How to do your own stunts -- by Luke Benward

Hey this is Luke Benward. I wanted to tell everyone how much fun it was to do my own stunts. It was great! Jeff Schwan was the best stunt coordinator anyone could have.

My favorite stunt that I had to do was diving into the Blue Hole. Blue Hole is a natural swimming hole outside Austin, Texas. It was extremely hot outside when we shot that stunt. But it was heaven when I got to jump in the water. The thing that kept my confidence up was that there were scuba divers in the water with me. It was a safety precaution to make sure I didn't drown. They had a camera in a clear box so it didn't get wet and they could see me under water. The scuba divers would pull me down to the bottom of the Blue Hole so I could shoot back to the surface with the worm on the arrow.

After I ate the Barfmallow worm I'm supposed to lose my balance which causes me to fall off the ledge of the patio. Jeff was under the patio with a mat for me to land on. At the end of shooting that scene, all of the boys would jump on the mat and do body slams.

Jeff taught me how to run into a tree, act dizzy, fall backward into a toilet paper display, and do a 180 on my bike.

I was practicing the 180 turn before we started shooting. I went down the hill and my front and back tire started to slip. I found myself lying on the ground. My knee was pretty skinned up. The make-up lady had to fix it up to look normal. I still loved doing the 180 turn even though I crashed.

I loved doing all my own stunts. I hope get to do it more in future films!

Luke Benward ("Billy Forrester")

[That's Jeff Schwan in the middle, directing traffic. - Tom]