The Craziest Stunts Actors Insisted On Doing Themselves

Movies have always featured people doing extraordinary things, and thanks to a myriad of safety rules and regulations, stunt performers are capable of pulling off amazing action sequences. These professionals put their bodies on the line whenever they make it look like Ben Affleck jumps off a building as Batman, or Margot Robbie pulls off an amazing fight sequence as Harley Quinn. Most of the time, the actors aren't actually performing the stunts — their stunt doubles are.

Aside from the fact that a stunt performer is a professional, often with years of training and experience, it's impractical for an actor to do all of their own stunts. After all, a movie often hinges on their participation, and if they injure themselves and cannot perform, it can put hundreds of people out of work as production shuts down. Of course, there are exceptions, and some actors prefer to do their own stunts, often in defiance of studios and the insurance companies covering them.

When a high-profile actor takes on a dangerous stunt, everyone likely holds their breaths, hoping for the best. Few actors are willing to tackle dangerous stunts, and many prefer to leave it to the professionals. Still, every once in a while, an actor puts their foot down and chooses to pull off a crazy stunt some stunt performers might think twice about. All of these actors had other options, but decided instead to perform their own insane stunts, and some paid the price with broken bones and bruised egos.

Christian Bale is a dedicated actor willing to alter his physique for a role. He famously lost nearly 60 lbs. for "The Machinist" and put on 100 lbs. to play the Dark Knight in "Batman Begins." The man puts his body through hell, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that he often does his own stunts. Over the years, Bale has done some absolutely incredible stunts, many of which were dangerous. One somewhat risky stunt involved nothing but standing in one place and looking down at the street.

While that doesn't inherently sound dangerous, he did it atop the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, which he explained on the "Early Show:" "How often do you get a chance to do that in a Batman costume looking out on Chicago? One hundred and ten stories up looking over the edge straight down on the street? I'm not letting anybody else do that. I'll tell you, the thing that was kind of disturbing but enjoyable was how comfortable I felt" (via CBS News).

Bale took advantage of the opportunity and leaned as far over the edge as he dared, making the producers incredibly nervous. While standing atop a building isn't necessarily dangerous, plenty could have gone wrong. Fortunately, nothing did, and as he's matured, Bale has moved away from doing stunt work, telling GQ in 2019, "I don't want to be doing that sort of thing when I'm in my sixties."

These days, it's easy to forget that in the early days of filmmaking, filmmakers had to come up with everything we now take for granted. This is especially true of stunt work, and many actors during the silent era did everything themselves. People like Buster Keaton came out of Vaudeville, where they were used to overtly visual displays.

Keaton's stunts are legendary, but one stands out as his most dangerous. In "Steamboat Bill Jr.," Keaton's character, William Canfield, Jr., finds himself in the midst of a tornado. As he makes his way through town, he happens to stand in front of a building, when the facade literally tears off in one single piece. It falls down on top of him, but he's standing precisely where the open window is, ensuring his safety. This stunt could have gone horribly wrong, which is one of the reasons it's so impressive.

The facade wasn't made of foam or anything like it; it could have killed Keaton had he missed his mark. Keaton later called the stunt one of his "greatest thrills," adding, "I was mad at the time, or I would never have done the thing" (via Vintage Everyday). When the film was made, Keaton wasn't in a good place emotionally, which likely contributed to his willingness to stand there and let a house fall on top of him. Ultimately, the stunt became Keaton's most famous, and it's been redone via homages ever since.

"Conan The Barbarian" wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger's first movie, but it is the one that made him a star. Schwarzenegger performed most of his stunts throughout the film, including numerous fights, tumbles, and swordwork. To prepare, Schwarzenegger trained in martial arts and swordplay, picking up a skill he retained decades later. During one pivotal scene in the film, Conan is chased by a pack of wild dogs, forcing him up a rocky outcropping. He falls into a cave and finds the throne of a long-dead king holding a sword.

You'd think tumbling into the cave was the most daring stunt work in the scene, but it wasn't. According to Schwarzenegger's autobiography "Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story," the real danger came when Conan ran from the pack of dogs. Director John Milius arranged to have a group of German Shepherds that "had some wolf in them." Schwarzenegger wasn't excited about working with the dogs, so he spent a little time with them daily to overcome his apprehension. When the day came to shoot the scene, Schwarzenegger was assured of his safety.

They sewed raw meat into the man's clothes and set him loose. Unfortunately, the trainer let the dogs go too soon, and they had no trouble running Schwarzenegger down. He later wrote: "They bit at my pants and dragged me down off the rock, and I fell ten feet onto my back." Schwarzenegger required 12 stitches to close up a wound on his back, and he went right back to work.

