Yesterday Dan was on Smallzy’s Surgery, he called in to promote his latest film Escape from Pretoria which is now available in Adelaide. Here’s what he had to say. You can listen to the audio clip down below.

Where are you isolating these days and how are you dealing with what’s going on in the world?

I am in New York right now. I’m in an incredibly fortunate position like I’ve got a lot of friends who are either isolating or quarantining alone right now [because] I’m with my girlfriend which is lovely, you know. I’m very, very grateful for that. 

Also, we are not having to try to home-school children or entertain children 24 hours a day, which seems it would be very, very challenging. So yeah, we’re in, you know, everyone is safe and healthy and staying indoors so, yeah, we’re okay. Thanks for asking. I hope you’re well too.

Are you finding yourself doing different things? How do you keep busy?

Well, I’ve done a lot of Lego. It’s very good, passes a lot of time and is sort of meditative. You get to make a cool thing at the end. I recently built a “Jurassic Park” and a “Stranger Things” set with Lego.

I’ve been doing like a lot of reading, and yesterday I finally did some writing. I have been trying every day. It has been a thing of getting up and thinking that today is the day, do something productive and I haven’t really for the previous however long it’s been 6 weeks or whatever. So finally, I felt a little bit productive yesterday so hopefully more of that to come. 

Talk about your relationship with Kimmy Schmidt and being part of this unique interactive episode?

The filming of it was tricky for lots of people, namely the director and the script supervisor and, costume and make-up having to remember where everything was at every moment but for the actors, all we had to do was learn all the various versions of the scenes. 

Beyond that, it wasn’t really – the burden of responsibility of making sure that we were in the right timeline every time was not on us so much but I loved it. I hadn’t seen anything like that before.

I was a huge fan of “30 Rock” and Tina Fey. It’s this style of comedy that I love and it’s all these tightly wound, very like thoroughly plotted out things but there’s also a joke every 10 seconds and it’s the kind of writing that I could never do myself. So I’m in awe of it and I love watching and getting to be a part of it. It was so incredible.

What are you discovering about yourself during this lockdown? Are you learning how to cook, paint?

I definitely am not one of the people who have learned any new skills in quarantine yet. I have a lot of respect for anyone who’s like learning to sew or bake or any of that stuff, that’s very impressive. I have not done any of that. 

I think I’m finding out about myself that for about 23 hours of the day, I’m pretty okay staying inside. At first it felt slowly inhibiting, but now I’ve settled into a rhythm and also we’re incredibly lucky that we’re here together.

We have got very little responsibilities during this time so all we have to do is stay inside and keep ourselves entertained so that’s good.

How do you find time for yourself since you are isolating with your girlfriend right now? Do you go to another room?

I don’t feel the need for it that much. We both like to read a lot so when you’re reading and you’ve got your head in a book that’s quite like “me time.”

You mentioned you are doing a bit of writing. What type of writing are you doing?

Attempting to write scripts. I know every actor is also writing scripts on the side now so it’s something that we all seem to be wanting to do but I would love to be able to write and direct a film. They are in the realms of slightly dark comedies and so hopefully one day, I’ll get to make one.

Two new podcasts from David Holmes who played the stunt double for Dan during the Potter films that resulted in his injury. Dan sat in on some of the interview. Many thanks to Ripple Productions for the screenshots provided on facebook.

Cunning Stunts, A Podcast Series
Episode 2 – Tina Maskell and David Forman

Tina and Dave are a married couple of Stunt Coordinators. Tina’s credits include: Willow, The Da Vinci Code, Mr Bean and Harry Potter. David’s credits include: The Golden Compass, Bond, Johnny English and Batman. In their podcast they talk about their careers, the stunts that made them question their sanity and what it’s like to set your spouse on fire. We hope you enjoy.

Episode 1 – Derek Lea

Derek Lea has been performing and coordinating stunts for around 30 years, his credits include: Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Bond, Harry Potter and Fifth Gear. During his career he has dealt with many injuries and in this Podcast he recalls how he survived a life threatening injury and describes the surreal way he saw the world for two weeks as he was fighting for his life. We hope you enjoy.