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Kevin Cassidy- business is Ninja Nation Charlotte. Book is Falling Down to Find Myself
Bullied kid to Hollywood stuntman to business owner, author and family man
www.marlanasemenza.com
Audio : Ariza Music Productions
Transcription : Vision In Word
Marlana
From Bullied Kid to Hollywood stuntman to business owner, author, and family man; today we learn a few life lessons from Kevin Cassidy. Welcome, Kevin.
Kevin
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Marlana
So, the title of your book is Falling Down to Find Myself. Talk to us about what that title means.
Kevin
Obviously, it's a little bit of a play on words. I was a stuntman for a lot of years, so I quite literally fell down for a living. And then through life going, through failures and falling down figuratively, was very important for me to get to this success and happiness. I had labor in life, so falling down literally and figuratively to kinda making you a whole person. That's kind of where it's going.
Marlana
So, you grew up on Long Island and you said that you became a stunt man. How did you become a stunt man?
Kevin
Crazy long story, but I'll shorten it up for you. So, I moved from Long Island to Charlotte, North Carolina when I was 10 years old, in fifth grade. And I was born in the birth defect in a speech impediment in a heavy long island accent in North Carolina in the late eighties.
Marlana
You had all kinds of things working against you,
Kevin
It was a lot. I remember bringing a bagel to school when the kid thought it was a really bad tasting donut. But anyway, I went to college, and I played baseball, I was an athlete and played minor league baseball, a very low-level minor league. Became a teacher in Baltimore City. My pastor was teaching mentor coaching and that kind of stuff. And there was a sport we used to watch on TV called Slam Ball. It was full contact basketball at trampolines. It was on TV for a couple years. Me and my buddies watched it. It was had a good time. They had a tryout for that in Philadelphia. I was living in Baltimore. One of my good friends is from Philly. Went there for a weekend, kind as a goof. We go this tryout, and I messed around and made it and they shipped me to LA for another round of the tryouts.
And I was a teacher this time just outside of DC in Hyattsville. And I talked to my principal. I said, Hey, here's what's happening. 24, I have a free ride to lab I can get cut tomorrow. I'll be home in two days. I can be there for two weeks, or I could be there for four months. I have no idea. I'm not gonna burn this bridge. I'm not gonna do this unless, and if I lose a job, are you kidding me? You always have a job here. Go have fun. You know, she was awesome, very supportive. Alright! Went to LA and made that sport and lived in LA for about four months. And a guy I met, there was a stuntman who did a lot of sports, movies, football, and baseball movies. And stuck on his couch for a little bit and got a tryout for a movie called The Longest Yard with Adam Sander and Burt Reynolds and all those people. Went to that tryout, made that movie, got into the union learned the whole stunt world and oh, I'll stay here as long as it, you know, until this kiss me back to, you know, Baltimore, to teach and ride this wave. As long as I can do it. And 18 years later I'm looking for an escape from it.
Marlana
I'm gonna show my ignorance a little bit. Is there a school basically that you can go to that will teach you how to fall and all those kinds of things?
Kevin
No, you have to kind of bring that to the interview, for lack of a better word. It's all word of mouth. There's no inter, there's Asians, no managers, no auditions. Every now and then there'll be a big audition, like that football movie. You need a bunch of football players, a very specialty skill. But usually there's none of that. There's no agency managers auditioned this all. You sub immerse yourself in the community. There's a stuntman softball league, a stuntman golf tournament. There's stuntman outings and different guys train at different gyms or different specialties, martial arts or horse riding, or there's Red Bull skydives or searches of people. And there's any, any branch of random athletic endeavor. They're all out there.
So, you get to know these people, you immerse yourself in the community and word of mouth and you get one job, do a good job, get another job, and it takes a long time to build up the reputation where you're working steadily. So, you kind of have to bring enough tools to the table to make you hirable at first, which was football and baseball and all those sports things. I got in and as I was doing those, I was learning how to fight and drive cars and come off buildings and do fire. And you kind of build your repertoire and you know, off you go. So, there's really no school. You just gotta throw yourself in there in the community,
Marlana
Which is kind of crazy to me when you think about it because I mean, these are some serious things if you're falling off buildings and whatnot. So, will somebody else take you under their wing or is it kind of competitive?
