Back in 2009, Jack Black was in the UK filming the movie Gulliver’s Travels. Jack was working closely with the stunt team and heard about my accident, and being the nice guy we all know he is, he dedicated some of his own time at the end of the filming day to come and visit me on the spinal ward with his stunt double, Jimmy. Here is a photo from that day and proof that he really is one of the nicest men in Hollywood. He brought joy to my bedside, but also spent time with all the other people in the hospital bay who had found themselves there after suffering a spinal cord injury. The same year I flew out to Florida and Jimmy Waitman (Jack’s stunt double – left) was kind enough to show me around the Indiana Jones stunt show at the Disney Theme Park. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jack and Jimmy for giving up their time, and for brightening up my day and the whole spinal ward at the Stanmore Royal Orthopaedic Hospital.
Breath hold training: There is a good chance that independent breathing might be inhibited in my future. Instead of accepting this reality, I’m not going down without a fight. For the last few years I have been pushing for a max breath hold with a self-taught technique. Now after some training with Ian at Free Dive UK, I am aiming to build on his teachings and hopefully push for my Mount Everest which is five minutes.
Breath hold training: There is a good chance that independent breathing might be inhibited in my future. Instead of accepting this reality, I’m not going down without a fight. For the last few years I have been pushing for a max breath hold with a self-taught technique. Now after some training with Ian at Free Dive UK, I am aiming to build on his teachings and hopefully push for my Mount Everest which is five minutes.
Breath hold training: There is a good chance that independent breathing might be inhibited in my future. Instead of accepting this reality, I’m not going down without a fight. For the last few years I have been pushing for a max breath hold with a self-taught technique. Now after some training with Ian at Free Dive UK, I am aiming to build on his teachings and hopefully push for my Mount Everest which is five minutes.
Breath hold training: There is a good chance that independent breathing might be inhibited in my future. Instead of accepting this reality, I’m not going down without a fight. For the last few years I have been pushing for a max breath hold with a self-taught technique. Now after some training with Ian at Free Dive UK, I am aiming to build on his teachings and hopefully push for my Mount Everest which is five minutes.
Breath hold training: There is a good chance that independent breathing might be inhibited in my future. Instead of accepting this reality, I’m not going down without a fight. For the last few years I have been pushing for a max breath hold with a self-taught technique. Now after some training with Ian at Free Dive UK, I am aiming to build on his teachings and hopefully push for my Mount Everest which is five minutes.
In 2008, between the Potter movies, I worked on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Both myself and Marc Mailley were brought in to double for the kids, with Marc being the stunt double for young Dastan and myself the double for his childhood friend in the film. My job was to be jumping around rooftops performing parkour, evading capture. Marc actually performed the biggest gags and I was to do a few. Mike Newell was directing – he had also directed Potter 4, so knew me well. He’s a lovely man and actually visited me in hospital after my accident. Our job started with flying out to Morocco, a couple of nights in Marrakesh, and then a scenic drive over the Atlas Mountains to the town of Ouarzazate, a known filming town at the top of the Sahara desert, previously used as a location for the movies Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, and Kingdom of Heaven. Gladiator 2 has just finished filming there. Upon arriving in town, I instantly realise the whole place is just set up for making movies. There are old pieces of film sets just sitting in the desert everywhere. Not far from the town there are mud buildings dating to thousands of years old which we used for filming. Filming stunts in the scorching heat presented its own problems, but you just get on with it and between set ups we just chased shade wherever we could find it and drank a camel’s portion of water. The best part of the whole job was the Morocco wrap party where I got myself nicely inebriated and started doing flips off the hotel roof into to pool and proceeded to leave an impression on Jake Gyllenhaal, who was dong impressions of my cockney accent for weeks afterwards. It was such a great film to work on, and one of my fondest movie-making memories from my career.
