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“And three, two, one… action!”
A series of explosions set off, sending dust and debris into the air. You watched anxiously as Colt Seavers was yanked backwards by his harness, sending him flying through the air. He landed on the carefully placed mat with a groan, rolling several times to absorb his momentum.
“Cut! Let’s reset. Back to one!”
A bell rang, signaling the end of the take. Crew members flooded the set, brushing debris away and resetting the pyrotechnics. You rushed over to Colt, helping him to his feet.
“What do you think?” Colt asked you as you brushed the dust off him. “One take wonder?”
“I thought you were great,” you smiled up at him, unhooking the wires from his harness. “But I bet Tom’s gonna make you do it again.” You pitched down your voice and slipped into an exaggerated drawl, mimicking Tom Ryder, the movie star Colt doubled. “Collltttt, bro, it wasn’t epic enough. Be more like Tom Ryder.”
“Oh God, don’t do his voice,” Colt groaned. “I don’t need my girlfriend sounding like Hollywood’s biggest manchild.”
You giggled and Colt smiled back at you, cupping your face with his hand. You leaned against his hand, standing on your tiptoes to reach his face. He leaned down to kiss you and -
“Come on guys, not at work,” Dan Tucker groaned. You drew back from Colt with a laugh. Colt pouted at the interruption. “Don’t give me that look, Colt.”
Dan Tucker was your longtime stunt coordinator. He and Colt had met while performing in the Miami Vice stunt show at Universal Studios Hollywood. Back then, you hadn’t been a stunt performer. You worked a 9-5 job that you hated. You’d always wanted to get into stunts, but thought it was a pipe dream and settled for a boring, albeit stable, desk job. That all changed after you saw the Miami Vice stunt show for the first time. Or rather, saw Colt for the first time.
After watching him pilot a speedboat with his hands tied behind his back, you approached him and shyly asked how to start stunting. He had eagerly offered to teach you, and your stunt career was born. When Miami Vice transitioned to the Waterworld stunt show, Colt convinced you to audition for the show with him. After landing the part, you quit your day job and began your new, exciting career as a stunt performer.
“Colt! Bro, my man, Coltie,” Tom Ryder came up to your trio. Colt exaggeratedly suppressed an eye roll at you, turning to greet the movie star. You and Dan turned away, hiding your laughter.
“What’s up, Tom?” Colt replied.
“Great work on that last take,” Tom said, gesturing wildly with his hands. “But it wasn’t epic enough.”
Told you, you mouthed to Colt through your grin.
“Next time, add a little more pizzazz to it. Be more like me. Add some Tom Ryder to it,” Tom finished, punching the air for emphasis.
“Yep, I’ll… put more Tom Ryder into it,” Colt said halfheartedly.
“My man!” Tom clapped Colt on the back and left, calling for some poor PA.
“How long until they reset?” Colt asked Dan.
“We have enough pyro to do about two more takes today. Resetting will take about… 15-ish minutes?” Dan checked his clipboard. “If you want to go chill in your trailer, I’ll radio you when we’re ready.”
“Coffee?” Colt asked you. You nodded. Hand in hand, you strolled off the set, heading to craft services. Colt poured two cups of coffee, making yours how he knew you liked it.
Coffee in hand, the two of you walked to your trailers, which were parked side by side. You pushed open the door to your trailer and Colt followed, collapsing onto your couch.
“What’s your schedule looking like for the rest of the day?” Colt asked as you flopped down next to him.
“I’m doing the fight on the boat this afternoon, then I’m free,” you replied, sipping your drink. Just as Colt was Tom’s dedicated stuntman, you were the dedicated stuntwoman for Iggy Starr, Tom’s co-star and girlfriend. You really hoped that Tom and Iggy stayed together, because as long as they worked together making movies, you and Colt could also work together.
“Then tomorrow’s the big one,” Colt said, referring to the twelve story fall that you were doing for Tom and Iggy. Originally it had been only five stories, but Tom, being Tom, had insisted on increasing the scale.
The radio clipped to your belt crackled to life. “Colt, we need you back on set,” Dan’s voice carried over the waves.
Colt groaned, flopping his head back. You snickered at him, unclipping the radio and bringing it up to your mouth. “How’d you know he was with me?” you replied.
“Just get back here,” Dan said, exasperated.
