Gary Powell: Quantum leap

Gary Powell is behind some of the most spectacular stunts on screen. Anwar Brett meets the man behind 007’s death-defying feats

Above: Bond (Daniel Craig) jumps from an apartment window. 2nd Unit. Photo Susie Allnutt. Quantum of Solace © 2008 Danjaq, United Artists, CPII. 007 and related James Bond Trademarks, TM Danjaq

While there’s no shortage of schoolboys who have re-enacted the action from a James Bond movie, few have had the chance to do so on the legendary 007 stage at Pinewood.

Gary Powell, however, did. Stunt co-ordinator on Casino Royale and the eagerly awaited Quantum of Solace, and a stunt performer on several others in the series, Powell has followed in the footsteps of his father and uncle to become part of the Bond family.

He cheerfully recalls his early exposure to the thrilling world of cinema’s favourite secret agent: “I was 14 years old and I used to bunk off school and go onto the 007 stage when it had the three nuclear submarines on it for The Spy Who Loved Me. And because I was the young kid I used to get all the teas for all the stuntmen and my perk for that, at the end of each night, was that I was allowed to fire off all the empty machine gun shells. So there was this lunatic kid running around with all these machine guns, firing them off everywhere.”

Although he is now based in Surrey, Powell has fond memories of growing up around the Elephant & Castle, having spent his formative years in the area.

“I remember we used to skateboard through the underpasses there. One of the kids I hang around with was Paul Scully who went on to be the British skateboarding champion a few years later. We used to have the adventure playgrounds round the back of the Elephant & Castle train station.

“There were adventure playgrounds all over the place, we were always playing in the big park where the [Imperial] War Museum is. Growing up we were climbing things, running around, getting into a little bit of trouble, running away. These were the things we grew up doing, and it gives you a character that you take on into life.”

Above all this physical lifestyle has served Powell well in his current line of work, a job which has brought him back to his old stamping ground on a few occasions.

“It’s quite weird,” he adds, “I did a Harry Potter film across the road from where I lived at the Elephant & Castle, driving the big triple-decker bus. So it’s strange to go back to those places with what I’m doing now, because when you’re a kid you never in your wildest dreams imagine you’re going to be making a Hollywood film in the middle of where you grew up.

“I was also responsible for the Waterloo stuff in The Bourne Ultimatum, all the free running, everything that was in Europe basically. So it is quite surreal sometimes, you sort of pinch yourself because you can’t believe you’re doing it, it’s fantastic.”

Despite his high-profile work on major movies with the biggest stars in the world, the 45-year-old did get a particular thrill working with boyhood hero Harrison Ford on Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull recently.

“I can remember living here when Star Wars first came out, I went to see it eight times. There was Han Solo, there was Indiana Jones, and I’m getting a phone call 19 years later to go and work with him – it was a dream come true. There was a few of us there, the first day they had the screen test with Harrison putting on the costume.

“I took the English team with me, and we ran on the set and just stood there. It was like ‘it’s Indiana Jones!’, it was just amazing seeing him standing there, just like the first time I saw him when I was a kid in the Elephant & Castle.”

When he was indeed a kid any ambition to go into the movies and work with the great and good of the film industry seemed an unlikely one, even though his family had worked in the business for years. It was not a great time for British cinema, and school careers officers were sceptical of him making it.

“I’d love to go back to some of the early schoolteachers, because I actually left school when I was 14 with no qualifications. I actually couldn’t read and write too well, I’ve got dyslexia, so I had to teach myself. And they were like ‘you’re never going to be anything without an education, you think you’re just going to go on and do things like your Dad does, it’s not going to work.’ But that’s what I wanted to do. And it’s come out a lot better than I ever planned, so that’s a bit of a poke in the eye to them, really.”

Whether another generation of the Powell family will follow Gary into film is still open to question. At the time of writing his girlfriend is pregnant with their first child, so the possibility is there, but Powell is rather pre-occupied as the impending due date draws nearer.

“It’s actually due the night of the premiere for Quantum of Solace,” he laughs, “so I could be in there when I get the phone call and have to go. Funnily enough I’ve jumped off buildings, been set on fire, crashed cars, driven tanks through walls, this, that and the other. But when it comes to needles and injections I am the biggest wuss you could ever come across.

“I have to have injections for certain parts of the world we go to, for all the different diseases, and I have to lie down because nine times out of ten if someone sticks a needle in me when I’m standing up I normally end up on the floor. I’m useless when it comes to that sort of thing. I have every intention of being there for the birth, but whether I’m still standing at the end of it I don’t know.”

Quantum of solace is at cinemas now

Watch the trailer for the much-anticipated new Bond movie