Almost two decades after diving headfirst into a career as Hollywood stuntwoman, Adelaide’s Ky Furneaux is returning home, a bit sore and sorry but ready for the next phase of her life.

She is an experienced stuntwoman who has appeared in Thor, The Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean. Agents of S.H.I.E. L.D. and Snakes on a Plane, and as herself in the extreme US survival show Naked and Afraid where she spent 21 days in a freezing Louisiana swamp, without supplies including clothes. She spent nine days without food and lost eight kilograms.

“I do stunts for a living and this was the biggest, longest stunt I had done,” she says, back in Adelaide this week visiting friends. “My first meal after was apple and yoghurt and the yoghurt had artificial sweetener in it and my whole mouth blistered. You’re so detoxed.”

She loved the excitement of Los Angeles and worked closely with actor Jaimie Alexander who she doubled for on Thor and for fight scenes during Blindspot, a series about a female navy SEAL played by Alexander who turns up in Times Square with no memory but covered in tattoos.

It was a peak experience for Furneaux, a former Pembroke student who worked as an outdoor guide before moving to Canada and then Hollywood to find a career as a stuntwoman.

“It was one of the most incredible fighting roles for a woman in television because she’s supposed to be the only ever female navy SEAL,” she said.

Furneaux, 43, did all of Alexander’s fight scenes for the first season but halfway through the next she tore a hamstring running across a rooftop at the start of the biggest sequence in the series so far.

“We’d had lots of rehearsals with me falling down and hitting the ground and getting flipped over and crashing into things so I was bit sore,” she says. “I warmed up but it just went.”

Still running on adrenaline she was able to complete the scene over the next eight hours and assumed it was a simple strain. She kept working until one episode shy of the second season finale, she had to give up.

“They did 23 episodes; I got to 22 and the hamstring was hanging on by a few pieces of sheath,” she said. “Once it comes off and bunches up you’re in real trouble. I still had a thread hanging on so I chose not to do the last episode.”

media_camera Ky Furneaux wilth Jaimie Alexander during filming of Blindspot.

Walking away after ten months of filming was hard but she had surgery in the US where the doctor reattached the hamstring with what she calls “butt screws”. She had six weeks in a wheelchair, then crutches. The expected recovery time was about a year — it is a running, kicking injury common among AFL players who are typically out for a season — but she has still not recovered and faces arthroscopic hip surgery in a fortnight.

“They missed something so that’s frustrating,” she said. “I always said ‘it’s my hip’ and I knew something was wrong.”

Her parents moved form Adelaide to Torquay on Victoria’s surf coast and she has been under the care of the doctor that looks after the Geelong Cats.

“Melbourne is the hamstring capital thanks to the AFL,” she says. “American’s have shoulder injuries but Australians have hamstrings.”

While recovering last year, she returned home where she reconnected with old friends and soaked up the Australian lifestyle with its relaxed attitudes and clean, fresh food. She enjoyed it so much she sold her Los Angeles apartment, shipped her motorbike to Australia and will settle back here for good.

media_camera Ky Furneaux fighting Frost Giants during Thor.

“The little space of time I was back here, my whole body just relaxed,” she said. “Australians are amazing people, they are chilled and relaxed and helpful. I just realised I’d grown a bit hard living overseas. Mum and Dad keep telling me I have to say ‘hi’ to people, I’m so used to ignoring everyone.”

In America she had begun transitioning to hosting survival-oriented TV programs and wants to do the same here. She is also a motivational speaker and is writing her second book. Her first, Girls Own Survival Guide offered practical and empowering advice for surviving everyday life. Her next will be about the stunt industry; the tricks behind the smoke and mirrors but also about surviving in such a male world.

“It’s an interesting journey, particularly with the women AFL stuff that’s going on now,” she said. “There are a lot of women who are in men’s worlds and that’s what stunts was — it’s about finding that balance where women can be strong and feminine at the same time.”