Not many people, actually just three of us, myself, the other Harry stunt double @tolgakenan1 and Daniel Radcliffe himself, got to read the Harry Potter books and know that we’d be performing the action and stunts for Harry’s adventures. It was one hell of a privilege. I still remember reading the Goblet of Fire, excited to know I would be fighting dragons, and visiting underwater worlds. Both myself and Tolga would quite often shoot whole sequences on the 2nd Unit so that when Dan would come to film these scenes his time would be utilised efficiently. What you see here is a small clip of my pre-visualisation sequence of Harry battling the dragon. As a stunt double it was important to ensure the safety of my actor. Dan and I spent years together in stunt training so that when we came to action sequences, I had confidence in his physical ability to perform his stunts which he did plenty of throughout the franchise. In this sequence, Dan slid from a height of 50 feet down a slate roof himself with the stunt department, and a load of crash mats at the bottom of the roof to catch him. A great stunt and a very proud moment for the three of us.
Wishing everybody a happy Easter, and if you didn’t get any eggs yet, here is a special delivery from me.
Wishing everybody a happy Easter, and if you didn’t get any eggs yet, here is a special delivery from me.
I’m excited to share with you all that I have been invited as a guest speaker at this years NAIDEX Disability roadshow. You can find me at 12:05 on the Village Green stage. As the U.K’s largest disability roadshow, Naidex is a space for the leading manufactures, innovators and thought provokers working within the disabled community. I’m honoured to be included in the event. I’ve got a small speech and Q&A session starting at 12:05 pm on the 20th
This is the coolest thing ever. Thank you for my honorary membership @britishstuntregister. Check out which one of my idols I’m next to in the book. #DavidHolmesTheBoyWhoLived #DavidHolmes #BSR #BritishStuntRegister #Stuntman
So yesterday I had the honour of visiting legend Matt Hampson OBE, founder of the Get Busy Living Centre. Matt is beyond a legend. He was injured playing rugby for England under 21s and he turned his experience into something beyond positive. I also got to meet someone I’ve been a fan of for a couple of years. George Robinson is a young disabled actor who shot to fame on the Netflix series Sex Education. George played a complex new character and wasn’t just ‘the disabled kid’ in the show. Not only am I excited to see his career blossom and future roles he will no doubt smash but hopefully the pair of us can work together and bring some more characters and stories about disabled people, who are more than just a person with a disability to audiences in the future. Thank you Hambo and everybody at the Get Busy Living Centre for the warm welcome and for everything you guys do for our community.
My Personal reflections on the sad passing of Caroline March. Hope from a heavy heart. Please head to the link in my bio for spinal cord injury charities that can either provide support or that would benefit from donations.
In a year of great movies, plenty were awarded honours at last night’s Academy awards, however I would like to celebrate a category not recognised. Stunts are an integral part of the storytelling process, but we do not get our own category, despite it being called out almost every year by actors and other department members when accepting their awards. So this year, here are a few of my favourite stunts performed by expert professionals who risk their lives and bodies for the sake of the storytelling process. Yes, it can be said that some actors do perform their own gags, but it takes meticulous rehearsals and planning and working closely with the stunt co-ordinators, fight arrangers, stunt, doubles, wire technicians, stunt horse masters, and stunt safety crews. I salute all of my friends across the worldwide stunt industry, and I know that despite the Academy and the BAFTAs not recognising you as the artists you are, I know all too well about the risk and sometimes ultimate sacrifices made.
Had an amazing time at @naidex_show being part of the community and then only went and found out our documentary is nominated for a BAFTA. A huge thank you to everyone involved but especially to Director Dan Hartley, my best mate, producers Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn, Vanessa Davies and Amy Stares. Executive producers Daniel Radcliffe, Sue Latimer, and Sarah Spahovic. HBO executive producers Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller and Tina Nguyen and executive producer Poppy Dixon from SKY.
A little life update from sunny Sheffield. Power to truth, disability takes no prisoners sometimes.
