Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danielle Golden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Danielle, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Originally, on my mother side of the family, we have always been in the entertainment industry. My dad is/was a Master Mechanic til the day he retired. Being exposed to the muscial aspect of entertainment, I didn’t feel was for me, so I went to school to study medicine. At the time I was obtaining my Master’s degree, the State hit hard financial times especially for education, so my university had furlough days. Which was tough, cause as a Master student there were a limited amount of classes, available to take. One such semester, quite a few of us Master students, were in a bind, cause the classes expected for that following semester weren’t. So we went to the dean of our dept to get advise as to what we should do. His response “you could always take basket weaving..”. Needless to say we were all shocked.
Determined, not to get down, and waste money taking repeat courses I already passed, I ventured into taking acting classes. Come to find out, I LOVED IT! To be a different person each and every time, and think in new and light/dark ways to create a character was thrilling to say the least.
I will never forget, the night I decided to transition into the arts. I was in the lab workng on my thesis, and just hit a point of anxiety. I called my dad, crying cause I was miserable and really questioning my life choices. His response was “well then stop doing it!” he continued to add “listen live a your life, money will always be there. Choose a life where you cant wait to get to work, even if it means you dont make a lot, cause let me tell you nothing is worse than getting up each day to make a bunch of money and be absolutely miserable, trust me”. My dad had originally always wanted to be a cameraman truth be told, and the reason why he didn’t pursue it cause he had a family to take care of, and that was the sacrifice he made. So with that example, I decided to finish my degree, but I think switched to acting.
It wasn’t til I moved back to the Los Angeles area, I landed a small gig working on Grey’s Anatomy right off the bat. Got my union vouchers within those three days of working on set, which is unheard of.
Then a few years after joining the union, and with God’s plan I made yet, another switch into working full time as a Stunt Performer.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born in Los Angeles, CA all my life in Crenshaw. I was your average nerdy, wall flower kid growing up, and I mean nerd. I was into National Geographics, anime, video games all of it. Also because I suffered from asthma in the worst way that playing sports was out for me. But my mother was determined to get me into some sports, and we tried everything til we came to horses over at Griffith park. And I found the sport I loved, Equestrian. Problem was I was highly allergic and asthmatic to all of it (insert face palm). It was so bad that, my doctor said “You have two choices pick another sport or suffer”. I chose to suffer.
Ive been riding horses since the age of 6 at that time, and still an avid rider to this day. Competed all the higher levels including college level ans was Resevered National Champion, got Rookie of the Year, and was NCAA leadership award. I competed in Hunter/Jumper division, then Western Reining & Working Cow horse, and currently my horse and I compete in Mounted Archery.
Fast forward Ii was after I obtained my Masters degree I switch to the Arts, in particular acting. I moved back to LA from university. Landed a gig on a hit show that got me into the union. Funny thing about all this, that as I was pursuing a career as an actress, a majority of my acting partners and friends, kept saying how I have the build to be a stunt performer. And, in typical fashion I brushed it off, as most people do.
So after the umpteenth time, of friends saying this, I had a conversation with God. This is so true so get ready. I told him, that it seems like he is trying to tell me something, and just to be sure lets do a check. So I asked him for 3 specific things, that needed to happen for me to get his “sign” to make the switch. Within 2-3 days I got a call from Central Casting. They asked me to play a role of a solider (my first ask was to get a role Ive always wanted but never got) for a sci-fi movie called Drone wars. I arrived on set ready to work, the crew issued me a rifle, I take my position as instructed. Mind you Im in the typical stance of a Solider in the army (cause most of my family is military), as I was standing there two men walk up, but one stopped and looked at me, and asked if i was in the military, I said no but my family trained me in all aspects for it, he introduced himself who was Jerry Buxbaum, and he was the stunt coordinator for that movie, and eve he said “has anyone ever told you that you have the build of a stunt performer”, so he invited me to chat with him during lunch (mind you this was the second ask that if there was a coordinator on set he/she would talk to me). We chatted a bit during lunch, and when we head back to set, he pulls me over and says we are making a change right now your going to do stunts instead. Talk about jaw drop! Obviously I told him, I have no experience in this, and he said it will be fine, and he walked me through all the action he needed me to do (this was the third and final ask I had for God). Jerry was amazing and taught me about safety on set, and I had a blast and found a new thing that I loved, and that was STUNTS!
After that I passionately went forward into my career in stunts, and landed qutie a few roles, and now continuing my training into expanding toward a Stunt Coordinator, with the help of my mentors. They have been training me, in betwen jobs on how to work behind the camera, editing, blocking everything so when the time comes for me to evolve again I will be ready.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

