It is safe to say that stunt daredevil and escapologist Jonathan Goodwin is a cat - one with nine lives, performing death-defying stunts countless of times that is definitely not suited for the faint-hearted.
We managed to get the transcript from an interview with the man himself as he recounts some of his acts performed in his own show 'Incredible Mr. Goodwin'!
The Incredible Mr. Goodwin premieres first and exclusively on KIX (StarHub Cable TV Channel 518) and KIX HD (SingTel mioTV Channel 309) on Sunday, 16 February, at 10pm.
Qn: Your interest for dangerous escapes started when your dad gave you a book about Harry Houdini when you were 7, has he ever regretted that decision?
Jonathan: I think he probably does in a way. Both my parents, while they are very supportive of what I do, they tell me that I should get a proper job every time I see them.
I think that when my dad gave the book to me, he did not realise how seriously I was going to take it and he might have had second thoughts if he knew what would end up happening.
Qn: What gave you the courage/confidence to be the ‘daredevil’?
Jonathan: I think it is an evolving process. I think that you don’t all of a sudden turn on a switch and have the confidence to do any specific stunt.
What usually happens to me is that I have an idea then I think of the most outlandish dangerous thing that I could do. And then somebody, either a corporate client or a TV executive, says yeah that is a great idea. I then think crap I actually have to do it now. And at that point in time, I am not confident and I don’t have any of the information that I need in order to be able to complete it successfully.
It’s just an idea on the page and then the biggest part of my job is getting so familiar with whatever that challenge is that I have the confidence to do it, attempt it and know that I’m going to walk away from it in the end.
Qn: Who are the brains behind the stunts?
Jonathan: I think most of my inspiration comes from the world of the Victorian showman daredevil and that’s hopefully what we’re trying to do in “The Incredible Mr. Goodwin”.
A hundred years ago, what I do was a job. There were lots of people who did the things that I do now. And that whole world has sort of disappeared a little bit and I think that’s a shame cause there were so many extraordinary people doing incredible things. And now, most people have never heard of them or let alone what they did, the feats that they have accomplished.
And so, I take my inspiration from those guys and I’m very careful not to copy things directly but I certainly take a huge amount of inspiration from the past and from the performers of the past.
Qn: What was the very first stunt you attempted?
Jonathan: I do. When I started out, I had the ambition to sort of do large scale stunts but when you are a kid in your bedroom, it is not an easy thing to do.
I had the idea of doing an escape where I was tied up and there was something terrible going to fall on me if I didn’t get out in time. That translated down in a very home spun way in being tied to my bed.
I put a bed sheet over me. It was stretched out above me, about a foot and a half above me, and I got my dad to put a hot iron on the bed sheet. I had to escape before the iron burnt through the sheet and hit me in the chest. I should add that I was shirtless at the time.
I can’t tell you exactly how old I was but I was a teenager. And yes, my dad was my first lovely assistant. He used to be a policeman so he’s a good guy to have around when you’re doing such things but also, he’s a very very cheap assistant.
Qn: What goes on in your mind before performing a stunt?
Jonathan: I usually have a bit of a checklist. I think it is very easy to become overwhelmed when you are hanging from a building or when you’re underwater, or hanging from a helicopter by your toes. It is very easy to become overwhelmed by the entirety of the situation that you are in.
In those situations, that is when bad things can happen. So What I tend to do is I break down the task at hand into little chunks. I have a checklist and I’m basically going to check each one of those things off the list, one at a time. At that point before you know it, you’ve completed the list and the whole stunt. And you aren’t overawed or scared by the fact that what you are doing is very big or dangerous.
Qn: What does fear mean to you?
Jonathan: Fear, I think is, a really healthy thing. It can really get in the way with regards to the success or failure of what I do so I try to keep it in check.
I think if I had to sum it up in a couple of words, I would say that it was an added complication to achieving some of the things that I want to achieve.
Qn: Which stunts were you most worried of pulling off? And why?
Jonathan: I don’t like heights. It’s something that I can obviously get over because I’ve done an awful lot of things where I have been very high up in the air.
But those are the stunts where I usually have to dig deep and find a mental way of getting over it. One of the scariest things I did in the series was hang from a side of the building and there was actually just one person there with me. I gave a member of the audience, a lady, a dice and she got to roll the dice and whatever number she rolled was the number of fingers that I was going to hang from on the side of the building.