“Come on,” you stood up, offering your free hand to Colt. He took it and pulled you back down to the couch. You crashed onto his chest with a yelp.
“Make Tom do it,” Colt pleaded, only half joking. You leaned into him, closing your eyes momentarily.
“Okay, we really need to go now,” you tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t budge, his arms still holding you tightly.
“You know, if you let Tom do this one stunt, he’ll tell everyone that he did all of the stunts,” you said.
Colt’s eyes shot open. “Oh God, you’re so right. He would do that. He’ll be more insufferable than ever.”
“If that’s even possible,” you quipped, pushing yourself off Colt’s chest. He stood, finishing the last of his coffee.
“Let’s go, beautiful.” He winked at you, pushing the door of your trailer open.
Halfway back to the set, he suddenly stopped, searching his pockets. “Shoot, I think I left my phone in your trailer.”
“I’ll get it for you,” you replied. “Go get set up with Dan.”
“You’re amazing.” Colt pressed a quick kiss to your forehead.
“Come on, Colt, we don’t have all day!” you heard Dan shout distantly.
You quickly retrieved Colt’s phone and slipped it into your pocket, returning to the set just as Dan was finishing securing Colt’s wires.
“Check me over?” Colt asked. You nodded. Stunt safety was the one thing neither of you messed around with. You tugged at each of his wires and clips, making sure they were all secure.
“You look good!” you announced.
“I know I do, but how does the harness look?” he teased. Dan, standing next to you, groaned.
“Get in there,” he said, swatting Colt with his clipboard. Colt strode over to his mark, trying - and failing - to dodge Tom’s last minute pep talk. You and Dan returned to your place behind the camera.
Crew members scurried around the set, doing their last minute checks. Colt’s phone buzzed in your pocket and you pulled it out. The name Ry :) flashed across the screen. You didn’t recognize it. You let the call roll to voicemail and made a mental note to tell Colt once he was done with his scenes.
“Ready?” The director called. “Cue lighting… cue smoke. And three, two, one… action!”
-----
After Colt finished his last take, you had a thirty minute break before it was your turn to work. You and Colt grabbed a quick bite from crafty, settling at a shaded table to enjoy the warm weather.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you.” You pulled his phone out of your pocket. “You got a call from someone named Ry smiley face.”
“Oh, thank you,” he said, accepting the phone from you. “That’s my brother. He’s planning to visit us here sometime. I’ll call him back later.”
You dropped your bagel on the table. “You have a brother?” You gaped at him in disbelief.
Colt looked amused by your reaction. “I never told you?”
“No!” You shook your head. “I would have remembered that you have a brother.”
“We’re twins, actually,” Colt said. Your eyes widened even more at that.
“How have you not told me that you have a twin?” you gasped.
“I did! I showed you a picture of him!” Colt defended himself.
“What picture?”
“You know, he’s wearing the glasses and a button up with a tie,” Colt tried to explain. “He’s in his science classroom.”
“Oh my God, I thought that was a picture of you in a dorky Halloween costume,” you groaned, palming your forehead. Colt started laughing.
“I’m telling him that next time I talk to him,” Colt wheezed. “‘Hey Ry, my girlfriend thinks you look dorky.’”
“Don’t tell him that!” You lightly smacked him as he continued laughing, mock glaring at him until he calmed down.
“Wait, so that means your real name…” you trailed off.
“My real name is Colton Grace,” he finished. “Colt Seavers is my stage name.”
You gazed at him fondly, gently shaking your head. After all the years you’d known him, he still managed to surprise you.
“Do you want to borrow a golf cart and drive around set until you have to go work?” Colt asked, stealing the last bite of your bagel.
“By borrow, do you mean steal?” You raised an eyebrow at him. Colt only grinned in response. “Let’s do it.”
You spend the rest of your lunch break doing donuts around the parking lot and drifting around cars. Colt promised he’d teach you how to stunt drive one day, but for now, you were happy to let him take the wheel.
After relinquishing the golf cart to a very confused PA, you returned to set to film your fight for Iggy. Eight takes and a lot of hits later, you finally returned to your trailer. Colt was waiting for you with an ice pack and sushi from your favorite restaurant.
