Desert Stunts

Sword battles, fist fights and frighteningly large horses rolling in mud are all essential crowd-pleasing staples of the modern Arabic TV drama. Flip through the endless Arabic satellite channels any time of the year – particularly during the month of Ramadan, after iftar – and you’ll inevitably run into some flying bullets, arrows sticking out of foreheads, and groups of bearded men in traditional Arab dress rolling around in oceans of sand.

And whether it’s an action adventure about Islam’s bravest warrior or a Bedouin melodrama about Saba Mubarak’s eyes, if a scene calls for broken bones, then Jamal al-Thaher and his 80-man team of “adventurers” are more than likely to be right in the middle of it. The Middle East’s busiest stunt man knows everything there is to know about the pain of Arab filmmaking. And thankfully, he was happy to share it with us.

On getting started...
I began participating in series that required some stunt movements. I relied on my guts and martial arts skills – I won first place in a number of Arab Wushu tournaments. I actually started a little gym in my hometown of Riqqa in Northern Syria, and after I did some stunt work in a Turkish film, they donated flooring and equipment for the gym.

On working with divas…
Good actors are always willing to learn, because they want to look as natural and as realistic as possible. They’re always asking for more tips, especially in sword battles, on how to move and dodge and so on. Take the series Oyoon Alia, where you have the star Samer al-Masri working as hard as he could to master the fighting scenes, and next to him some anonymous actor moving gingerly and complaining constantly. I tried pleading, saying, “This is the climax! You are fighting against the main star to win the heart of the lady!”, but he kept on softly tapping his sword. When people see such weak effort and know that I am the stunt coordinator, that makes me look bad. I told him to either toughen up or I have me play his part.

On what’s possible
Working in many countries, I’ve noticed what a difference technical capabilities and special effects equipment make in the quality of work. Take the simple stunt of a man being shot. In Turkey, I played a role of a soldier shot while trying to raise the Turkish flag – a scene for which I won an award. Little detonators were hooked to my velcro body suit and were blown up wirelessly as I crawled towards the flag.

For the Egyptian series Asmahan, detonators were taped directly on to my body and then hooked to wires down my leg – which limited my movement. In Oyoon Alia, we didn’t have detonators – they were either illegal or too expensive – and fire crackers were taped to me! I kid you not.

On flipping horses…
We are one of two teams in the Arab world that can perform horse flipping stunts. My cousin Wasel experimented by getting the horse to a certain speed and yanking his harness at an angle to get him to trip. But one time the horse fell on him, crushing bones in his leg. Then I worked on that move with stunt people in the Czech Republic and we now perform it by tying the horses leg and easing him to the ground. Look at any opening credits of a recent TV series and you can see us doing this trick.

On his team…
We built a team of about 40 “adventurers”, as I call them, and another 40 horsemen, and we have been involved in most of the major TV production in recent years. The diversity of the team is very important, and I make sure that each of them gets a part that fits his physical characteristics. For example, if we have a major fighting scene, I will have a big guy doing a choke hold, with a smallish adventurer doing a high jumping kick.

On the weirdest stunt…
I have recently been working in a variety of diverse projects – Syrian, Jordanian, Turkish and recently a lot of Egyptian films and series. I can easily say the weirdest thing I have done was playing Nicole Saba in Laylat al-Baby Doll. She was supposed to be in her Range Rover while it crashed, so we built a little metal ramp and I dressed as her to drive the car instead and flip it over.

On fear…
I am used to most situations, so I’m never really afraid, but there was one time in Dubai that made me a bit nervous. My role was to ride and tame this wild horse, but he was throwing a fit in the trailer that honestly had me worried. I had one chance to do the scene, an Emirati sheikh was in attendance, and everyone was assuring him I could do it.

I decided to call my brother, who is the horse specialist in the family, and he told me to make sure that I hold my legs around his stomach as tight as possible in an unforgiving squeeze, and then just roll with him. And thank God I managed to ride perfectly and brought him to submission. The sheikh was so impressed he invited me over to express his appreciation for my work.

For more stories and stunning photos from the Arab world's most famous stunt man, see NOX 28