The debate if Sarah did any of her own stunts

[Buffythehero]

Hi, I’m new here so I apologise if I accidentally break any rules.
Anyway, I’ve always heard the rumours about Sarah being the reason Jeff Pruitt and Sophia Crawford got fired/or left and decided to have a really good luck into it...

I looked on Jeff YouTube channel and under one of his videos he left the reply to someone ‘Sarah has ZERO skills...we worked hard to make her do a single punch, she does no stunts’...and I know for a fact Sarah does some stunts I’ve seen bts of her punching and kicking ect. Granted, she doesn’t do backflips or anything, but I think it’s unfair to say she doesn’t do any stunts, or has zero skills. I’m fact I think the videos are heavily edited to make Sarah look useless.

One video Jeff uploaded in particular upset me, the footage for the wish. I actually remember when I first watched the episode I though Sarah’s voice sounded like she was sick. And, I’m the video you Sarah lay on the floor, and someone says ‘Sarah’s hyperventilating’, then a min later someone says ‘Sarah’s gone for some air’. Then sarah later returns and had to film her to staking Xander and she says ‘he’s coming to fast I can’t make that today...I have no perception’. So it’s sounds like she just can’t do it ‘today’. And, as she says this someone behind the camera says ‘what a wimp’. I can’t be certain if it’s jeff, but it is his camera.

I know people say Sarah took credit for all her stunts, but from what I’ve found she’s always said she has a stunt double. In this English tv show ‘Blackwood meets buffy’ she tells him how she has 2 stunt doubles. Side note -The Blackwood thing is really fun to watch, she makes fun of hers self, she’s really funny and they have great chemistry.
And a year or go so she did a interview thing with 2 of her stunt doubles, and she seems to get on with them fine.

James marsters once said something along the lines that he is protective of Juliet and that David is the same with Sarah, and that there was someone being mean to Sarah on set and David wanted to kill him. It makes me wonder if he was talking about Jeff.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think. I think Sarah was an easy target, as she never really gossips to the press. I get bad vibes from Jeff though. This is just a rant I needed to get of my chest. Sometimes I wish Sarah would speak to the press and tell her side, but she just seems too classy. I think that’s a testament to her character, she never bad mouths anyone.

 

[Taake]

...and I know for a fact Sarah does some stunts I’ve seen bts of her punching and kicking ect. Granted, she doesn’t do backflips or anything, but I think it’s unfair to say she doesn’t do any stunts, or has zero skills. I’m fact I think the videos are heavily edited to make Sarah look useless.

I think in a commentary or something it was mentioned that her first official "stunt" is a kick in Hush. She does this really high kick and I think it is pretty obvious that it is in fact SMG.

I honestly never expected her to do all of her stunts, or even most of them, while watching the show. I thought it was pretty obvious when the stunt women took over and I can't say it ever bothered me, or that I saw many interviews with her taking credit. Like you said, just last year or so she did a big interview with two of her former stunt women (obviously not Sophia Crawford whom people are super fans of judging by the comments on those interviews and clips she posted on Instagram). I may not be the one paying the most attention, but before joining this forum I had no idea about the stunt situation and I never thought "wow, that's totally a new stunt woman" while watching the show at any point, so from my perspective, whatever Sophia Crawford brought to the mix was probably good (sword fight scene comes to mind), but slightly overrated. The other two stunt women were perfectly capable.

One video Jeff uploaded in particular upset me, the footage for the wish. I actually remember when I first watched the episode I though Sarah’s voice sounded like she was sick. And, I’m the video you Sarah lay on the floor, and someone says ‘Sarah’s hyperventilating’, then a min later someone says ‘Sarah’s gone for some air’. Then sarah later returns and had to film her to staking Xander and she says ‘he’s coming to fast I can’t make that today...I have no perception’. So it’s sounds like she just can’t do it ‘today’. And, as she says this someone behind the camera says ‘what a wimp’. I can’t be certain if it’s jeff, but it is his camera.

