Women are underrepresented in the stunt-driving industry. These drivers are fighting for change
Jobs, Labor & Workplace
Christi Carras April 10, 2024
Four months after her father died in June 2019, Olivia Summers showed up to an introductory meeting at a production company in Santa Monica.
While discussing her extensive work as a stunt driver on numerous car commercials, one of the producers remarked that he was not aware there were women in the stunt-driving industry.
“We just put a guy in a wig,” Summers recalled the producer saying.
Summers, who had fought hard over the past 15 years to make a name for herself in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field, was devastated. Not only did this producer openly admit to “wigging” a union-prohibited, gender-discriminatory practice where a male stunt performer wears a wig to double for an actress he acted as if he didn’t even know that drivers like her existed.
Hurt and discouraged, Summers returned to her truck, put the key in the ignition and turned to her biggest supporter her late father for guidance. As the engine revved, Summers who was raised Catholic and makes a sign of the cross before
performing
stunts heard her father’s voice.
“He just said, ‘Start an all-female stunt-driving team,'” Summers told The Times. “And that’s how it came about.”
A Times reporter gets a lesson in stunt driving. Next stop: ‘Fast & Furious 11’?
Summers in 2020 founded the Assn. of Women Drivers, billed as “the first and only all female stunt … and performance driving team” in Hollywood. Historically, stunt-driving teams recruited as a unit for commercials, films and/or TV shows have been led by and compos
ris
ed of mostly men.
The goal of the Assn. of Women Drivers, which Summers of Playa Vista runs alongside fellow stunt performer Dee Bryant of View Park-Windsor Hills, is to increase visibility
and employment opportunities
for female
women
stunt workers.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists which represents all stunt performers
, including drivers
has collected gender information from 4,636 stunt workers in the union. About
1,025 (or about
22% (1,025) identified as female,
according to a source close to the labor organization who was not authorized to comment.
Summers doesn’t hide her frustration
at the boys’ club culture of the stunt-driving industry.
“It’s bulls because a lot of the guys on the team don’t even like each other,” she said
added Summers, who lives in Playa Vista
. “They’re just trying to keep it that way so none of the work goes to us or any other independent driver out there. It’s super shady. It’s dark.”
Stunt performers
of all genders
have been
striving
to get more respect from the industry. They’ve been in the spotlight recently after the Academy of Motion Pictures unveiled a new Oscars category for casting,
the ultimate perceived as
a snub to the stunt community, which has long pushed for Academy Awards recognition to no avail.
The lack of
appreciation
is particularly galling to stunt workers, who
risk their safety
to make more famous actors look good.
Despite strict on-set rules to prevent accidents, stunt performing remains dangerous work, by definition. Due to
the entertainment industry’s reliance on stunning action set
–
pieces, demand for stunt performers’ services remains significant, despite the rise of computer-generated graphics, the looming threat of AI and the occasional stars performing their own death-defying feats.
Aiming to increase visibility for stunt workers is Summers, who now runs the Assn. of Women Drivers alongside fellow stunt performer Dee Bryant of View Park-Windsor Hills.
Combined, Summers and Bryant boast hundreds of credits on commercials, films and TV series, including “CSI,” “9-1-1,” “Bridesmaids” and “L.A.’s Finest.” While executing complex crash and high-speed chase sequences, Summers has doubled for actors such as Sarah Paulson, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Ming-Na Wen
and Kristen Wiig
; while Bryant has subbed in for Angela Bassett, Regina King and Kerry Washington
, Gabrielle Union and other stars
.
Viewers might have seen Summers weaving through oncoming traffic in an apocalyptic frenzy while doubling for Paulson in the Netflix thriller “Birdbox”; or Bryant zooming through the crowded streets of Hollywood on a motorcycle while doubling for Gabrielle Union during a police pursuit in the pilot episode of “L.A.’s Finest.”
“What dawned on me was the fact that this would create visibility for women and no longer give stunt coordinators, producers, ad agencies … the excuse to wig a male,” Bryant said. “I thought that this would be exactly what we needed to put a stop to that practice.”
Letters to the Editor: I’m an assistant director who’s seen the magic of stunt workers. Give them an Oscar
Both women were encouraged by their fathers to take up sports
such as waterskiing and dirt-biking
and learn how to maneuver various types of vehicles from a young age.
Growing up in Toronto,
Canada,
Summers was operating snowmobiles solo by the age of 12. The third child of five, she experienced her fair share of mishaps flying off the back of her dad’s snowmobile, slicing her hand open in a boating accident, repeatedly trying and failing to stand on water skis until her lips turned blue
and she smashed into a formation of rocks
.
Meanwhile, Bryant’s father a
“
Harley guy
“
who belonged to a motorcycle crew gifted his daughter her first dirt bike at the age of 11. Bryant grew up piloting motorcycles on the sun
–
baked terrain of California’s San Gabriel Valley.
“That’s where my love for motor sports started,” Bryant said.
“My dad bought me a motorcycle, and now I have 13 motorcyles,” Bryant said.
“
It’s his fault.”
Explaining Hollywood: How to get a job performing stuntsBryant wasn’t satisfied with bikes alone.
Before long, she set her sights on water sports and eventually the “the big Tonka toys” that rumbled around construction sites.
