Former GB gymnast Nicholas Daines, 48, reveals how he never gave up on achieving his dream role in the Harry Potter films…
“As a professional stuntman a large part of my job is to turn up, get made into somebody else and seconds later I’m standing on top of a building hearing ‘three-two-one – action’, and taking my life in my hands and hurling myself into the air. Every situation is different and that’s what makes my work so exciting.
I discovered a gymnastic ability at the age of six and it became a huge part of who I am and still shapes my life today. After I’d quit artistic gymnastics I took up double mini trampoline and competed for Team GB. I was 30 so that was pretty old but it meant I’d retained my skills.
I did microbiology at university but I knew that looking down a microscope was not for me for the rest of my life – although I’m now also a wildlife and science presenter so that academic background has come in useful!
I’d always wanted to be in the movies and on TV and because I’m so physical, and used to jumping and falling off things, I literally fell into stunts; it was a natural progression.
I started doing pantomimes and stage shows but I knew I wanted to be on screen so I started doing extra work. It was when I was an extra on an episode of The Bill that was a defining moment.
It was an episode called ‘Urgent Assistance’ and I thought I’d pretty much made it because I was on set on a television show. But I saw a stunt that day and all the stuntman had to do was jump from a platform onto the back windshield of a car. That was when the penny really dropped. That’s when I really thought, ‘That’s what I should do’. So that day was very poignant and that’s going back 20 years now.
Pulling a stunt
Since then I’ve been nominated for a world stunt award for The Golden Compass and won a Screen Actors Guild award for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, for best stunt ensemble in a motion picture.
My first ever stunt, however, was falling off a cliff in Casualty and being airlifted to safety by a Sea King helicopter. Essentially the coordinator wanted a gymnast who could fall off a cliff and then roll down this mountainside, being agile and acrobatic while making it look like a nasty accident.
But a role I coveted was on one of the Harry Potter films. They had already done two films when I heard they were doing auditions for the quidditch team and I was like, ‘I’m small – I’m 5ft 6ins’ – well I’m 5ft 7ins on my resume but 5ft 6ins in real life – ‘I’m perfect for this’. Somehow I was overlooked but I found out the stunt coordinator’s phone number and the details of the audition, which turned out to be the next day.
So I got up super early and drove to Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire and was outside the gate at 8.30am. I then called the coordinator to see if I could attend the audition. He said, if you can get here for 9am you can come but I don’t know if you’re going to make it in time. Little did he know – and he still doesn’t know – that I was outside the gates.
Magic moment
I didn’t get the job on that one but for me it was a huge achievement. I’d read the books so it was the most incredible feeling to be walking through the sets of Hogwarts and having a go on the mechanical broomsticks.
I didn’t get the job because I was much older than everybody else, but by then I was on the radar and a little bit later, on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince they had this quidditch battle with people colliding in the air on broomsticks and falling out of the sky and they needed gymnastic people.
By then the characters were slightly older and that went in my favour, and from then I was in it all the way through including being a Death Eater and a Ravenclaw student – at 37 I was definitely the oldest pupil at Hogwarts running around with my wand!
Being small really worked for Harry Potter and I was also fine as an Oompah Loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but sometimes I have to have huge step-ins in my shoes, depending on who I need to double for.
I double quite a lot for actor Cillian Murphy in films such as in the Heart of the Sea and Sunshine and he is 5ft 9ins so I have to put in my step-ins when I double for him, which makes stunt work a little bit more challenging.
Drama Queen
I’ve doubled for women as well. One particular stunt I did for actress Claire Goose in the BBC’s Waking the Dead, was a one-and-three-quarter somersault off the top of a building and none of the female stuntwomen would dare do it because you needed real technical ability, which I’d got from gymnastics.
I have also doubled for royalty, for an insurance commercial campaign, which was filmed to run during the London 2012 Olympics. It was an awesome job where, dressed as the Queen no less, I got to compete in the long jump with Chris Tomlinson, run the 100-metres against Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, and take on the hurdles with Perri Shakes-Drayton.
I do get a little nervous at times but I think it’s healthy to feel this way. After all there is nothing natural about throwing yourself off a seven-storey building or being set on fire. But as a stuntman it’s the ability to channel that nervous energy into acute focus that counts. Gymnastics taught me this and it serves me well every day I’m on set.
Narrow escape
One of the scariest times I’ve experienced as a stunt performer was for a cigarette commercial in Pakistan. I had to deliberately capsize a canoe and go over a waterfall in raging white-water rapids.
However, for aesthetic purposes the clients did not want me to wear a buoyancy aide so as I went over the waterfall the rapids sucked me under and the water pinned me to the riverbed.
I was just about on my last breath when out of nowhere I saw a pink grab bag that contained a rope, thrown in by one of the safety guys after I didn’t surface. I was frantically trying to get it but with the turbulent water all around me it was impossible to see where it was.
With my thrashing it must have got wrapped around my neck and then the rope went taught as the safety guy pulled on it to bring me in. That’s when it strangled me and only by jamming two fingers between my neck and the rope did it stop me from passing out.
It was a harrowing experience but for some reason it only fuelled my enthusiasm for the job!”
Of course it did Nicholas, of course it did…
Interview by Jo Gunston
(Nov 2016)
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Website: www.nicholasdaines.com
Video link to Nicholas Daines showreel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGauHc8AAlw
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