A road warrior's drive to succeed

Robert Nagle

Stunt Driver

Current assignments: "Collateral," which was released on DVD last month; "Herbie: Fully Loaded," the upcoming remake of "The Love Bug."

Kicking the tires: "Typically speaking, the stunt coordinator is the one who brings the stunt drivers [on a project]. If there are just one or two people involved there might not even be a stunt coordinator. If it's just myself, I am the coordinator and stunt driver. That's more typical of car commercials, where we will just have one or two people."

The grand design: "You sit down with the coordinator and the director and principal drivers, whoever is really involved in the meat of what's going on. And it may be the actors -- if we have them in the vehicle or they are involved in some way or another. We talk about what the director wants to see and try and deliver what he's looking for."

Behind the "Collateral" wheel: "[Director] Michael Mann wanted Jamie Foxx to be absolutely confident behind the wheel of the car, and that is taking him to a much higher level of driver ability, so that at any time even if his focus wanders from the task at hand of driving and he's focusing in acting, he's very confident in what he's doing. We spent two full days training. The first day is a lot of fundamentals and explaining how a car functions and how to communicate with the car."

Hey, taxi: "There were a few taxis that they used for 'Collateral.' We also have a fabrication shop so we build cars for films, and my shop built one of them which we call a 'blind-drive vehicle.' We actually made a different one specifically for 'Collateral' to allow us to move the controls -- put them anywhere in the vehicle -- so Michael could put a camera anywhere in the car and we could control the vehicle and put Jamie in the driver's set."

Backseat driver: "The brakes, throttle and steering wheel [were in the back seat] and I was sitting in the right rear corner of the car. To be honest with you, the hardest part was for Jamie, who is sitting in the driver's seat in the car and has no control [over the steering]. It's a little eerie. At the same time, I rigged it up so that his steering wheel was mechanically connected [to mine], so all he had to do was keep his hands placed on the wheel and it would look as if he was driving."

Credits: "The Insider," "Ali," "3: The Dale Earnhardt Story," "Robbery Homicide Division," numerous commercials.

Start your engines: "I have been doing the stunt driving for seven years now. I used to race. I started road racing in the early '90s. I have always been around cars in some form or fashion, have been playing with cars and decided to get a little bit serious about it. Somebody actually let me take one of the road race cars out on the track to try it, and I was hooked ever since. I was pretty successful. Over the years, the sponsorship became more difficult and competitive. It is a lot of work to begin with, and having to chase the money involved with it, I got tired of it.

"I met a man who is now a close friend of mine, Steve Kelso, while racing. He has been in the stunt business over 20 years. He had told me, 'If you might want to try this, give me a call.' When I decided to change what I was doing, that's when I did."

Safety first: "I have never been hurt. I have never been hurt racing, either. I had a couple of crashes due to other vehicles in racing, but the cars are pretty safe. Stunt driving, for the most part, is pretty safe. I guess the only downside is that we are dealing with completely stock street vehicles that may not hold up as well, but we yet to have had incidents."

Union or guild: Screen Actors Guild.

Age: 39

Residence: West Hollywood

Problem-solving: "Directors change their minds all the time ... but having been around it enough, you are ready for changes."