Martin Ivanov, or Who is responsible for the life of James Bond

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:48

In a short time, Martin Ivanov made a good career and became one of the best stuntmen not only in Russia, but also abroad. He arranges crazy races in James Bond films, starred in a VW commercial in which a Lotus F1 Team truck jumps 25 meters over a Formula 1 sports car, not a single blockbuster where there are footage of car racing.

What is known about the biography of Martin Ivanov

Martin Ivanov was born in the family of stunt performer Viktor Ivanov in March 1977. Soon after his birth, his parents separated, and his mother took her son to Lithuania. Martin started driving his father's car at the age of 13-14, later he took up motorsport, participated in various races and achieved good results. At the age of 19, he became the champion of Lithuania in hippodrome and circuit racing, and 2 years later he won the championship of the republic in rallying. In 1999, he repeated the success. Over the next years, Ivanov takes part in the Russian motorsport championships and dreams of becoming a professional race car driver.

Martin's father is a stuntman, busyin the profession for about 40 years. He has worked extensively and successfully in Hollywood. In 2000, the father invited his son to take part in the filming of the film "White Gold". Martin Ivanov coped with the task and began to be interested in the profession of a film stuntman.

Stuntman Ivanov is Matt Damon's doppelgänger

In 2003, director Paul Greengrass begins filming a series of films about Jason Bourne. Filming of the film "The Bourne Supremacy" took place in Moscow. The stunts were staged by Martin's father. The participation of Russian stuntmen in the film was not planned, but the English understudy did not cope with the task, so a casting was held in Tushino among stuntmen from Russia. Martin Ivanov showed the best results. His resemblance to Matt Damon played a big role, so the director of the film invited Martin to his team as an understudy.

There are no computer graphics in the film, everything happens in reality. In The Bourne Supremacy, a black Mercedes chasing a yellow Volga taxi lasts 6 minutes on the screen. It took 2 months to shoot the episode, during which ten Volga and six black Mercedes were wrecked.

For participation in the filming, Martin was awarded the Taurus Award, which is considered the highest award among stuntmen. But her father received it, because the US Embassy did not open a visa for Martin. After this film, the stuntman acted as an understudy in the movie "The Bourne Ultimatum" and became popular in Hollywood.

James Bond performed by Martin Ivanov

In the movie "Quantum of Solace" Martin Ivanovdubs Daniel Craig - the actor who played the role of James Bond. They did not want to include the stuntman in the acting group, because, according to the terms of the contract, English actors and stuntmen were supposed to play there. But the director of the film insisted that the main character be dubbed by a Russian stuntman. The producers of the film did not give their consent for 2 months, but when the stuntman came to the shooting, he immediately became the favorite of the film crew, because he performed tricks that no one agreed to, and managed to beautifully crash the Aston Martin car. For performing stunts in "Quantum of Solace", Martin Ivanov, a stuntman, was awarded another Taurus award.

This film was the first in the James Bond series with his participation. It was followed by Skyfall Coordinates and others. Martin's most recent film about 007 is called Spectrum. It involved not only expensive cars, but also an airplane. According to the stuntman, the difficulty was to synchronize the movement of cars and aircraft in the mountains. The peculiarity of the film is that the main machines that are involved in the shooting are not yet on sale, there is only an experimental model. The group created a model of the car, which, after filming, went to the museum of agent 007.

Preparing for tricks

In an interview with journalists, Martin Ivanov (stuntman, whose photo is in the article) says that preparing for stunts takes a very long time. In each case, different models of machines are required. Range Rover was used for filming Spectrasport. The chase scenes were filmed in Austria, they had to drive on ice, so special studs 4.5 mm long were put on the tires.

All cars are being trained before filming. A safety cage is installed on them and the electronic filling is turned off. If the car rolls over in the frame, the stuntman is put on a helmet and racing overalls, sometimes additional protection is installed. In general, the preparation of the trick lasts several months. During this time, the necessary calculations are made, equipment is prepared. Before taking part in the filming, Martin Ivanov's stunts are practiced for 2-3 weeks. The stunt team has a director who is responsible for preparing for filming. According to Martin, he did every stunt you could think of for the film. In total, the stuntman participated in 37 projects.

Participation of a stuntman in the filming of a video with Volkswagen Polo GT

The Russian division of Volkswagen invited Martin Ivanov to take part in the filming of a video to demonstrate to potential buyers the capabilities of the new Polo GT car. To do this, the stuntman had to drive along the production line at a plant in Kaluga, make complex police 180° turns, and then jump from a springboard through the fire. The car flew a distance of 8 meters.

3 cars were prepared for filming in case of replacement if one of them fails. But this did not happen thanks to the competent preparation for the performance of the trick by the entire team of Martin Ivanov, consisting of 85man.