The practice is called wigging: stuntmen don wigs and women’s clothing to resemble female actors while filming risky action scenes.



Camera angles, special effects and editing preserve the illusion that it is a pulchritudinous star leaping off a building or driving through a window rather than a man in drag.

Audiences may not know or care but stuntwomen do because it means less work for them.

One is now mounting what is believed to be the first legal challenge to wigging. Deven MacNair, a Los Angeles-based stunt performer, is planning to sue a production company and Hollywood’s acting union over a male colleague performing a stunt in drag instead of giving the job to a stuntwoman.

“The practice is so common,” she told the Guardian on Wednesday. “It’s historical sexism – this is how it’s been done since the beginning of time.”

MacNair said a patriarchal culture on sets diverted work to stuntmen on the pretext that some action sequences were too perilous for female colleagues with less experience. “The word safety gets abused when stunt coordinators want to use their buddies.”

MacNair has filed a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws, against the production company Hollywood Gang for alleged discrimination and against the actors’ union Sag-Aftra for allegedly failing to enforce its own rules.

The action, first reported by Deadline, has divided stunt performer message boards and Facebook pages, with some warning of “chaos” in the industry and others welcoming what they see as an overdue reckoning in a sector so far untouched by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

MacNair’s lawyer, Brenda Feigen, said wigging reflected a boys-will-be-boys fraternity which created a hostile and discriminatory work environment. “Women are socially and professionally excluded and belittled.”

The disputed wigging happened on the set of an upcoming MGM dystopian horror thriller called The Domestics shot in New Orleans in 2016.

In one scene the lead character played by Kate Bosworth was to drive a car that would skid and be riddled with bullets.

MacNair was the only stuntwoman on set that day and offered to do it but Nick Gillard, a British veteran stunt coordinator, donned a wig and Bosworth’s outfit and performed the stunt.

Lisa K Wyatt and Deven MacNair on the set of The Crazies. Photograph: Deven MacNair

MacNair’s speciality is wrestling and she had been hired for fight scenes, not driving, but she felt able to execute what she considered a straightforward car maneuver at 30mph. “Seeing Nick in the wig I said, ‘don’t do it, let me do it’.” A photo of Gillard wearing the outfit later surfaced on Instagram.

Gillard, who performed in James Bond films and coordinated fights in the Star Wars prequels, told the Guardian he took responsibility for the stunt because of safety – the car had no brakes and needed to slew sideways.

He said MacNair was “great in a fight but not so good in a car” and that she dwarfed the 5ft 5in Bosworth, a recognisable difference in a car with broken windscreens. “She’s 6ft 2in, twice the size of Kate Bosworth.” He said he received no extra pay for the stunt.

Gillard denied there was a boys’ club culture in the stunt industry, at least in Britain. “In this country stuntwomen work continuously and earn the same. It’s completely not sexist.” Wigging went both ways, with stuntwomen at times doubling up for boys and men, he said. “It’s not about gender, it’s about safety and experience and getting the job done.”

MacNair responded that she was 5ft 10in and that her central objection was that a woman – not necessarily MacNair herself – should have done the job. “It’s the reason women aren’t getting the bigger roles. When a job as simple as going 30mph and turning right gets taken away how do we get the bigger jobs?”

MacNair spoke during a break in a three-day stunt driving course which cost $2,800.

She said female colleagues were supporting her legal action quietly, behind the scenes. “Everyone’s scared for their jobs.”

The United Stuntwomen’s Association and the Stuntwomen’s Association of Motion Pictures were unable to supply representatives for this article. One female industry veteran said people were skittish about speaking on the record.

Talia Dillingham, a stuntwoman taking the same driving course as MacNair, said sexism in the industry seemed to be ebbing. “It was very much established as a man’s world. But my male mentors have stepped in and allowed me opportunity to sit side by side by the men.”

Sag-Aftra, whom MacNair accuses of ignoring a duty to help, did not respond to a request for comment.

Accidents killed at least two stunt performers last year – John Bernecker fell to his death on the set of The Walking Dead and Joi “SJ” Harris lost control of her motorbike while filming Deadpool 2.

Last week Uma Thurman revealed that Quentin Tarantino ignored her request for a stunt performer for a scene in Kill Bill and claimed he bullied her into driving an unsafe car which crashed.