Riding to fame in Hollywood

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

It sounds like a match made in heaven - wife a nurse, husband a stuntman nominated for a Hollywood award for death-defying horsemanship.

But complaints by Jonathan Costelloe about anything less severe than a broken or twisted limb are likely to fall on deaf ears at home.

Maria Costelloe, who has her hands full looking after the couple's five children and four horses at Pokeno south of Auckland while her husband is galloping around North Africa for his latest film, claims to have learned not to fret about his antics.

"I ignore him when he says he's hurt because I've seen really sick people - I just tell him to rest, ice, compress and elevate," claims Mrs Costelloe, an occupational nurse at the Glenbrook steel mill.

"I used to worry more when he was getting flung off horses at rodeos - stunts are highly controlled, with safety guys all around, it's not nearly so scary as jumping on a wild animal."

Her husband began riding in rodeos at 14 while growing up at Rerewhakaaitu, between Rotorua and Taupo, and won a scholarship to Wyoming, laying a firm base for a career as a stuntman in a welter of action-packed productions from Hercules to Lord of the Rings.

Now aged 37, he has added stunts such as jumping out of buildings and being set on fire to his repertoire.

But it was his horsemanship in The Last Samurai that earned him a nomination in the Taurus World Stunt Awards to be presented in Hollywood at the weekend by actors Dennis Hopper and Carmen Electra.

Costelloe and seven other horsemen, including four Spaniards, are nominated for best specialty stunt for their stunning synchronised falls against a hail of Gatling-gun bullets at the climax of the movie, filmed in the Taranaki hills and starring Tom Cruise.

He is not the only New Zealander to have won recognition from the World Stunt Academy. Zoe Bell has been nominated in two categories - best fight and best stuntwoman - for her work as double to Uma Thurman's lethal character as the assassin bride in Kill Bill Vol 1.

The 25-year-old is touring the US film festival circuit with a documentary in which she features with veteran stuntwoman Jeannie Epper, who refuses to retire at 62.

Double Dare examines a close bond formed between Bell and Epper, who acts in Kill Bill Vol 2 as Mrs Harmony and who stunt-doubled for Wonder Woman in the 1970s.

Bell, who has also just finished work as Sharon Stone's stunt-double in Catwoman, will be joined by her parents and brother at the awards ceremony.

But Costello will miss the event as his wife says not even Hollywood's lure can compete with plans for the couple to meet in Morocco this week before travelling to Spain and Paris for their 12th wedding anniversary, after being apart for three months.

That is how long Costelloe has been working on Gladiator director Ridley Scott's latest extravaganza, Kingdom of Heaven, set in the Crusades with New Zealand actor Marton Csokas among a cast headed by Jeremy Irons, Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson and Edward Norton. Yet another New Zealander, Auckland-based Allan Poppleton, is in on that act as a stunt master-swordsman.

Actions speak louder than words for Costelloe and he is generally modest about his work, but he acknowledged to the Herald from Morocco before another hot and dusty day of filming that The Last Samurai had "raised the bar on all horse stunts".

Although he broke his cheekbone in a night battle scene in Lord of the Rings, he claims to get fewer knocks overall than a rugby player - "and there is more money in film work".

And another generation is coming along.

Fin Costelloe, 11, joined his dad in a Burt Reynolds comedy at Ohakune last year, Without a Paddle, in which the lad rode a pig.