Prince Albert born stunt actor Jason Wingham performing a ratchet stunt on the scene of the TV series Arrow. (Submitted photo/Jason Wingham)

By Teena Monteleone

stuntmen tribute

P.A. born ‘Fall Guy’ praises new movie for supporting stunt work

May 7, 2024 | 6:00 AM

An interest in acting that started at Carlton Comprehensive High School in Prince Albert has led to dangerous stunts and action packed fights on movie sets; Jason Wingham is a real life ‘Fall Guy.’

The Prince Albert born actor grew up watching the popular action-adventure television series that ran in the early 1980’s. Now, as a professional stunt performer, Wingham is pleased to see a new movie with the same name bringing awareness to the often underappreciated profession in the film and television industry.

“It’s a really incredible time for us, you know. The work that [actor] Ryan Gosling is doing to promote the career and the stunt people that helped him look good – it’s incredible,” said Wingham.

The movie The Fall Guy hit theatres in Saskatchewan Friday and is being described as a ‘love letter to the stunt community.’ Gosling joked in interviews leading up to the premier that the movie is a campaign to get stunts an Oscar. The profession has never been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“I’ve benefited from the work of stunt people my whole career. They come in and they take the hits for you and then get none of the credit. That ends here. Hopefully the whole conversation is different after this film,” Gosling told Reuters during the movie’s premier in London last month.

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Wingham said within the filmmaking community, stunt men and women are held in very high regard.

“We are treated like royalty,” said Wingham. “We are paid well. So, as far as award recognition, then yeah, I guess you know an Academy Award would be great, but we do have the Taurus World Stunt Awards which is kind of the pinnacle award for a stunt performer,” said Wingham.

“For me, the recognition always comes on set. When you do a big gag and it goes off without a hitch and nobody gets hurt and the entire crew is applauding – that’s super cool.”

Stunt actor Jason Wingham, originally from P.A., performs a fire stunt at a racing event in British Columbia. (Submitted photo/Jason Wingham)

Wingham moved to Vancouver to launch his career and landed on a show that helped put that city on the map – The X-Files. Over the years, he’s appeared in hundreds of films and television series as a stunt performer or coordinator, as a stand-in or helping with stunt fire safety among other roles. Some of the shows he has performed in include The Flash, Van Helsing, the series Supernatural and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

“The first stunt job you get is always a big career highlight. For me that was in ’97. It was a TV movie called Max Q and I was basically a passenger in a Mustang convertible that a space shuttle almost landed on. We ended up doing a 360 degree spin out of about 120 kilometres an hour and ended up in the ditch. So basically, I was just a passenger in the car but it was a pretty amazing couple of days.”

His first ‘really big stunt gag’ where he ‘got beat up pretty good’ was on a movie called Pathfinder. It was a Viking film where he had the opportunity to fall off of a big cliff. On the series Arrow he was hooked up to a ratchet which is basically a compressed air piston that yanks a cable and sends the actor flying through the air.

“I went through the wall of a warehouse. So, that was definitely a highlight career-wise for me.”

A lot of his work is on the ‘actor side of the stunt world’ playing thugs and ruffians.

“It’s the ‘unnamed henchman’ kind of work that I get a lot. I’m the bad guy that gets beat up by the superheroes.”

Wingham gave kudos to The Fall Guy movie for setting a Guiness World Record for the most cannon rolls in a car, performed by stunt driver Logan Holladay. While filming in Australia, the car rolled eight and a half times beating the previous record of seven set by the 2006 James Bond movie Casino Royale.

“To have a film made highlighting what we do and for all the promotion Ryan [Gosling] has been doing to show how incredible stunt people are – its just been really gratifying.”

But Wingham said ultimately a lot of stunt actors are happy to not be celebrities.

“We just love to work in the industry,” he said. “You know a lot of us grew up playing rough and we like to keep playing rough and it’s just the greatest job in the world. I’m very fortunate to get to do what I do.”

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teena.monteleone@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @princealbertNOW