It’s completely mind-blowing to hear when actors do their own stunt work, especially with insane scenarios that are difficult even for professional stunt teams to pull off. But still, even from the very early years of silent filmmaking, we’ve had stars who were willing to go the extra mile and try their hand at some extreme stunt work. Some of these celebs even had experience as stunt doubles or choreographers already, using it as they developed their resumés in the industry.
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1
Tom Cruise
It would have been difficult to start anywhere else. Tom Cruise has forgone stunt doubles for some insane moments throughout the Mission: Impossible and Top Gun series just to name a few. Some of his most notorious scenes were climbing the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai for a scene in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and clinging to a taking off plane in its followup.
Cruise isn’t stopping anytime soon, and if his recent promos for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One are to be believed, there is some even wilder stuff coming our way.
2
Timothy Dalton
Dalton is the only 007 actor to do some of his own stunt work, seen in License to Kill and The Living Daylights. He didn’t do the most extreme maneuvers in these films, but he learned to scuba dive and even did some stunts where he was shot clinging to the side of a Jeep.
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3
Sigourney Weaver
As far back as her Alien days, and even as recently as Avatar: The Way of Water, Weaver has done a lot of her own stunts. Like many of her Avatar co-stars, Weaver had to train in free-diving to be able to hold her breath as long as possible to shoot underwater.
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5
Charlize Theron
Theron isn’t afraid to rough someone up in an action scene or two for films like Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard. She performed a lot of stunt fights on her own. Her stunt double for Atomic Blonde, Monique Ganderton, spoke very highly of Theron’s commitment to shooting great action scenes.
6
Buster Keaton
One of the great physical comedians began as a vaudeville performer—his father would toss him around the stage as a gag— but Keaton’s proclivity for pratfalls meant he was always uninjured. With standout films like The General and The Cameraman, Keaton has left a permanent mark on Hollywood.
We could mention any number of jaw-dropping stunts Keaton did, but this famous gag from Steamboat Bill Jr., where a two-story house frame falls around him after a storm, is one of the most lasting and influential stunts he ever pulled off.
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7
Angelina Jolie
Jolie has performed as many of her stellar onscreen stunts as possible, and is seen here shooting a scene strapped to a car going 30 mph for the