“I started buying jet skis as soon as I was old enough,” Bryant said. “Every kid in high school wanted to buy a car. All I wanted was a boat and a jet ski.”
For now, Bryant and Summers are the only two members of the Assn. of Women Drivers. They do, however, have plans to expand
. (The
states that the team is looking to recruit
by recruiting drivers
from around the country
specializing in cars, motorcycles, dirt bikes and watercraft.
)
After catching wind of their efforts, some Hollywood producers
at William Morris Endeavor
approached Bryant and Summers with a pitch for a reality competition program centered on their search for the most talented women stunt drivers and asked the duo to hold off on recruiting more members while they shop the idea.
But that hasn’t stopped them from mentoring fellow female
women
stunt drivers looking to carve out space for themselves in the entertainment business. Summers and Bryant
explained that it is said it’s
in their best interests to help train aspiring
women
female stunt drivers so that their protges can lead by example.
“Yesterday I drove two hours to help one of the girls that I’m mentoring buy a stunt car because I want these girls to look good on set,” Bryant said. “It’s a reflection on us if they don’t. Then the coordinator goes, ‘See, there’s no good women drivers.’
And then they’ll put a wig on their buddy.
“
Granderson: Give stunt work its own category at the Oscars
Decatur
, Ga.
-based stunt driver and motorcyclist Jwaundace Candece who has worked on “Atlanta,” “WandaVision
,
”
“Watchmen”
and “Baby Driver” credits Bryant with teaching her how to “ride for the cameras” and pointing her to people who could further her career.
When she was hired by stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott to work on “Baby Driver,” Candece relied
on
Bryant’s sage advice: “Hold your own, drive like a man and prove them wrong.” Impressed,
by her performance in “Baby Driver,”
stunt coordinator Thom Williams
subsequently
tapped Candece for HBO’s “Watchmen.”
and her career took off.”Proving as a woman that you can drive with the big boys has been the hardest” challenge, Candece said.
Bryant and Summers “are starting something that is innovative and revolutionary,”
Candece said
. “I hope it’ll open up doors to hire more women, more women of color more women, period because that’s what’s needed.”
In addition to wigging, Bryant, Candece and other stunt women of color have had to contend with
another barrier to employment:
“paint downs” or putting white people in brownface or blackface instead of hiring stunt women of color to double for non-white actors.
Not Fewer than
10 years ago, Warner Bros. publicly apologized for casting a white stunt woman to double for a Black guest star in the superhero series “Gotham.”
“I first spoke up against that … maybe 15, 20 years ago, and it’s still happening,” Bryant said. “That’s what happens in this business behind the scenes.”
Will a woman ever race in F1 again? Female drivers are challenging racing’s status quoBryant noted that A
s onscreen representation for women is shifting and more actresses are being cast in action roles, Hollywood needs to hire more women stunt drivers to double for them.
And it’s not just the stars who require doubles for every action hero or villain who
that
operates a vehicle onscreen, there are dozens more background drivers populating the streets,
to heighten the stakes and verisimilitude of the scene. Those roles the police officers, the henchmen, the civilians caught in the crossfire are filled by stunt performers
called “nondescript drivers.”
Summers and Candece said
It’s especially rare for women stunt performers to get work as nondescript drivers. Bryant
seconded that point estimating
estimated that 90% of the time she is tapped for a project, she is in the “hot seat,” doubling for a principal cast member.
“How stupid does it look when you watch the movie, and you’re like, ‘Not one woman cop in 2023?'” Summers said. “When they get out [of their cars], and you just see a bunch of white guys with their guns drawn on the criminal. Come on, that doesn’t look right.
How does somebody in the studio not catch that?
“
To address this issue, Bryant called on entertainment companies to employ people to oversee hiring practices in the stunt department and advise the studios to diversify their stunt-driving teams.
“And hire real drivers,” Summers added. “Why are you hiring [someone] just because they drive on the 405? … I get tired of always being in the hot seat. I’d love to sit there and check my messages in between tapes, sitting in a nondescript car.” The sweet and true story of how two stunt doubles got engaged on the set of ‘Kung Fu’Summers and Bryant belong to a minority within a profession they say is already generally overlooked and under-appreciated in Hollywood. For decades,
stunt performers and allies have been lobbying
for the filmacademy to add a stunts category to the Oscars.
The Oscars controversy was just another poke in the eye. After the academy’s recent decision to create a new Oscar for achievement in casting sparked outrage in the stunt community, ABC incorporated a sizzle-reel ode to stunt performers into this year’s Oscars telecast a move Bryant dismissed as “a joke.”
“I have not watched the Oscars in over 20 years,” Bryant said. “I boycott because I think it’s ridiculous. … We, as stunt performers, are putting our life and limb on the line.”
And don’t even get Bryant and Summers started on actors who are determined to do their own stunts a decision they say disrespects the craft, deprives stunt performers of work opportunities and poses a safety risk on set.”Every time you insist on doing your own stunt, you’re taking health and pension away from that stunt person that day,” Summers said.”If you want to do the stunt, how about I do your lines? Yeah. Simple as that.”Is this really a fair point? Most viewers respect actors who do their own stunts. Plus, the “life and limb” quote is a better ending