“You’re an absolute lifesaver,” you said gratefully, accepting the ice pack from him. He wrapped his arms around you, drawing you in. You rested your head against him and closed your eyes. Even after the long day, the scent of his crisp cologne lingered. The familiar scent brought you comfort as you let yourself unwind from the day.
“You wanna eat here, then head back to the hotel?” Colt asked after a moment. “Big day tomorrow.”
You pulled away, nodding. “Yeah, call time is 6AM tomorrow. We should get to bed kinda early.”
Later that night as you got ready for bed, you tried not to think about the stunt looming over your head. You’d done wired falls before, sure. It was one of the first things Colt taught you how to do. But you’d never done one of this magnitude. Twelve stories - it was a lot. You tossed and turned, but the day had been arduous, and soon you fell fast asleep.
-----
“Colt! Come on, we gotta get ready to go!” You knocked on the door to Colt’s hotel room. He was not a morning person - neither were you, for that matter, but at least one of you had to make sure you made it to set on time.
The door clicked open and a bleary-eyed Colt appeared. He was dressed at least, but he was still sporting clearly unbrushed hair. “I’m almost ready,” he said groggily, opening the door for you to come in.
“We’ll stop by Starbucks on the way there,” you promised him. He smiled at you appreciatively as he finished getting ready.
Coffee cups in hand, you stopped by the hair and makeup trailer before picking up your costumes from the wardrobe trailer.
“Can you take my costume to my trailer?” Colt asked. “I’m going to go check the rigging for the stunt.” You nodded and he handed you his garment bag, jogging off towards the tall building where you were filming.
After dropping off the garment bag in Colt’s trailer, you went to your trailer to change. You pulled your outfit for the day out of the bag, but the wire harness was missing. Dan had probably forgotten to return the harnesses to Wardrobe yesterday. You headed to set to get the harness from Dan.
“Dan, do you have the harnesses for today?” You jogged up to the stunt coordinator. “It wasn’t in my garment bag.”
“Yeah, I have them here. Sorry, forgot to return them yesterday,” Dan replied, handing you your harness.
“Great! Thanks,” you said, taking it from him.
“Have you seen Colt?” Dan asked. “Tom wants to do a quick rehearsal for the stunt before you guys put on the costumes.”
“He said he was checking the rigging here,” you frowned. “He should be around here somewhere.”
You set off to find Colt, but he was nowhere to be found. You were about to call his phone when Gail Meyer, the film’s executive producer, appeared.
“Darling, there you are,” she exclaimed. “Tom wants to see the stunt once before we start rolling.”
“Yeah, Dan told me. I’m looking for Colt, have you seen him?” you asked.
“Yes, he’s over there getting ready,” Gail replied, pointing across the set. Colt was talking with another member of the stunt team. You couldn’t hear their conversation, but Colt looked frantic. He kept pushing the stuntie away as the stuntie tried to put the harness on him.
“Is he okay? What’s going on?” you asked, your concern growing.
Gail waved your concerns away. “Colt just has cold feet. Now you need to get set up, we’re almost late as it is.”
She called over a member of the stunt team who helped you into your harness. You couldn’t help looking back at Colt still arguing with the stuntie, a gnawing feeling growing in your stomach. You chalked it up to stunt nerves.
“Hey, Dan, is Colt okay?” You walked over to Dan, who was adjusting the rigging. “He seems agitated, and he wasn’t like that this morning.”
Dan turned, looking over to where Gail was calming (a now fully harnessed) Colt down. “I mean, he’s with Gail? You know how she is. Or maybe he’s just anxious about the stunt.”
“I just have a weird feeling about this,” you admitted to him.
“Hey, hey, the stunt’s going to go fine. I’ve checked the rigging. You’ve both done wire falls before. You know what to do,” Dan soothed you.
“You’re right.” You took a deep breath.
Dan escorted you to the elevator, which carried you up, up, up. Once you reached the top, you looked down and let out a shaky breath. Twelve stories was a long way to fall, even on a wire.
“Okay, we’ll set you up here, then we’ll get Colt up,” Dan explained. The platform where the rigging was set up was small, so you and Colt had to be set up one at a time. The stunties expertly attached the wires to your harness.
“Stunts set?” the stuntie asked you. You gave her a shaky thumbs up.
“Stunts set.”
The wires lifted you up and carried you into the center of the building. Swinging gently back and forth, you closed your eyes, urging yourself to not look down. A distressed man’s voice and the sounds of a small scuffle prompted you to open them again.
