Why I continue to do death-defying stunts

The stunts are dangerous. The danger is real.

I’m standing in the sky on the roof of a glass and steel office tower for a scene in my latest movie The Accidental Spy. There are 28 floors of air between me and the concrete pavement below. I am about to do what I do best: do death-defying stunts. I am going to jump.

My stunt coordinators tell me the fall is safe — well, not 100 percent safe. It is still dangerous. Of course, they’ve only tried the test jump from the 16th floor… and, as I watched the test footage late last night, alone in our production offices, I realized a 16thfloor fall was too predictable.

Too… possible.

After all, my producer has been bragging to reporters that this will be the world’s most dangerous stunt. And who would I be if I didn’t live up to my press?

Not Jacky Chan.

So, against the advice of my director and my co-stars and the executives at the studio, I have decided to add 12 stories to the stunt.

That’s 180 more feet of very thin air through which my body will be sliding.

A few more seconds of excitement for the cameras.

A few more screams from an audience starving for adrenaline.

The formula is simple: The more dangerous the stunts, the more satisfied my fans will be. And they mean everything to me. They come to the theaters hungry for a hero, for someone who can laugh at disaster, who can make funny faces at death. Someone who can show them for real that the only thing to fear is fear itself.

But whoever said that never stood on a high roof. He never looked down over the edge of skyscraper to see a foam target 900 feet below. From here, the mattress looks like a postage stamp. When I hold out both hands in front of my face, I can just cover it entirely.

Sorry to contradict you, Mr. Whoever, but the only things to fear are fear itself, and hitting the ground at 100 miles per hour with nothing between you and the emergency room but a few inches of foam rubber.

My heart feels like a rock in my chest.

My body screams at me about the abuse I’ve put it through over the last four decades. Parts of me I can’t even pronounce are complaining about how badly I’ve treated them. And despite the mob of extras milling around the base of the building – hundreds of marines and firefighters and police, looking nervously up at the sky– I think to myself: Is this jump really necessary?

But the answer is there as soon as I ask the questions: Yes.

Because this stunt is special. It’s for my fans who made Jacky Chan. Without my fans, I will still be a nobody today.

The jump

Someone slaps me on the back, asks me if I’m ready. I nod, barely understanding. Another voice calls for quiet on the set, and suddenly the only sound is the wind and the blood rushing in my ears and my heart beginning to pound like a giant drum.

"Camera!"

"Rolling!"

"Action!"

And I suck in my churning stomach. Launch myself into the sky.

I fly. I almost can see death face to face.

Two days later I am back. . . doing another dangerous stunt for The Accidental Spy. My director told me, "Don’t do it," and I replied,"But I am Jacky Chan."

But deep inside I thought, will I survive this time?

(In his latest film The Accidental Spy, Jacky Chan pays tribute to Ian Fleming, playing Buck, a martial art expert recruited by the National Government to save the world from a deadly virus. The Accidental Spy has all the trimmings of a James Bond movie. . . beautiful women, exotic locations, dangerous stunts, non-stop action but unlike the Bond movies, the danger here is real. No camera tricks involved.

Jacky Chan performs his stunts himself... the one and only dare-devil. That is why he is so famous.

The Accidental Spy is made at a cost of over $100 million, making it the most expensive Jacky Chan film so far.

The film is produced by New Line Cinema and Golden Harvest, the same team behind Rush Hour.)