me light up about something. I was very shy and my parents were like, Okay, we have to find her classes for this. That's when I got into circus gymnastic classes, and from that moment, I knew that I wanted to perform way high in the air. At that time I defined that as being in the circus, but as I grew up, I realized I wanted more story involved. I love how, in stunts, we're still doing basically circus stuff, but we're acting and physically telling a story. It's not just, Watch me do this high dive off a building.
On how stunt work actually calls for serious acting chops:
When we're doing stunts, we are acting. It's more physical acting. They don't need to see it in our eyes as much because there's a good chance they're not going to see our eyes. But you can see the tension in someone's body. There's different postures if you're the hero or the villain or a thug. You have to move like that character. Sometimes we're doing stunt acting where the camera is on our face and we are the person who is begging for their lives, then getting shot and falling off a building.
On the intense muscle control it takes to be a successful stunt actor:
You're fighting an actor who learned this fight five minutes ago and has no prior martial arts training. If they move right when they're supposed to move left, straight into your kick, what are you going to do to avoid hitting them in the face? It's pretty much all on you. You have to be so comfortable with these skills, and your footwork has to be so ready to adapt and adjust, because everything is going to change. In stunts, every day we're getting so many unexpected things thrown at us that we get really good at adapting.
On how she managed to break into stunt work after moving to L.A.:
I think with YouTube and social media, there are more different routes than there used to be. But I loved every step of it ... [finding] out what gyms all the stunt people train at and [signing] up at all of them. It doesn't even feel like a job to me. It's like I'm surrounded by people doing all these amazing things that I've always wanted to be able to do, that I saw on TV. And now I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm seeing this in person and it's possible. I'd run up to that person and be like, How do you do that? Do you mind teaching me? And they didn't mind. So it would turn out, that's actually a working stunt guy and now he just saw what my attitude is, how I want to learn, how I do learn, how I take direction, how I take a fall, how I get back up again. I'm getting to basically show what I can do and what my personality is to a person who has the potential to recommend me for a job. So I'm just learning and having fun and growing and building a résumé and also networking at the same time.
On how stunt actors "hustle" movie sets by tracking down stunt coordinators:
It's standard procedure for stunt people, and it used to be a lot easier to do, because there were production signs and everything was shooting in L.A. So I would just be driving from one gym to the next and just happen to see one or two signs on the way. I'd go up and meet the stunt coordinator. You try not to get in the way, you don't want to be intrusive, you have to really read the situation because they're trying to work. They have a job to do and you don't want to interfere with that and leave a bad impression.
Hustling can be very stressful if you're going into it thinking, I need this guy to give me a job. I always looked at it as, here's a really established working stunt person who has amazing stories and has done amazing things and I get to go meet them and have a really quick conversation and leave. So I always looked at it as building relationships, getting to know my role models, and then every now and then one of them would call and [say], Hey, great to meet you today, I need someone your size for work tomorrow.