Kevin
Mostly under their wing. Everyone is a very cool community. Like I said, because it's word of mouth you only do the job that you're gonna be good at. So, if you're gonna be a person looking for someone to back flip a motorcycle and you call me, Hey Kevin, I need a guy. Your height and weight to do this back flip on a motorcycle. I'm like, I can't do that. I'm not taking that job. I'll give you $10,000. I don't care. I can't do that cuz tomorrow I'm gonna show up and have to do it and if I lie or didn't do it, then I'm never working again. You found it solely your reputation. It was very reputation based. And you take the job that you know you're pretty good at in the beginning, then you build your reputation. So, everyone kind of likes building people up.
And I think back in the day it was more competitive when I started because there weren't as many shows going on. But now at Netflix, Hulu, Apple, and hbo, there's millions of contents, millions of shows going on. So, there's more work than there are people to perform. 20 years ago there was like, there's 10 movies, you may be really good, get on one of them or you gotta go back to bartending or doing something else. So, I think back then it was a little more cutthroat. But as a person who hires all the stunt people, you need to build a good crew around you. So always wanna give someone a shot cuz you always need people of different specialties and everything. So, it's mostly building up and now it's for sure building up
Marlana
What's your best and worst memory?
Kevin
Man, best memory is, it's kind of like locker room, like I was an athlete. So, you have that, that vibe and you're with like-minded people. You're doing physical outlet stuff and you're also creative. You're doing fight choreography; you're doing camera angles. You learn how to train the actors and what this character should do and how he should move. And you have that creative piece and then you have to just get in there and get, ask her at piece, which it really bonds people. So, kind of most of my best memories are their friendships and relationships and all those things that environment gives you and mean some of the injuries and some of the, I should have done this, or I should've start that job or not, nothing terrible, all like kind of, you know, plants on the road ahead. But all is mostly good.
Marlana
What do you take, that you learned during that whole time that you have brought forward with you?
Kevin
Oh, the big thing I learned was like, your show is about branding and everything. I was always the guy that kept my mouth shut and was a good baseball football player. I played and I started, I got a scholarship, and I didn't ever talk much. And then I went out to LA and I'm on the stuntman softball league and I was a pro baseball player. I look really good out there. I'm like, oh, I'm way more than now. These guys, I'll run this whole world pretty soon. Didn't know that that guy's a world class martial artist and that guy was a world-class rodeo guy and that guy was just a bull skydiving and they don't play baseball. So that humility was great in learning that. And then you have to build your own resume, build your own highlight reel, print your own headshot, and you're your own business and you gotta sell yourself to them, to the people.
And I won't sell myself, they'll call me cuz I'm good. No calls. You have to get yourself out there. And we called hustling sets. You just break onto a movie set, find nothing. The stunt coordinator is, but hey, I'm here, here's my information. And you kind of sneak off without getting arrested. So, there's a whole light says boots on the ground sales technique. You are the product, and you are the business owner, and you are the marketing director and you are all that. So that world was different for me, and I probably got, I ramped slower than I would've. Cause there were times I would get a phone call, Hey, can you do this stunt? Yeah, I can do that. No problem. Something I can very easily do. But I just, yeah, I can do that. Sure, okay, well I'll call you back tomorrow.
I will call him back tomorrow. I found this other guy you can do. He was really excited about it. He really saw himself more. I'm like, those guys terrible. I know that guy. I mean, he's a nice guy, but he's not as good as I am. But he got the job. Oh, I gotta get better at that phone call and I can never be fake. I did it in a slow and steady way, which is truer to who I am. But I could have branded myself better. It got out a little earlier, but on any of the days I was very successful. So, I take that with me to this now career of getting out there, building a brand and all that.