Oh, this makes me quite sad, but then I think Jeff came out in the open about being an alcoholic during these years, so I imagine he wasn't the nicest person to be around at all times. He wrote an open letter apologizing for the story he wrote about himself and Sophia being kicked off the show by SMG, but maybe he recanted that apology by the sounds of it?

Either way, sounds like it was a pretty bad working situation, and though Jeff and Sophia (or perhaps just her fans) are still salty by the looks of it, it seems like it was the best for everyone to just go their separate ways.

 

[Hunga Munga]

I recommend you read some more of the James Marsters and Joss Whedon interviews out there .

If I remember correctly , Sarah had a decent usable kick for the camera ...but her punching was rarely convincing .She defintely did some work on her own stunts even if she was part of a team . Pruitts videos show that quite clearly ...as does the behind the scenes stuff on the DVDs .

So far as the Pruitt/Gellar rift and badblood , I don't pay that no mind . In that line of work , the star turn is always right and if you can't live with that , find anther job. That's the business .

I think it's fair to say that the physical side of the Buffy character is the one aspect that SMG did not excel at . Also the rigourous shooting schedule was pretty damn gruelling by all accounts . Even a healthy beefcake like James Marsters struggled with it ...and he was a relative parttimer .

I think Sarah burnt herself out quite early on and the seven years on Buffy were physically demanding for her ...stunts or no . Thing is ,while the rest of the crew were catching up on their sleep , Sarah was off doing a movie , or a bunch of photo shoots , or any number of interviews . So she never really got the chance to rebuild and recharge .

 

[Buffythehero]

I also actors are not insured to do big stunts, if Sarah got badly injured they would of had to all stop production.
But, the videos he uploaded looked like he was trying to make out Sarah hardly does anything

 

[Cohen]

I thought Joss did an interview for Becoming, where he explained Sarah and David practiced learning the choreography for the sword fight scene. Is this not a “stunt”? She is shown on camera fighting using the sword. She does a lot of stunts, even if it’s not ALL of them.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

My guess is that it's truly defined by Union rules that none of us understand. I would leave it at, don't assume it's SMG unless you can see her face in the shot.

 

[NothingVentured]

Pretty much everyone has said she did some of her own stunts. Sword fighting, kicking. She does most of the bolo bag stuff in Lessons. There is a video of her kickboxing in one of those behind the scenes Access Hollywood specials.

The fact that Pruitt wrote is little parable says it all, I think.

 

[nightshade]

Didn't Sarah gain a black belt in some martial art? Not sure if that was used in the show though.

 

[Buffythehero]

Didn't Sarah gain a black belt in some martial art? Not sure if that was used in the show though.

There’s a 1992 interview of Sarah saying she was 2 belts away from a black belt

 

[Cheese Slices]

Didn't Sarah gain a black belt in some martial art? Not sure if that was used in the show though.

I think it was in taekwondo, which would explain her good kicks but her lack of technique with her fists.
As for the rest of the issue, part of it might be that stunt people have a narrower definition of what constitutes a stunt. It feels like it's the really acrobatic and dangerous stuff for them, whereas the general public would include any physically challenging move in their definition.
The stunts in the show overall aren't the "smoothest" ie it's relatively easy to tell who's telling the truth/ tell the actor from the stuntperson apart, especially when no effort was made to have the latter remotely resemble the former (yes, I'm talking about JM's stunt double, who was thrice his size 😛).

 

[DeadlyDuo]

The stunts in the show overall aren't the "smoothest" ie it's relatively easy to tell who's telling the truth/ tell the actor from the stuntperson apart, especially when no effort was made to have the latter remotely resemble the former (yes, I'm talking about JM's stunt double, who was thrice his size

I think they changed JM's stunt double in the later seasons. IIRC when Giles is leaving to get on the plane, there is a guy with peroxide hair in the background. Everyone thought it was JM but it was his stunt double.