What Does It Take to Perform Hollywood’s Most Dangerous Stunts? Heidi Germaine Schnappauf

Childhood Fighting and Karate Dreams

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 0:03

I saw Karate Kid and immediately was like I can kick his butt . I kind of was questioning my life and was faced with the decision of what do I really want to be ? And I remember watching a behind the scenes of one of the Tomb Raider movies with Angelina Jolie I was obsessed with her , by the way and I saw Angelina Jolie was doing martial arts kicks to a pad to someone that looked like her and I was like , oh , what's that ? Oh wait , that's a stunt performer . And I remember that clicking in my head like oh , that's a job . I have a fear of heights . We put on a climbing harness , went to this 60-foot tower and we slept on the tower overnight . The tower swayed back and forth in the wind . So I'm up there and I'm freaking out . My all-time favorite , to this day stunt opportunity was going to Japan for several weeks learning a sword fight on a rooftop in Tokyo , overlooking the Tokyo Tower .

Larry Samuels 1:12

Hello and welcome to the Career Journey podcast No Wrong Choices . I'm Larry Samuels , soon to be joined by Tushar Saxena and Larry Shea . Today's episode features stuntwoman actor , writer and director , Heidi Schnappauf . Before we bring her in , please be sure to like , follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening . Let's get started . Now joining no Wrong Choices is Heidi Schnappauf . Heidi has appeared as a stunt performer in countless TV shows and movies , including Blindspot , mare of Easttown and both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Amazing Spider-Man franchises . She has also acted in films such as Hereafter , which was written and directed by one of our favorite previous guests , harry Greenberger . Heidi , thank you so much for joining us .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:57

Hey , glad to be here .

Larry Samuels 1:59

So that was a mouthful that I just went through , but I can put together a list , but nobody knows the list better than you . Was that an accurate description , Heidi ? How would you describe what you do and who you are ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 2:13

Oh geez , I mean it depends on the day , to be honest , because this list is kind of like never ending . It's funny , though , because I'm usually introduced first as a stuntwoman , because that's what I've been made to be known for , I suppose , and I feel like that kind of encompasses pretty much everything else that you mentioned , which is kind of interesting . Now that I this is , I can't believe this is the first time I'm actually thinking about it , but the whole stunt woman thing combines a lot of acting , sports film , all that kind of stuff , so I'll roll into one .

Larry Shea 2:49

Heidi , thank you so much for joining us .

Larry Shea 2:50

This is Larry . Shea .

Larry Shea 2:50

How did this start ? I mean , what was the dream ? We always ask what was the dream , but are you dreaming of being a stunt person , or is it something else that catches your fire as a kid ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 2:57

But it's funny because I now realize my dream has changed so many times . I mean , when I was a kid I didn't realize what I was doing as a kid was being a stunt performer . Like I would have friends little like friends in the neighborhood and we would , you know , get together and mainly boys , sometimes like some of the girls , but I like to like roughhouse it . I was in karate when I was a kid and I would get all my friends in the neighborhood together and we didn't have a camera but we made up fight scenes and the whole scenario where there's a fight and a shootout and we have like all these like fake guns and like bow and arrows that we made out of sticks and things and I would set up a scene as if we were filming it for a film almost you were directing even as a young kid .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 3:39

This is a two shots being there I was definitely bossy and directing all the neighborhood boys and uh , doing like fight scenes when I was like eight or nine didn't even realize it wrestling , and I remember the neighborhood . There's like a neighborhood lady who would be like er , stop your roughhousing , and I'm gonna tell your parents . And I have like a guy in like a full nelson . I'm like it's fine nancy , we're fine .

Tushar Saxena 4:02

As a young kid , there must have been that one , that one movie that turned you on to be , okay , I want to try and do this , I want to get the kids together . I always had that one movie that was for me , it was always jaws , jaws was jaws or star wars . Those were the two flicks that I loved , my friends and I . We would act out scenes from them . What was that one movie then for you ? one movie or show for you as a kid which was like , okay , we're gonna , we're gonna put this scene on it's funny because

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 4:27

I don't know that there was necessarily one movie that I wanted to reenact , but it was like a combination of seeing karate kid when I was a kid that was super influential in both the acting and the martial arts . I saw karate kid and immediately was like I can kick his his butt . You know I could , I could do that . And then there was a I think there was a . It was called like three ninjas , a little kid .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 4:50

Oh my God , absolutely I remember that , yeah , right , and I think I had maybe already started karate by then , cause I started my brother . I have an older brother , who's eight years older , who was a brown belt in a style of karate that very similar to the one that I ended up training most of my life in . My brother's pretty much the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing , because he taught me how to play basketball , he taught me karate , he kind of got me into all the sports I ended up doing , which kind of led to the athletic side , because doing stunts in general you're basically a professional athlete . You're paid to use your body and perform all sorts of athletic things , including running , jumping , sometimes even sports related , martial arts , driving , stunt driving and so , yeah , my brother got me hooked pretty much and my dad said , all right , you're doing this , we're doing this , and signed me

School Days: Finding Her Performance Path

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 5:42

up for karate , and that was majority of my life was in that dojo at Sakura Martial Arts .