Gail was pushing a very resistant Colt towards the platform. “I can’t do this!” Colt cried. “Please, I’m not - I can’t - stop! I can't do this!”
“Darling, relax,” Gail said in that very unsoothing way of hers as the stunties attached Colt’s wires. “You just have cold feet. You’ll be fine.”
“No, please! I’m not him! Stop!” Colt screamed. Gail ignored him. The stunties looked concerned, but one look from Gail sent them back to work. Lifted by the wires, the stunties positioned Colt in place next to you. He was clinging desperately onto the wires holding him up.
“Colt, are you okay?” you asked him urgently. “You’ve never acted like this before.”
He turned to face you, terror evident in every part of his face. There was something slightly off about him. His features were softer, his eyes lighter.
“Oh my God.” Your face paled.
“Ryland!” Colt’s horrified scream came from twelve stories below you. You looked down, his face barely distinguishable from your vantage point, but his horror was as clear as day.
“Stop! We need to stop!” you screamed. “This isn’t Colt!”
“Andddd… three, two, one, action!” Tom Ryder’s voice sounded over the speakers. You and Ryland Grace shared one equally horrified look before you fell, dropping twelve stories.
You are a trained stunt performer. You knew how to properly stop your fall.
Ryland Grace was not.
You caught yourself on the wires.
Ryland Grace did not.
A sickening crack echoed through the air. Then multiple people screamed. Dan’s voice could be heard frantically directing medics and dialing 911. But above it all was Colt’s desperate wail for his twin brother.
“RYLAND!”
-----
Two years later.
EXCLUSIVE: METALSTORM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GAIL MEYER ARRESTED AFTER LENGTHY INVESTIGATION FOLLOWING STUNTMAN ACCIDENT ON SET
Two years ago, Tom Ryder’s unreleased action film faced a serious accident. Stuntman Colt Seavers was supposed to fall twelve stories on wires, a stunt Seavers had done many times. Unfortunately, Seaver’s twin brother Ryland Grace had been on set that day. Gail Meyer, Metalstorm’s executive producer, mistook Grace for Seavers and forced him to perform the stunt, resulting in the famed accident. After an eighteen month hiatus to take care of his brother, Seavers returns to stunt work, stepping back into the spotlight to set the record straight.
“Mr. Grace, would you like to share what happened?”
Grace: “I was there to visit Colt. They told me he was on set. When I got there, everyone was preparing for the stunt. Gail Meyer mistook me for Colt. I told her over and over again that I wasn’t him, but she refused to listen to me. She took away my glasses and put the harness on me. The next thing I knew, I was falling.”
“Mr. Seavers, what was your perspective?”
Seavers: “I was supposed to do the big fall that day. And that’s the day that Ryland decided to surprise me on set. I was checking the rigging for the stunt when Tom [Ryder] called me to his trailer to go over the stunt sequence. Ryland came to set looking for me, and Gail [Meyer] thought he was me. Ryland tried to tell her that he wasn’t me, but Gail is the most [CENSORED], so she forced him to do the stunt.”
“Why do you think Gail didn’t realize it was your twin brother and not you?”
Seavers: “Gail is extremely pushy, and doesn’t take no for an answer. My fiance, girlfriend at the time, said Ryland was desperately trying to stop the stunt, but Gail only cares about Tom's career, so she didn’t stop to listen to him.”
“Your fiance knew it was your brother and tried to stop the stunt, is that correct?”
Seavers: “My fiance said she had a bad feeling about the whole thing, but she didn’t see Ryland close up until they were both hanging from the wires twelve stories up. She knew instantly, though, as soon as she saw his face. She also tried to stop the stunt, but Tom is an impatient manchild. He wanted to see the stunt, so he pushed the button to start it.”
“Tom Ryder claims Gail Meyer told him to push the button, and that he is not at fault. How do you feel that he was not arrested for his actions in the accident?”
Seavers: I’m legally not allowed to talk about Tom Ryder for the next four years. I’m not kidding, it was in my contract.
Meyer has been arrested for negligence and an unsafe work environment. Grace has now made a full recovery and is back teaching science at Grover Cleveland Middle School in San Francisco. The film was scrapped following the accident.
Article by Jody Moreno
May 3, 2024