From a woman's POV, I thought Zoe Bell was terrific. I had never heard of her, generally do not watch movies with stunt scenes in them, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching this crazy woman!
What did other people think of Zoe?
Really liked her from the first scene, I didn't know who she was, but I could tell that she was awesome. I'm a big fan now.
share^Watch Kill Bill. She did Uma Thurman's stunts.
shareWhat I meant was, at the time when DP first came out, I didn't know who she was. I hadn't seen Double Dare (I think that's the Documentaries name).
shareSame here, without this film I never would have known who she was. We all know in action films like Kill Bill, that actresses like Uma Thurman aren’t doing backflips with swords through windows and such, but stunt doubles. That’s about all of the thought I gave to (the at that time unnamed) Zoe before I saw Death Proof. So it was fascinating to get to kind of “know” this unique person. One of those prodigies of mastery over their own bodies. I’m just a clumsy oaf that bumps into walls and knocks glasses off of tables. I can’t imagine what it must take to do the kind of stuff stunt people do in films.
For me, it was neat to spend an hour or so watching a person like that, essentially just being herself for the camera, being silly with her friends, talking big—and then getting to do some of the crazy *beep* that she loves to do—but without pretending to be some mainstream actress, for once—being her.
That’s the breakthrough right there. It puts this film in the same sort of role as the martial arts film, where the people you’re watching aren’t professional actors so much as professional athletes making movies. You don’t go to martial arts films, the good stuff I mean, for the story or the acting, you go to see some impressive martial artists doing amazing choreography. Seeing humans doing real stuff, real dangerous stuff, to make entertainment like this is its own draw; something CGI films will never be able to reproduce. Death Proof has that same martial arts vibe because of Zoe’s presence, and with a different sort of choreography entirely, most importantly, it’s about the film industry itself.