Tushar Saxena 5:49

What was school like for you then as a young kid ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 5:51

I definitely was one of those kids that kind of got along with everybody . I got along with the jocks . I got along with the artsy kids because I loved to . I would make like fight scenes and things . But I had this idea that maybe one of my dreams would be to be an actor . I would watch , like Rosie O'Donnell , and pretend when she had her talk show and I would pretend that I was like being interviewed by Rosie O'Donnell as an actor .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 6:13

I was very bored in school a lot . I got good grades . My dad was very much a stickler of getting straight , a Like there was no second place . Same thing with my martial arts school . There was no second place , it's first place loser , but my dad was just very much . So like always , no excuses , however , we need to do it . My dad would even help me sometimes that you know , study or whatever .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 6:35

I had really hard time reading and but really easy time with math as far as like scholastics go . But I realized much later in life that ADHD really is a thing and I was just freaking bored . I would arrive late and I wouldn't . Really it was more of a penalty to arrive to school late than it was to not show up at all . So I would get to school and I'd be late and I'd hide in the band room and the soundproof room with like hide behind a drum set until they would do like homeroom and account people either absent or not for the day and then write music , play music . The band director at the time I guess I could say this now won't get him in trouble , but he knew I was there sometimes and he'd be like oh , heidi , again , really You're late .

Larry Samuels 7:16

So did you hang out and play music all day , or did you eventually wind up in science class ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 7:20

Wrote , played music . Second half of the day I would show up to classes whenever I could and I got the assignments and I did them and I wrote the papers and I did all the things . I just didn't really show up to class a lot but I was very active in band in both choir band did theater outside of school . It kind of leads me to me sneaking into my first audition . My dad did not , did not want me to be an actor , but my dad was also a musician , so it's kind of weird . He he hated the idea of someone going to school , I guess , to become an actor , thinking like you know , I want something stable , I want you to be a doctor .

Larry Samuels 7:56

We've heard that before .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 7:57

I'm sure .

Larry Samuels 7:58

Other guests , it's always the father saying , no , you can't earn a living , you can't , you got to be focused and driven . And everybody seems to somehow find a way around that .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 8:08

I mean ask a doctor now what they make . I'm just saying it's not great , it's hard , it's hard to just not . Anyway , when I was a kid he was very excited that we had , like , the bunny ears . Is that what it's called the rabbit ears ?

Tushar Saxena 8:21

Rabbit ears on the TV right .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 8:23

Every now and then , like I don't know how , but we got like TLC , the learning channel . They had a show called Operation and in Operation they literally would operate on people and it'd be like a warning , like whatever . I'm like eight or nine years old watching the show about like a tubal ligation or vasectomy and I had these notebooks . My dad was so excited because I had like a regular , like rule , regular rule notebook and I would write on the front of the notebook and a Sharpie tubal ligation , dr Heidi Schnappoff . And then I'd take scotch tape and I'd laminate it with scotch tape and writing down all this stuff . And I have like complete surgeries . I remember for sure . I remember three . One of them was a laparoscopic hernia repair . One of them was a tubal ligation . The other was a vasectomy .

Larry Samuels 9:06

So in high school you're an athlete , you're into martial arts , you're in the music room , you're doing theater , like were you in all the high school productions and stuff like that .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 9:16

So my freshman year I did the . It was Bye Bye Birdie , and I'm not sure why . I just I had a feeling that the musical director had it out for me , and I'm not sure . And I hear this story all the time and I'm , you know , I'm 40 , 41 years old and I'm still thinking about my high school musical director from my high school play . I remember the cast list came out . I auditioned , whatever . I thought I had a pretty good audition , but I'm a freshman , so , whatever , the bottom of the list there's all the ensemble , ensemble members , and then there are like two extra names in the bottom . They're like okay , these two people are in it too , and I was one of the two . I'm like , really , I didn't even make it to like the ensemble . So I see my name at the bottom of the list and , of course , me being the smartest that I am .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 9:54

I , um , I wrote my own part into the play , into Bye Bye Birdie . I gave myself lines , um , I became friends with the director . May she rest in peace . Elaine Bauer and I ended up doing a lot of the straight plays because the musical director wasn't involved . I went into community theater and I ended up like being in .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 10:13

I think it was something like 125 plays throughout my high school career . I loved being in the ensemble . Actually it was one of my favorite things in theater was to contribute in that way and , to you know , create a character don't't steal focus , but still be involved . And even to this day , when I go to a Broadway show or something , I'm very intrigued or very interested in seeing the ensemble and how they interact with the leads or the people that you're supposed to kind of pay attention to . The high school musical is a combination of all that that you're supposed to kind of pay attention to . The high school musical is a combination of all that . I don't know if it's like that in most high schools or in your high school , but you know , all the jocks come out and then it's kind of a big melting pot of all the different freaks and geeks in the school .