So #InternationalWheelchairDay As a Wheelchair user for the last 15 years, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with my wheels and the world. Sometimes a wheelchair can feel like a prison. As my disability has continued to change in the past 15 years, I’ve gone from a manual wheelchair to a power wheelchair. This was a very hard transition for me to undertake emotionally. I would like to remind everybody that ultimately disability affects us all and we are unfortunately currently in a situation where there is no disability representative in parliament, and the institutions in charge do not feel like this is a necessary requirement going forward. So Happy International Wheelchair Day to anybody who navigates the world on wheels. Regardless of the reason that you got your wheels we are all soldiers and we should all collectively celebrate the freedom that the wheels give us and challenge governments and places to be inclusive for all. A shout out to some people in the community I’ve recently started following, who are also sharing stories and their insight to their lives in chairs. @nina_tame @pacingpixie @simplyemmablog @hollygreader @rosslannon @shonalouiseblog @rollinfunky
Once again, I was reminded that when it comes to large chain hotels, it would always be profit over people, and as long as the square footage is fit for purpose, the hotels can call the room accessible. I can tell you this the room that I used was in no way big enough for a wheelchair and a shower chair plus luggage to navigate around. If I had to use a hoist to get in bed, this is another bulky piece of equipment that would definitely have been a struggle to use in the space. Hotels need to start to truly assess the needs of people across the whole range of disability and not just tick boxes because of government mandates under the disability discrimination act. What if my partner was in a wheelchair and the two of us wanted to stay in the same room together? We couldn’t, simply because there would not have been enough space to accommodate two chairs as well as a shower chair, a hoist and any luggage. This hotel was part of a large chain, a giant corporation that could do better to accommodate for people with disabilities.
Yesterday I had the honour of being a guest of the legend that is Matt Hampson OBE. Matt is the founder and brainchild of the Get Busy Living Centre. It is a specialist rehab centre serving people across the range of disability, giving them access to physiotherapist personal trainers and amazing gym facility and social club. It truly is a wicked place, beautiful countryside and along with the rehab centre and social space, it also provides accommodation for visiting guests who want to come up and do an intensive course of rehab. Matt is beyond a legend. He was injured playing rugby for England under 21s and he turned his experience into something beyond positive. I want to thank Hambo and everybody at the Get Busy Living Centre for the warm welcome and for everything you guys do for our community.
So this week I had the honour of being a guest speaker at the U.K.’s largest disability roadshow. @naidex_show was held at the NEC in Birmingham this week and I was asked to come and share my reflections on being a member of the disabled community. I took the opportunity to encourage all the disabled people listening to me to embrace their own unique journeys… It was great to see all the different technologies and mobility advances being showcased, as well as catching up with some companies I have been interacting with over the last few years, including my favourite wheelchair manufacturer Trekinetic. I would like to thank all the organisers at the event, and also for everyone who attended. One thing for sure is that we as a disabled community have got more work to do in bringing each other up and pushing for a fairer inclusive society. #DavidHolmes #DavidHolmesTheBoyWhoLived #Naidex
‘The Boy Who Lived’ Have you watched this incredible documentary yet, if not you must. @davidholmes83 you really are one of a kind, turning adversity into a triumph 💪🏻 Thank you for inspiring so many with your story and amazing attitude to life. David is a loyal customer of ours and is actually speaking at Naidex next week, another reason for you to get yourself to this event. We will be at stand J110, so come along and say hi 👋🏼 we also have something exciting that we are launching 👀 #inspiration #soinspiring #theboywholived #documentary #reeloftheday #disability #disabilityawareness #wheelchair #wheelchairlife #accessibility #RollingStrong #WheelchairAdventures #AdaptiveLiving #3wheels #FreedomOnWheels #wheelchairs #exploring #AccessibleJourney #MobilityMatters #WheelchairAdventurer #RollingInStyle
#ADGIFTED Holy shit, these headphones surprised the hell out of me. Not only were @flareaudio kind enough to send me a range of their products but they totally kick arse and are easily now the best headphones I own. I would happily spend a lot of money on a product this good. #FlareAudio #HeadphoneReview
Killers of the Flower moon. Watching a film of this length is a full commitment, but by God was it worth it It’s an absolute masterclass. Slowly building itself it all allows for the story to breathe. DiCaprio De Niro start off in a friendly game of tennis and it ends like the final of a Grand Slam. you find yourself towards the three hour mark fully immersed and not even noticing the time That has flown by watching this story develop. It’s definitely a big hitter and worth the commitment it demands of us as audience members.