I re-created the side of the building and all of the infrastructure in my workshop. I was practicing doing that and confident that I knew I could do it. When I practiced it, I was two feet of the ground.
When I did it for real and I was 400 feet up in the air, I basically had to re-create in my mind the idea that I was still in my workshop, still doing it and there was actually a safe place to drop that was two feet below me. And I never once looked down.
You find these little tricks to try and overcome any of the big fears that are very obviously there.
Qn: Everyone has a limit so what is one stunt that you will never do and why?
Jonathan: I don’t know that I have found one yet. Usually when I have an idea or when there is an initial thought of whether can I do this, it is very natural for me to say well that one is too big or that one is too dangerous or you know what not.
What I tend not to do is I tend not to write it off and I’ll research it and do preparation and just see how unfeasible it is. And 9 times out of 10, the thing that seemed the most dangerous or the most scary about it, that tends to dissolve and you think you can actually do this. It is actually possible.
I haven’t found the thing that I’m not willing to try yet.
Qn: You’re an escapalogist, knife thrower, free diver, archer, skill hacker, family guy, you have incredible strength and a high threshold for pain. So, which was the hardest capability to possess and which is your favourite? Why?
Jonathan: They are all so very different and I put different effort into each one of them.
I think my favourite part of my life and my job would obviously be my family. But I think it is really important to keep that kind of balance and. Both my wife and my daughter were there when we filmed all of “The Incredible Mr. Goodwin” and when I’m a hundred feet up in the air doing something really stupid, it is a great comfort to be able to look down and see my wife’s face and see my daughter rooting for me and giving me all the support that I need.
To me, that is one of the most important things.
Qn: What’s the most dangerous, exciting experience that you’ve had since you started pursuing this?
Jonathan: Oh my goodness, there’s so many. I’ve hanged myself, I’ve been buried alive twice, been buried with 200,000 bees, I’ve been attacked by sharks. There was a time I was hanging by my toes from a helicopter and a time I was tied to a weight by a boat and then dragged to the bottom of the water. Usually the most difficult stunt that I’ve done is the one that I just did.
Qn: What excitement or thrill do you get out of doing this? If you wanted to challenge yourself you could just do it on your own, but you do it in front of an audience, with people watching.
Jonathan: It’s different, and that’s part of it—that you’re trying to create this kind of spectacle. That’s what I did in the series to help me in achieving my goal. There was a guy at the turn of the century named Oofty Goofty who lived in San Francisco. He was an odd character. He would get people to pay for the privilege of beating him up. So 5 cents would get you a punch, 10 cents would get you a kick. He would carry around this baseball bat, and for 25 cents he would give you the bat and you could take a swing at him. It was really extraordinary. People still can’t figure out how he did it, whether it was because he had no feeling in his body or he found a way to control pain. I tried to recreate that for one time only. I put myself in this box with a cage fighter and we recreated what he did. I won’t ruin it, but it’s very special to recreate that and be standing and living what he did. If you look up the Wikipedia entry on him, it mentions what I did. I’m very proud to be mentioned in the same breath as these people.
Qn: Any plans to work on even more spectacular stunts in the future? How else do you plan to challenge yourself?
Jonathan: There’s a very long list; there’s a lot more that you’re going to see from me. There’s always the challenge to make it bigger, spectacular, more dangerous. But I think it’s the small things that can also create lots of drama—something that’s really small and visceral, like putting a live scorpion in your mouth.
Qn: You’re married now with a young kid. How does your family react to your line of work? What if your daughter told you that she wanted to be an escapologist when she grows up?
Jonathan: My wife is my biggest cheerleader, she’s a great support. Usually the scariest and craziest stunts are my wife’s idea! She gets really into it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m well-insured so if I die she knows she could get a lot of money! As for my daughter, it could happen. She’s 16 months old now and she’s already running around, throwing herself off chairs, whacking herself on the head and laughing about it. If she wanted to do what I do, I wouldn’t stop her. I would be uniquely placed to help her out. Maybe she could carry on the family business.
Qn: What’s your dream stunt? The most difficult stunt of all that you really wish you could do?
Jonathan: That’s a tough one. I don’t know if I would get the chance to do it since they tend not to grant permission for it in the modern world, but there’s this stunt where you throw yourself off Niagara Falls inside a barrel. There was an English guy named Charles Stevens who had this idea to lash himself, tie himself to the barrel. When they found it, all they saw was a piece of his arm still tied to the inside. They don’t easily give permission for that kind of thing, but to do something like that would be worth a try!