Larry Shea 10:56

So it sounds like the performance stuff came pretty easy . Oh yeah , Did you have anxiety or any kind of like performance anxiety or anything that was associated with that ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 11:06

That's a really good question . And I played Anne Frank in production of the Diary of Anne Frank and I just would get so nauseous I would vomit before every performance because I was so into it . But also like the stress of being on stage and realizing that's a lot of you know , it's a lot of pressure because you screw it up especially when you're anne frank and the diary of anne frank you kind of it

From NYU to Discovering Stunt Work

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 11:32

sure isn't a happy story .

Tushar Saxena 11:33

That's for sure , yeah .

Larry Shea 11:34

So how did you ? How did you deal with it ? How did you deal with the anxiety ? Did you face it head on , because obviously we're going to get into the stunt woman and the other stuff . I mean , I'm sure there's anxiety that comes with that as well , oh , for sure . But how did you face that head on ? Did you just push through it ? What did you use in terms of tactics ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 11:51

Well , I had a little bit of disordered eating because that was something that I could control and it was something that I'm sure a lot of high school I shouldn't just limit this to high school girls like in high school is when you start noticing things happening to your body .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 12:09

So I know that that caused an extra layer of anxiety . But I would try to control myself or try to control things in my life in that way or any anxiety I have by what I was eating . But as far as practical , practical things that you would probably should do , like breathing and whatever , I just made sure I knew my lines . If it was a play just over-rehearsed , I just kind of powered through and dealt with it at the time and I definitely now wish that I had someone to coach through that stuff . And that's what I'm trying to do now to the younger people to help them with any anxiety , whether it be , you know , their looks , their performance , anxiety , whatever . It's actually a really good question because that's something I didn't learn until much later in life how to deal with . I still can't , I mean , I still have issues , but at least I have tools now .

Tushar Saxena 13:04

So what was life like after the high school years ? What was next ? Did you continue with community theater ? Was college the next role , or was it ? You know , I'm just going to go full bore into the acting world .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 13:17

I'm definitely the black sheep of the family . I'm like the weird stunt lady .

Tushar Saxena 13:21

You went against your father's wishes and actually acted . Everyone else seemed to go into music .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 13:25

Yeah , yeah , and my brother was pre-med before he changed over to film film or communications .

Larry Shea 13:32

But my dad got my brother to do the med .

Larry Samuels 13:34

But you're all creative .

Tushar Saxena 13:35

Yeah .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 13:35

Yeah , we're all in the creative worlds in some way . My brother I look up to immensely because he's just my brother . You know , some people are like pretty good at a lot of things . My brother's like a jack-of-all-trade master of all .

Larry Samuels 13:48

He's just so amazing so you went to nyu , you're in new york and you're at one of the best acting schools by reputation .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 13:56

Well , first of all , my sat score sucked because I'm bad at testing as , as I've told you , I don't like going to school . I was terrible at testing . Fine , I , I knew all the information . I was very slow , Realized later . I just I had , like I had , a learning disability . I was dyslexic , which I did know . Actually I knew that I was dyslexic and you know ADHD and all this stuff .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 14:16

So I applied early decision to NYU because I knew I wanted to go there , but immediately it was just it was just not an option because I did not have the SAT scores . So but I got a scout , came to see my senior musical , the Hello Dolly , and I was ermine guard I don't know if you know the show and I made a meal of it because I was like you guys suck , I definitely I'm not . I'm not egotistical in any way , but I knew the talent . That was at the high school and it was my senior year and I was barely thrown a bone and I was just kind of pissed . So I was like you know what , I'm going to dye my hair orange and I'm going to play this part . You know what I say ? I made a meal of it . I didn't go beyond what that part ? That part is pretty annoying . She's supposed to whine all the time and I really like leaned into it .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 15:07

I'll say that much so somebody came from local college , wilkes University , so he scouted the show and they ended up giving me nearly a free ride and I was like , well , maybe I like this acting teacher , Maybe this is the route to go . And as soon as I was at Wilkes for the first year , I was like I am a big fish in a small pond here . I need an ocean , I need to see the ocean .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 15:34