Marlana
Yeah. How do you prepare both physically and mentally for stunt work?
Kevin
Physically, like I say, you have to put a lot of tools in your toolbox. So, I learned how to fight and learn how to drive, learn how to fall and all that. And you only take the jobs you know you're gonna be successful at first. And then other times you're like, well, you're the best guy for the job. You gotta give it a shot and you and your boss work about it and like, oh, try, we'll practice or whatever. So physically you just put as many physical tools in a toolbox as you can. Be a good fight guy, be a good car guy, be a good whatever, and, you know, stay in shape and you have to do the stunt. If you fall down the stairs, you gotta do that five, six times in the road. You need a different camera angle.
If you do it one time and break your arm, you're no longer employable. And if you're not working, you're not getting paid. So, you'd be able to do that. Look gnarly but be safe at it. So, practicing falling and crashing out, building those callouses all over your body and your bones so you can kind of do it and do it again. So physically it's pretty easier to kind of do all that is very tangible mentally not getting a job, not working for months at a time. Finding other people who are getting a job that you think you should have got. Not getting too down yourself, finding out who to train, how to do all that. Showing up on set, okay, you're gonna do this really big stunt fall out the window, it's gonna be awesome. And you get there, I'll pump to do it.
To prove yourself. Oh, don't we run outta time. You don't have a budget. We gotta cut that stunt. We're not doing it. And you go home not doing anything like, oh man. So, there's a lot of highs and a lot of lows that mentally you really have to prepare for. And a lot of that is done by talking to the people above you, being in those communities. Hey, here's what's gonna happen. That's part of the job, and kind of building that up if you just get, you know, thrown in the mix and that happens. It's a real mental struggle.
Marlana
How do you handle rejection?
Kevin
I'm very good, I'm very practiced at it. It doesn't really bother me. Sometimes it bothered me more. The rejection part never really bothered me, but the reasons behind it kind of bothered me. Maybe this is my buddies. I'm giving him the job and that you, okay, well that doesn't sit right and that frustrates you and that's, you know, nothing can do about it. But it teaches you to put your best foot forward. And it's a numbers game like any other sales job in the beginning. While you're building that reputation, keep putting yourself out there, keep getting rejected, keep putting yourself out there. And each one has a different scenario of rejection. Sometimes you just don't fit. The actor's too tall, you're too short, not fair enough. It's easy to deal with that one. Other times I don't have the ability, I can't back up a motorcycle.
I mean, I reject that one. But other times when you do feel like you're the right fit and everything's perfect and you don't get it, it's but most of the guys who are doing that are, Hey, here's why build this up. I know this guy. You might be better if I worked with this guy 20 years, so I gotta, fair enough. Stick around and you'll be that guy soon. Then you can deal with that better. But it's how it's delivered and the community you have around you to help, help support you in those times.
Marlana
You had mentioned earlier that you had a facial deformity. So how did that affect your life and your mental fortitude?
Kevin
I think I built it. I speak about, well, it was a very strict cleft pallet. So, when I was born, there was a bubble from bottom of my nose all the way back to mouth. I had no roof in my mouth, no nose, no teeth, no bone up there. So, I had a lot of surgeries to put different things in my mouth. And then in seventh grade I took bone from my hip and created a roof of my mouth and, and this bone here. Before that I was completely flat with no nostrils, and then learning how to talk over and over again. It was very nasal. And then had different contraption in my mouth and a different contraption and another surgery and like, oh, that's like during middle school, which is a kind of tough route to go.
I didn't go to a very great middle school, so it was kind of rough. But I always still had good friends, like good family support. I never internalized it. I don't know if that's, you know, nature nurture. It never really became like who I was or just something that I had a, you know, fight through. And it was never a hundred percent of my day. Like now with social media and everything. And if I were getting bullied now, it would never go away. I would see them my phone, oh man, that would be really hard. But back then, 10, 20 little comics a day, maybe
