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There are few people who can lay claim to having an instantly iconic film debut.
That famousthigh squeezeXenia Onatopp uses to dispatch her foes?
Yeah, thats me, laughs Huthart.
With the crush of a leg, Huthart was a household name.
(The latter appeared inThe Mummy Returnstwo years after his first TV appearance onThat 70s Show.)
The British stuntwomen at the time there wasnt much to choose from, the now 58-year-old explains.
The girls were very good, but there just werent many girls with combat experience.
They couldnt find a stunt double for Famke Janssen inGoldenEyewith the martial-arts ability needed.
And then it went from there.
I was three days into rehearsing and I was like,This is what I was made to do.
It was Crane, though, who steered Huthart into her most fruitful collaboration of the era.
First in 2001sTomb Raider, then in 2005sMr.
& Mrs. Smithand 2010sSalt, Huthart became Angelina Jolies regular stunt double.
With Jolie, Huthart began to understand how to build character in her stuntwork.
They always wanted the character to be carried through the action.
I always want to feel like its the character doing it all the time.
The admiration is mutual.
Eunice is the reason I was able to have a career in action, Jolie says.
Shes a brilliant stunt coordinator because she understands character and story.
Shes there for the team, not her ego.
Sometimes I think if you look for the barrier, youd already become a victim because of that circumstance.
I just would never let it hold me back.
I would be the loudest voice in the room all the time.
I would be the one that would stand up and argue.
Which isnt to say she doesnt have regrets.
Ill be honest, Ive done films where we sold our soul, she adds.
But when we didPan, me and the stunt team, we gave everything.
I was ever so disappointed that the film wasnt the great film we always wanted it to be.
The biggest reward to me is actually to create something that people really like and love to talk about.
One such person is director Nida Manzoor, whose 2023 action-comedyPolite Societypositioned Huthart as the zenith of stuntwork.
Still, Huthart couldnt quite process that an entire film was being made essentially in her honor.
It still trips me out!
says Huthart of the experience.
Honestly, its mental to me.
Im still flabbergasted at the whole thing.
Im like, Why would you do it about me?
Huthart is more likely to turn our conversation to the collaborators who mentored her.
J.J. Abrams comes up many times as a genius with whom she can work effortlessly.
Guy Ritchie is another.
And then theres Joe Wright, her director onPan.
His camera has to deliver some form of emotion, and that, again, was amazing.
This is why many stunt professionals make the leap from performing to coordinating and directing.
I love developing a fight, Huthart says.
The first version of a fight could be reincarnated possibly a hundred times.
I love anything that is confrontational and a challenge.
There was a waterfall, I think it was about 80 feet high.
But what happened was, 30 feet out, there was only two feet of water.
The adrenaline and the pump I got off that was magic.
And when I watched the way Danny Boyle shot it and went into slo-mo … she trails off.
Thats what it felt like when I did it.
