Just look at us dangling there in science class. The human skeleton appears so fragile we should have bubble wrap for skin, along with a “Handle With Care” label. As a Hollywood stuntwoman, Danielle Burgio voluntarily places that rickety structure in harm's way and then pushes the envelope until just before it makes her bleed. To protect herself from the most extreme forms of abuse imaginable she wraps her body in tissue - muscle tissue, that is.

For most people, being in a fiery car wreck or blasted out of a fifth-story window would be a one-way ticket to another world. For Burgio, it’s just another day at the office. “I’m disposable,” she says bluntly. “Jennifer Garner is not.”

In addition to impersonating the Daredevil star, Burgio has “doubled” Kelly Hu (Martial Law), Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbor), J. Lo (Monster-in-Law) and, most famously, Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix sequels), among many others. Burgio creates illusions every day, so it’s fitting that The Matrix franchise transformed her professional life. Previously a Broadway dancer and aspiring actress, she had set her sights on stunts in 1999 when she found herself transfixed in a Los Angeles theater by a figure fighting on-screen: “Trinity was the first real female action heroine I had ever seen, and like so many women, I thought, Oh, my God, I want to be her.”



Four years later, Burgio was living that dream, literally, by standing in for Moss when the going got tough with Agent Smith & Co. in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. “I remember when I got the job, a lot of the other stunt girls in town were going, ‘Danielle who?’ They were so mad. It was absolutely a dream come true for me.”

THE DOUBLE BUBBLE

Yeah, how did all that happen so fast? “I thank my mother and father for my tremendous ambition,” says Burgio, born at Andrews Air Force Base (her father was a Marine) and raised in the Queens borough of New York, followed by Greensboro, North Carolina. “When I decided to take on stunts and said, ‘Okay, this is what I’m going to do,’ I quit everything else I was doing in my life and spent every day training or running around town trying to get stunt coordinators to hire me. I was relentless in my training and in pursuing work.”

Perhaps that’s why her career trajectory in stunts has been like the guy who gets shot from a cannon. It didn’t hurt being the right person in the right place at the right time. Demand for stuntwomen has jumped in recent years, owing to estrogen-fueled action films like Charlie’s Angels and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, not to mention the spate of clones such blockbusters inevitably spawn. Stuntwomen, many of whom come from a gymnastics background, tend to be on the short side, making the 5’7” Burgio an ideal doppelganger for more statuesque leading ladies such as Garner. Burgio’s combination of dance, gymnastics and martial-arts skills completed a winning package in the eyes of the stunt coordinators. Her shape and athleticism so impressed those around her that they started picking her brain for workout advice.....

The Result?

The Stuntwoman’s Workout (Quirk Books, 2005), written by Burgio and Jennifer Worick with a foreword by director John Carpenter, whose Vampires provided her first major stunt gig. The book includes a legitimate resistance- training program (see “Legs & Abs”) as well as advice and tutorials on building strength, endurance, focus, flexibility, coordination and speed. “I’m fortunate enough to get to play for a living, so I just want to inspire people to get out and do all the things they’ve fantasized about doing, whether it’s rock climbing, skydiving or whatever,” she says of her philosophy of having fun outdoors. “There’s something for everybody.”

"AS STUNT PEOPLE WE'RE VERY PROUD OF WHAT WE DO, AND WHEN YOU TAKE A HARD KNOCK, IT KIND OF JUSTIFIES US"

BOULEVARD OF BROKEN BODYPARTS

The body armor forged by Burgio in her workouts comes in handy on set. Ask about her injuries, and she’ll say that, luckily, there have been few - before rattling off a laundrY list. Broken nose. Broken ribs. Severe whiplash that intro- duced her to chiropractic work and Vicodin. Too many contusions to remember and some pretty good gashes, too. Severe sprains of both ankles. Chin split down the middle.

Does the pain ever feel good? “Yeah, it does,” she says. “Isit sick for me to say that? It hurts, and we’ve all done our fair share of complaining and waking up in the morning, thinking, Why am I doing this to myself? I'm just covered in and blood and everything else. But as stunt people, we're very proud of what we do, and when you take a hard knock, it kind of justifies us. It’s like, ‘See,the actor can't do this - we gotta do it, ‘cause we’re tough!”

WANNABES

Only a special breed can endure all that pain for an endeavor in which success means invisibility on the street. The craft shouldn’t be pursued lightly. Schools have opened to train aspiring doubles, but Burgio says none of her colleagues attended them. Stuntmen and women need cojones the size of bowling balls, not a diploma. They also need to be quick on their feet and incredibly alert and aware. What they can’t recall on cue from their own backgrounds and experiences must be picked up on the fly. Experience in gymnastics or on a trampoline helps a lot, as it teaches control and manipulation of one’s body as it moves unpredictably through space. And given Hollywood’s obsession with fight scenes as ballet, martial arts are part of the drill nowadays, too. “I’d say it takes a good three years just to get going,” says Burgio. “And then a couple more years before people really know who you are and ask you to do the fun stuff. Because when you start, coordinators aren’t going to hire you to do a big, hairy stunt. It’s going to take some time to get to know you and your capabilities before they slam you with a car," she adds, laughing.

M&F