Your Iconic Image : Lessons From a Stuntman Your Iconic Image

Kevin Cassidy- business is Ninja Nation Charlotte.  Book is Falling Down to Find Myself


Bullied kid to Hollywood stuntman to business owner, author and family man






www.kevincass.com


www.marlanasemenza.com
Audio : Ariza Music Productions
Transcription : Vision In Word


Marlana


From Bullied Kid to Hollywood stuntman to business owner, author, and family man; today we learn a few life lessons from Kevin Cassidy. Welcome, Kevin.






Kevin 


Thank you, thanks for having me.






Marlana


So, the title of your book is Falling Down to Find Myself. Talk to us about what that title means.






Kevin 


Obviously, it's a little bit of a play on words. I was a stuntman for a lot of years, so I quite literally fell down for a living. And then through life going, through failures and falling down figuratively, was very important for me to get to this success and happiness. I had labor in life, so falling down literally and figuratively to kinda making you a whole person. That's kind of where it's going.






Marlana


So, you grew up on Long Island and you said that you became a stunt man. How did you become a stunt man?






Kevin 


Crazy long story, but I'll shorten it up for you. So, I moved from Long Island to Charlotte, North Carolina when I was 10 years old, in fifth grade. And I was born in the birth defect in a speech impediment in a heavy long island accent in North Carolina in the late eighties.






Marlana


You had all kinds of things working against you,






Kevin 


It was a lot. I remember bringing a bagel to school when the kid thought it was a really bad tasting donut. But anyway, I went to college, and I played baseball, I was an athlete and played minor league baseball, a very low-level minor league. Became a teacher in Baltimore City. My pastor was teaching mentor coaching and that kind of stuff. And there was a sport we used to watch on TV called Slam Ball. It was full contact basketball at trampolines. It was on TV for a couple years. Me and my buddies watched it. It was had a good time. They had a tryout for that in Philadelphia. I was living in Baltimore. One of my good friends is from Philly. Went there for a weekend, kind as a goof. We go this tryout, and I messed around and made it and they shipped me to LA for another round of the tryouts.


And I was a teacher this time just outside of DC in Hyattsville. And I talked to my principal. I said, Hey, here's what's happening. 24, I have a free ride to lab I can get cut tomorrow. I'll be home in two days. I can be there for two weeks, or I could be there for four months. I have no idea. I'm not gonna burn this bridge. I'm not gonna do this unless, and if I lose a job, are you kidding me? You always have a job here. Go have fun. You know, she was awesome, very supportive. Alright! Went to LA and made that sport and lived in LA for about four months. And a guy I met, there was a stuntman who did a lot of sports, movies, football, and baseball movies. And stuck on his couch for a little bit and got a tryout for a movie called The Longest Yard with Adam Sander and Burt Reynolds and all those people. Went to that tryout, made that movie, got into the union learned the whole stunt world and oh, I'll stay here as long as it, you know, until this kiss me back to, you know, Baltimore, to teach and ride this wave. As long as I can do it. And 18 years later I'm looking for an escape from it. 






Marlana


I'm gonna show my ignorance a little bit. Is there a school basically that you can go to that will teach you how to fall and all those kinds of things?






Kevin 


No, you have to kind of bring that to the interview, for lack of a better word. It's all word of mouth. There's no inter, there's Asians, no managers, no auditions. Every now and then there'll be a big audition, like that football movie. You need a bunch of football players, a very specialty skill. But usua