Eunice Huthart

From Gladiators to GoldenEye

Interview conducted by Jon Auty                Photograph David Williams

JA: As far as Bond is concerned you were contacted by EON to work on Goldeneye after your first Gladiator victory in 1994. Who contacted you? Was it Simon Crane?

EH: No it was Richard Whelan, who I think was a production assistant, and he asked me to go down for an audition. Now I’ve said this loads of times, but I thought it was a joke. So I kept putting the phone down and he had to phone back three times in the end. Even then I wasn’t taking it seriously because they simply said that they’d seen me on Gladiators and that I’d be a good double for Famke.

JA: They thought you’d be a good double because of the physical similarity or because of your ability to perform?

EH: Well the double had to have Martial Arts ability so probably a bit of both. I was the same build as her. I was a good likeness when I was made up. I thought I was a very good double for her. The only draw back was that I was two inches shorter than she was.

JA: So what about that sauna sequence?

EH: Well that’s what I was hired for, because of that high kick. But Wayne Michaels and myself could be filmed in close up. Because of the lighting in the sauna and the steam it was possible to do.

JA: You also doubled Famke for her death scene. How difficult was that to rehearse and film?

EH: It wasn’t difficult at all. It’s one of those jobs where the stunt person does nothing. All you have to do is wait to be fired backwards on the jerk-harness and be prepared to get the wind knocked out of you. I enjoyed that a lot because it’s very minimal and you have very little preparation.

JA: With only 34 female members on the stunt register do you think that your still treated as a minority?

EH: It’s hard to say. I’ve worked on a lot of things where there are more men than women. On the last Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, they’re was about 30 stunt people in the pre-title sequence and about 5 or 6 women. We were in the fish market and like a real fish market or any job you get more men to women. Having said that I’ve lost work to men because I’ve not been feminine enough! It’s a mad world isn’t it?

JA: Your not feminine enough? Yep it’s a mad world all right.

All GoldenEye pictures are © 1995 MGM/UA

Many thanks to Eunice for her help and co-operation

The full interview appears in the first issue of STUNTS magazine