Star Wars Stuntwoman Talks Lightsaber Fights, Ezra Miller Flash, and The Snyder Cut

Eunice Huthart, The Rise of Skywalker’s stunt coordinator, rose from humble origins to the Star Wars saga in a journey, not unlike Rey’s (before we learned she was a Palpatine). Working at a McDonald’s to subsidize her fighting career “because there’s no money in it, really,” she applied for the U.K.’s Gladiators T.V. show—their version of the classic obstacle course show, American Gladiators—for fun. It was harder than expected, but she thrived. “I really enjoyed the competitive side,” she says. And luckily for her, one of the people watching the show was Simon Crane, stunt coordinator for GoldenEye, who was looking for a Famke Janssen stunt double. And he wasn’t the only major fan. “It was really weird,” she says, “because I went down for an audition, I get it, and then when I was introduced to Pierce [Brosnan] he was like, ‘Oh my God, I was just watching you this weekend with my son on the television!’ He was more in awe of me than I was of him.”

Janssen and Huthart’s memorable Thigh-Fu in that film led to The Fifth Element, and then Titanic, and ultimately a regular gig as Angelina Jolie’s stuntwoman. But Star Wars was something of a bucket list item. “When I got the call, I had my lucky T-shirt (Liverpool), my lucky knickers, my lucky socks on. I had my fingers crossed throughout the interview that I would get it,” she recalls. “When I was a kid, I used to watch the Star Wars movies and run out and reenact all the scenes…I really wanted to pay homage to the whole collective of the franchise.”

“‘No, I’m afraid of heights,’ and then like literally 40 minutes later, she’d be doing a swallow dive…”

Huthart is most proud of the lightsaber duel between Rey and Kylo Ren on the ocean-soaked ruins of Death Star II, but in putting it together, had to take very different approaches with each actor. Adam Driver insisted on doing every single one of his stunts himself, which Huthart allowed, saying, “If, for example, Kylo Ren got set on fire, there’s not a chance in hell they’d ever let Adam Driver do it. Adam’s in a fortunate position because everything [necessary], the actor was capable to do. Adam’s stunt double never got into costume, ever. He’s as good as any stuntman, honestly.”

Daisy Ridley, on the other hand, was something of a reluctant Jedi in real life, at least at first. But Huthart quickly learned her pattern. “The thing with Daisy is, I used to say to her, ‘Alright Daisy, the first thing you’re going to say to is I can’t do that, and then you’ll do it, and you’re fine, so let’s just do it!'” she says. “Because she would come to us and say ‘No, I’m afraid of heights,’ and then like literally 40 minutes later, she’d be doing a swallow dive at 30 feet height, and doing it so well. So Daisy doesn’t know how good she is. We always just listened to it and laughed at her, and then it’d be fine.”