City gymnast tumbles into career as movie stuntman

A DERBY gymnast has jumped into a new career as a Hollywood stuntman.

Damien Walters has filmed scenes for Hellboy 2 in Budapest and spent four months in Berlin, filming Matrix directors the Wakowski brothers' new film, Ninja Assassin.

He has also just returned from Toronto, where he was the lead stunt actor in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch producer Matthew Vaughn's latest flick Kick-Ass, starring Nicolas Cage.

Damien's career change happened in 2007 when he received a call from martial arts star Jackie Chan's stunt agent after he saw a video on YouTube of Damien performing stunts, including jumping sideways over his own car as it was driven towards him.

"I thought he was joking at first but he managed to convince me he was serious," said Damien, 27. "I'm glad he did."

Two weeks after the phone call, he flew out to Budapest where he doubled for former Bros star Luke Goss's character in Hellboy 2.

At the time, Damien, of Chester Green, was ranked fourth in the world in his discipline, tumbling, and continued to represent Great Britain at the gymnastics world championships.

But when he was invited to spend four months in Berlin for Ninja Assassin, Damien was forced to make a choice between sport and movies.

"I could not train as much," he said. "I decided that I could not get much higher than fourth in the world.

"I was 25 at the time and thought I would bow out at the top. Plus it pays a lot better."

Having just returned from Canada, he is heading to Vancouver in June on another movie project.

Damien has become a member of a core of stuntmen, including Jet Li's double, who work for Brad Allan, the first non-Asian member of Jackie Chan's team.

He said his new job gave him many new challenges.

He said: "They say 'we would like you to get hit by a car', and I say 'fair enough'. Then they say 'we would like you to somersault over this car'.

"Then soon they are saying 'we would like you to jump out of this third-storey window, along this van and drop on to the concrete'."

Damien grew up in Chesterfield and in 2007 was runner-up in the Sports Person of the Year category at the Derbyshire Sports Awards.

When he is not filming, he helps out at Derby City Gymnastics Club, run by his dad.

Now he has organised a show called "Curiosity" to take place at the Riverside Centre, in Derby, at 2pm and 7pm on Friday and Saturday .

It includes break dancing, gymnastics, free running and martial arts set to music.

Tickets priced at £9, or £7 concessions, along with more details are available by calling Derby 200011.