Doubles Performing Kicks For Actors

You might notice every now and again that a famous actor might perform an impressive kick.  Then you’d probably start, Jesus… I didn’t know *insert actor* could do that, where you’d even start to wonder if they were closet martial artists.  Not so fast though, these are quite often performed by stuntmen with a slick editor helping out.  We are going to take a look at some examples of this today…

Steven Seagal – Exit Wounds

First on the list is Mr. Steven Seagal and I’m sorry to say that the man is a repeat offender.  Skip to (1:21) in this video and see a stuntman perform a… well I’m not sure what that kick is called, but I’m damned sure it’s not Steven Seagal doing it.  This kick appeared in the original trailers back in the day, in this movie which was his last theatrical one for some time.

Sylvester Stallone: Rambo III

There doesn’t seem to be a better quality version of this on YouTube, but at (1:36) you can see a leaping heel kick, one of the coolest parts of the movie.  Obviously, it’s not Sylvester Stallone doing it.  I wish I had the names of these stuntmen doing these kicks, but they’re hard to find.  This was the second time Rambo the character demonstrated some martial arts ability, the first being a sweep kick in First Blood.

Linden Ashby/J.J. Perry: Mortal Kombat (?)

A question mark is being attached to this one.  In the IMDb trivia section for the movie, it claims that Linden Ashby had only indulged in martial arts training for a few weeks to prepare for the movie.  It also claims that J.J. Perry stood in for Ashby for multiple scenes/kicks.  However, Ashby had been training in multiple disciplines for at least ten years before cameras even started rolling.  The truth could be a mixture of both.  However if you look at Ashby’s fight scenes, the more demanding kicks are usually shot from a distance, where his face can’t clearly be seen.

Steven Seagal: Belly Of The Beast

At (0:29) in this video, you can see Steven Seagal do a seriously impressive leaping spinning heel kick, or some type of variant of it.  Wait, that’s not Sensei Seagal!  But seriously, I don’t recall having ever seen Steven Seagal peform anything other than a basic front kick in any movie, ever.  And anyone can do a front kick.  Unless of course you’re Anderson Silva and need some of Seagal’s mone… uh, expertise, on the front kick.

Nicolas Cage: Con Air (?)

This is another question mark.  At (1:37) Nicolas Cage’s character can be seen performing a spinning heel kick.  But it’s hard to tell whether or not it is actually him.  If you have the full movie handy, you can see that the person performing the most difficult part of the kick can’t be clearly confirmed as Cage.  Then with some slick and very tight editing, it cuts to Nicolas Cage himself completing the kick/bringing his leg back down.  The difficulty on getting a nice height/extension on that kick leads me to believe that it was probably a double, well hidden.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Eraser

No video for this one, but in the opening action sequence in Eraser, a double can be seen performing a few kicks for Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Namely a low sweep kick, then, in the kitchen, almost like a spinning chambered back kick is performed on a mobster pissant.  The fact that Schwarzenegger is wearing a ski mask made this easy for a double to fill in.  The double has agility that is clearly beyond Arnold’s ability, who always moved like a tank.