There’s a good chance that you do not recognize the name Zoë Bell, and that’s a shame. That doesn’t mean you haven’t seen her work. Audiences, especially Quentin Tarantino fans and those of us who remember watching Xena: Warrior Princess back in the day have seen Bell, one of the most respected stunt doubles in Hollywood, plenty. (Besides Tarentino films, she has also appeared in movies like Catwoman, Grindhouse, Angel of Death and Iron Man 3.) If you enjoyed watching The Bride fight in the Kill Bill movies, you enjoyed watching Bell. Who actually took out Vernita Green in that epic knife fight? Zoë Bell. Who barely broke a sweat while taking on the Crazy 88? Zoë Bell. (Well, she probably broke a sweat, and the truth is she’s broken a lot more than that over the years, each time getting back up to do what she loves to do.) Bell recently sat down with Paste to talk about her new feature film, Raze, and her amazing, 15-year career as a stuntwoman-turned-actress.
Paste: This is one of your biggest roles as an actress to date, but you’ve been working in this business for some time now. Can you talk a little about how you got your start and your early work on Xena: Warrior Princess?
Bell: I started out in martial arts, and it didn’t even occur to me that stunt work existed as a career. The minute I discovered it—and I’m sure this was arrogant on my part—I wanted in. My dad was a doctor, and he was working the ER when a stuntman came in with head injuries. He knew that I was interested in the work, and he got a phone number for me (laughs). I auditioned for a stunt coordinator position in New Zealand, and at some point the woman who had been doing the stunt work for Xena was moving on to other things. I just happened to be the right combination of height and had the right combination of skills. I was asked if I would take the position if they could teach me on the job, and I was like, “Yes, yes, yes!” (laughs)
Paste: Did your work with Tarantino have anything to do with your decision to transition from stunt work to acting?
Bell: Everything. He had everything to do with it. I had always liked to entertain people, but I never considered acting, had never planned to be an actor.
I had an experience with Quentin on Kill Bill where he basically commanded me to treat the job as an actor would. He said, “You’re portraying a character first, so I’m going to talk to you like I would talk to any member of the cast. You’re half of the Bride, therefore you need to know what your motivation is when you’re running up the stairs to kill those guys.”
That was the beginning of that. And then [the role in Tarantino’s] Death Proof came out of the blue for me. I had no intention of being in a movie, so I worked very hard on that one. [Tarantino] didn’t want me taking acting classes. He said he wanted me to stay fresh and accessible to him so I said, ”Well what can I do?” And he said, “Know your lines.” (laughs). So I knew my lines. I knew everyone’s lines.
Something about it felt like the natural transition for my career. But that’s not to say it’s been easy either! It’s a hard thing to change people’s minds about where you stand in the world. People were comfortable with me being a stunt girl; they were uncomfortable with me being an actor. And to be honest, so was I for a while. So I’m sure that energy was a bit contagious.
Paste: What kind of resistance did you face as you made that transition?
Bell: People just wanted to know if I could carry the show. They figured I could only do action films, that I wouldn’t be able to show emotion well. Every time I walked on set and was expected to be an actor, I had to expect that of myself. So eventually I started taking acting classes. I felt like if I was going to be in front of the lens as an actor and if I was calling myself an actor, I wanted to be good at it.
The first lead role I actually had was in Angel of Death. I only make mention of it because it propelled me into the next stage of acting. And one of the things that I learned about myself is that when I’m responsible to somebody else and someone else is asking something of me, I’m much more inclined to step up. When you’re the lead of a show, you feel much more responsible to everyone else in a real way. And Raze solidified that for me. It’s like, there’s no mistake about it. I’m an actor. I acted my butt off (laughs).