Rick English talks KINGSMAN stunts with Dan and Tom on their show Cracking the Code of Spy Movies. Rick is the award-winning stunt performer who doubled Colin Firth in the first two KINGSMAN movies. He’s been doing stunts in movies for over 23 years.

RICK’S ROLE AS A DOUBLE

So, what is it like to double a star? How much of the stunt work did Colin Firth do, versus Rick? Was Rick hurt doing any of the stunts? What is the role of wirework in his scenes? How many cuts did the church fight scene take? What is it like to jump out a window ahead of an explosion? How did they get the character Whiskey into the meat grinder in KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE? Finally, what is an antitragus?

Rick talks about these issues while focusing on the church fight and the bar fight (manners maketh man) in KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE.

HOW TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING THE GAME

We also discuss how new facial recognition and replacement technologies popped up on the market just before this movie was made. That meant that the way he had to film these scenes was different than he’d experienced in the past. Listen to find out how. It is fascinating to hear how technology is changing the filming of stunts.

Plus, Tom talks about how watching the church fight scene frame-by-frame helped him to identify some of the places where facial replacement was used. Don’t worry, we don’t go through it frame-by-frame here. But, once you listen, if you watch that scene, you may be able to pick up a few of these replacements as well.

This episode helps the moviegoer understand the role of the stunt performer and how they are used. Rick explains some of the techniques they used for some of the specific stunts.