How not to get killed

And make $$$ and meet celebrities in the process

By Erica Ryberg

The South County Spotlight, Mar 10, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Submitted photo / The South County Spotlight

BLAZING GLORY — At the end of a long and expensive day of shooting it looked as though the Sauvie Island car crash scene the director wanted wasn’t going to happen. But stunt coordinator Jerry Buxbaum (pictured, on fire) decided to get creative. Filming moved to a junkyard where, with minimal expense, a few upended cars, some propane and a full body burn, the director got his scene.

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Jerry Buxbaum likes playing with matchbox cars. The Scappoose resident does it not because he refuses to grow up – though that’s certainly true – but in order to plan vehicular stunts for the film industry.

The puckish 53-year-old makes a full-time freelance living by coordinating and executing stunts and special effects around the Pacific Northwest, including for the television show, “Leverage.”

Last year, Buxbaum worked on two episodes of the TNT show: “The Lost Heir Job” and “The Bottle Job.” In one, he played a cop, and in the another, a bald thug.

TNT’s choice to film the show here has been a boon, Buxbaum said, both for the economy and for the Portland film community, which gets a little more sustainable with a TV show in town.

“Half the good actors in Portland were in Leverage last year, and the other half will get used this year,” he said. “They’re using everybody and it’s so cool.”

The ‘everybody’ Buxbaum was talking about amounts to one big high school, he said. A very small, very tightly knit community.

“It’s nepotism and cronyism at its best. It works really well,” he said. “You never bring a person on a set who isn’t going to work because it reflects on you. And it works really well that way.”

With a group of stunt people he’s gathered under the moniker of the Northwest Stunt Team, Buxbaum taught a two-hour stunt training in February for Leverage Boot Camp, a weekend training aimed at identifying and schooling actors with the talent to be used in various roles as thugs on the show.

Later this season, Buxbaum expects he’ll be called to do more stunt work with the show. He didn’t do as much work last year as he would have liked because he was busy on other movies, including “Something Wicked,” a film starring the late Brittany Murphy due out this year. But other members of his group did.

“All my stunt people shined so brightly,” he said.

One of those people, Leslie Garbett of Portland, got her start in stunt work under Buxbaum’s tutelage about six years ago when acting on the film, “Faith.” Buxbaum was there to put a high-fall stunt together and Garbett talked the director into letting her do the stunt rather than using a double. With a low budget, it wasn’t a hard sell.

“I went off two stories ... and from then on I was hooked,” she said.

Garbett said Buxbaum’s mentorship has helped her build a stunt career. And in the not-always-safe world of stunt work, she said Buxbaum’s safety orientation has taught her which jobs to accept and which to turn down if the project doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a safe or good fit, especially common with low budget films.

“He’s shown a lot of good faith in me by sending me on jobs on my own as well as with him,” she said.

Though safety is a consideration, the five-foot-eleven-inch, trimly built Buxbaum said apart from frequently breaking ribs he hasn’t been injured much in the 18 years he’s been doing this work.

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