As for what its like being a stunt performer, its being a team player. There’s no such thing as it just being you, but you’re working alone, you’re working along side other performers all with their own unique skills and abilities. You work under an individual labeled as the Stunt Coordinator, and depending on the project a Fight Coordinator, and with them Stunt Riggers. Depending on your job you can be either one of two types of performer, the Stunt Double meaning your used in place of the main actor/actress and taking the hits, or wrecks needed for an action scene. Or the ND (non descript) performer, that works either close for far back in the action scene that your un-identifiable. Both play a big part in all action scenes, and not to be taken for granted. I myself have primarily been a stunt double for a few actresses, and ND. As for what it takes to BE a stunt performer? Well as I had mentioned, you have to have some skills, and those skills can be anything, whether youre a gymnast, dancer, acrobat, tricker you also need some form of martial arts skills (that can vary), some skills behind the wheel of cars (again variety), mototcycle, etc etc. It should be said that when saying having skills it does NOT mean you took one or two course in something, but PROFICIENT skills, meaning you can do whatever is asked of you without a second thought. If you aren’t there, train and practice to get there. Because trust me, those more experienced will be able to tell if one is proficient or not. That segways into honesty. We value honesty cause that goes in hand with the bigger thing we as Coordinators, performers vaule is SAFETY. Safety is the paramount of our industry. We all want to make sure we get home safe, and in one piece, because what we do is very dangerous if one is not trained properly. We are NOT looking for daredevils that it NOT what we are about, Each of us are athletes, so by being honest whether its your experience or lack there of keeps you and everyone else around you safe. Remember we aren’t here to cure any illness, we are here to make our fans movie adventure real and safe.
One major thing a future performer/viewer/fan I wish would be realized is that your work will often not be recognized. What I mean by that is whether you work, as a double, or even ND no one will realize that its you, which on the flip side is great as a stunt perfomer, but most often your family and friends wont even realize that the one taking those hits is YOU, unless you pause the video and says “hey thats me”. What is equally frustrating about our job in the Stunt Industry is that we are continuously ignored by the outside community. Ask yourself this how many shows/movies do you watch that has guns, explosions, stair falls, or any big action that left you saying “OMG WOW!!” Thats stunts. And we are EVERYWHERE, from comedy, romance, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, video games, commercials, and Music Videos and we are never recognized by committees such as the Oscars, and other award shows. How is that there’s a Best category for everything yet never Stunts? I wish and maybe someday the with enough support of viewers we can get a category especially since we are in the age of inclusion.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience, now thats a strong and familiar word. Through my own journey in the Stunt industry, I have experienced a fair share of the word “NO”. I have faced many issued based on my size, weight, even skin color. Can you imagine being told “yea your black, but NOT black enough” I have. And thats something that I among many other had to work thru, especially as a woman of color. I should start and say that being an asthmatic kid, and not able to be as fit as I would like I was well over 200lbs to start. Being in the stunt field, we come in all sizes, the caveat to my situation is that alot of the actresses I was able to double werent that. So I had to come to a decision, get in shape for the career I loved or find something else. I choose to get in shape, because again for most of the action my actresses needed I had to be limber and agile. This is NOT to say someone of the larger stature cant be a stunt performer FAR FROM it, this was just my experience. So with careful planning my doctor, and trainer I was able to drop to the weight. And did it a second time after giving birth to my daughter. And i have to say that is another aspect that I think most people dont talk enough about is career moms. Its a totally different thing, after having a baby and getting back into it especially stunts cause way back when I first started out most coordinators were under the impression that a Stuntwoman that is pregnant is ALWAYS pregnant and never thought of again. Thankfully times have changed, now that coordinators now, can/will work around us Stuntmoms it all boils down to planning for work and family. So it is doable, you just need to have your plan A and B in place. As for training with a baby, yes I most definitely took my daughter with me, especially to Joining All Movement (JAM) and House of Champions more times than I can count. So again whether not yet a mom or a mom it is doable. So long as your resilient.
Things were really progressing for me especially during 2019, then 2020 came. And as most of experienced with the COVID lockdown, that really limited us all. Training gyms weren’t an option, nor in person contact. Studios were shut down, and left alot of us in limbo. Determined to not let the lockdown affect me, I saw this as a great opportunity to expand my skills to things I never trained before. I took freestyle staff lessons from Michelle C Smith, continued my education in Taekwondo, even converted my garage into a gym so I could still workout and be with my baby. But there was another aspect missing, and that was human connection. Sure we could call and text all day, but I felt that the stunt community was loosing that touch of connection. Fortunately a friend of mine introduced me to the Clubhouse app, which a phone app that host a variety or rooms/house that have different topics. I met with one group called Goal Accountability, and with their help and influecne created my own group called the Stuntperformer Hangout. My goal for the group was to be purely stunt performer based, where we discussed everything about stunts. We have had numerous Stunt coordinators, 1st and 2nd Unit Stunt Coordinators, and Stunt Performers such as Aaron Toney, Ellet Caddock, Christopher Troy, Renae Moneymaker just to name a few. So we were all fortunate to take this time and really get to know one another on a different level, by learning where we all came from, and ask the questions that one always wanted to ask. I also have to give credit to this group for also influecning me during this time of organizing and host the first two online stunt hustles during the lockdown. Because, again since in person was out of the question, online was the only option. So that way people can do check ins with coordinators for when the lockdown ended.

So again all this is in saying that no matter what if the phone isnt ringing as often, or not at all you have to find a way to keep your skills sharp and ready. there is always a way to evolve, and let your prescene be seen and known, thanks to the high of social media.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @24k_stunts
• Youtube: @daniellekgolden5759

Image Credits
Headshot credit to Molly Pan