Even for a James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace" has a lot of action, which is saying something. The film effectively ups the ante from its predecessor, and features a stunt where Bond jumps from a three-story building on top of a moving bus. Daniel Craig performed most of his own stunts throughout the film, including that one. Gary Powell, the chief stunt coordinator on the film, told The Guardian that "Daniel puts the work in, even if it's something he's not keen on."

According to Powell, Craig isn't too keen on working with heights, but he pushed himself to do so anyway. The scene in question sees Bond running through the streets and onto the rooftops, jumping from one building to another. That alone is pretty risky, and every time he comes in, he hits something hard — it's clearly painful. When he gets to a building with an iron covering on the window he needs to jump through, he turns around and leaps toward the street.

He's three stories up and has to drop on a moving bus, and Craig did it all. To do it properly, he had to jump precisely at the right time, or he would miss the bus and hit the street. As Powell put it, "You've actually got to jump before the bus is under you." Bond slams into the bus and nearly falls off but is right back in pursuit of his quarry without hesitation, leading to a beautifully choreographed fight scene.

Harold Lloyd is another actor from the silent era whose work impacted the entire filmmaking industry. Unlike his contemporaries, Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, Lloyd wasn't a product of Vaudeville, and came into filmmaking through experimentation. Before long, he became one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, and like many during his era of filmmaking, he did most of his own stunt work. There's one stunt he's best known for, and you've probably seen it somewhere, even if you never watched "Safety Last!"

Lloyd plays The Boy, and at one point, he climbs up the side of a building, getting higher and higher, moving through a gauntlet of buffoonery. At one point, he grasps a board and dangles outside a window but manages to right himself before proceeding. Eventually, he comes to a giant clock, grabbing the minute hand. As he tries to climb higher, the clock face pulls out and he dangles over the street several stories below, before his pal rescues him with a rope.

The scene is iconic and one of the most indelible of the era. The stunt was dangerous, though the appearance of height was managed by shooting in several locations. Additionally, a safety net was placed about one floor below the clock. The scene was so frightening to moviegoers at the time, many viewers fainted, and ambulances were parked outside some theaters. Many have paid homage to this scene, including Jackie Chan in "Project A."

Angelina Jolie's career has been filled with action movies, requiring a myriad of stunts the actor has performed on her own. She spends time training for each stunt and goes to work on each one. Speaking to Cinema.com, "Tomb Raider" director Simon West described his star, saying, "Angelina was doing triple back flips on the set. She was doing the bungee jumps from 50 feet up in the air. She was laughing." Clearly, Jolie doesn't balk at dangerous stunt work, and she's been doing it for years.

In "Salt," Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a woman accused of being a Russian sleeper agent intent on clearing her name. This leads to plenty of chase scenes and action sequences that put Salt to the test. Jolie performed most of her stunts, including the most dangerous. In one pivotal scene, Salt runs from her pursuers by jumping from a bridge onto a moving truck. She then jumps to another truck and another, before stealing a motorcycle (by pushing the rider off) and managing to escape.

Jolie did the stunt herself, despite having doubles on hand who rehearsed the whole sequence. She trained and practiced so Jolie was ready when the time came to shoot the scene. Stunt coordinator Simon Crane told the Los Angeles Times, "[Jolie is] absolutely fearless when it comes to high places. ... You can use her confidence with heights to put her in all kinds of dicey situations and know that she's going to be convincing pulling it off."

Jackie Chan is an actor, but in reality, he's more of a professional stuntman who occasionally acts. The man has done many insane stunts over the years; this article could have been entirely about him. Chan has been throwing himself around, jumping off things, and injuring himself for decades. Many of his films feature bloopers during the credits, showing the many ways he hurt himself during filming. Despite the damage, Chan does whatever he must to achieve a perfect shot.

Chan has done some insanely daring stunts over the years, including sliding down a steel pole through electrical lights down several stories, and through a glass ceiling in "Police Story." While those stunts are legendary, they're not Chan's craziest; that came in "Who Am I?" Chan plays a character called Jackie Chan, but amnesia has him constantly asking, "Who Am I?" There are several chase scenes, but only one ends with a spectacular stunt that leaves viewers wondering why Chan would try something so crazy.

Chan is chased to the top of a building, and lacking other options, he slides down the 21-story skyscraper. He slides down the building's angled side and even manages to get to his feet at one point, before tumbling the rest of the way. He stops at the bottom and saves himself from falling to the ground. In his book, "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action," Chan described the stunt as one of his favorites.