So I applied to NYU as a transfer student , went to NYU , got into Lee Strasberg Theater Institute for film and television , theater , film and television , and that was my , my primary studio , and then the liberal arts education as well , with NYU so you're working at NYU , you're learning your chops , you're getting degrees that you don't necessarily need , which you know you totally want good for something , I'm sure , real expensive pieces of paper but uh .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 16:01

So while I was at NYU I was also working . Again , I was like one of the poor kids so I also remember being very hungry a lot . But I did have a couple extra odd jobs while I was still in college . I was babysitting . I eventually worked at a restaurant . I don't know when I slept because I worked like really late at night . I worked really early in the morning at a gym . I went to school , I did projects . I did like a ton of like independent student film projects using both the martial arts stuff and even this is before stunts , not even realizing what stunts was or how you know how it would play out in my life in the future . But I would do fight scenes . I would do driving , because I grew up in Pennsylvania so I was , you know , doing donuts and doing stunt driving without realizing it . Was it ? The New York Film Academy would always post stuff at NYU for the actors to do stuff . So I hopped over there and did some New York Film Academy stuff and both acted and did fight scenes and did whatever .

Larry Shea 17:02

So at this point you're obviously doing the performance stuff and that's the focus . So you're starting to slip in some driving stuff , some falling scenes , fighting scenes and things of that nature . Did you ever think at any moment , at this point I can make a career of just this , or were you always going to do both at all times ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 17:23

I didn't register that a stunt person or some performer , stunt woman was even a job . I was also directing . I was directing a lot of theater , directed a show at the Producers Club in Manhattan . I loved directing . I loved , like I said , bossing around the kids when I was a kid , but I really loved that creative aspect of it and I brought that into my performance side . I noticed being on the performance side what went into the direction , if that makes any sense and it also carried over into stunt coordinating down the line .

Larry Shea 17:52

I assume you're a method actor which , for people who don't know , is complete immersion into the character for authenticity and things of that . Now , you could probably explain it better to better than me I . I studied acting , but I did more like externals and things like that . So tell people , what about like lee strasburg , like what was that experience like ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 18:11

so actually I went to the Lee Strasberg institute as part of my like . It was associated with NYU as the uh conservatory , so the conservatory program at NYU Tisch school of the arts , the acting program had when I was there it was Stella Adler Studio , lee Strasberg . At the time it was CAP 21 , which was the musical theater Playwrights Horizon , which is actually where I kind of wanted to go because I wanted to do more directing but was able to do more performing and acting and directing and musical theater and kind of like dip my toes in a bunch of things and film that was a really big draw to go into Strasberg so .

Larry Shea 18:51

I was there , so you're everywhere .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 18:53

I mean , like if there was performance anxiety , like you must have beat the hell out of it by this point and that's the good thing about directing too , was I got to do all and same thing with stunts , in a way , stunts , and again we're going to get there very shortly . But yeah it .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 19:09

It was a way of performing and having a little bit less of that anxiety , because I was . It wasn't my face Generally if I was being like a stunt double or something . There was a task at hand , like get through the window . Like my brain my ADHD brain was doing 25 things at once , which was amazing . By the way , being a stunt performer is probably one of the best things for someone who has ADHD . Stunt performer . It is great if they have ADHD because you can think that's what's happening all the time . I currently I didn't take my Adderall today , so I'm thinking about 50 things at once right now .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 19:40

But you know , you got to go through the window . You have to have your hand protecting your face with a gun . Your feet have to know what to do . You have to remember how high that ceiling is . You have to know where your mat is . On the other side You've crashed through this glass . You have to make sure that when you land you don't hit somebody else because they're over there . There's a camera over there . You have to hide your face when you go .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 19:59

So it's all these , even though it sounds super stressful to the normal human

Breaking Into the Stunt Industry

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 20:03

to me , giving me anxiety just hearing this , and I I realized now that I'm saying it out loud , I'm like oh , this does sound pretty complicated and oh my god , but it gives a a space for all that anxiety to spread out makes sense so what was the first real gig that you had then ?

Tushar Saxena 20:19

I mean , you know , obviously you've your time in school . It sounds to me like you know not only were you a director , but it sounds like you did some stunt coordinating as well yeah , eventually .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 20:28

Yeah , and I didn't even realize I was stunt coordinating in college , but that's a whole other thing .

Tushar Saxena 20:32

I so what was the first real gig ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 20:34

so the first real gig . So I was training to be an actor , right ? So I I think the first , uh oh , third watch , third watch it . It was like an under five on that and it was like a beaten battered girlfriend .

Larry Shea 20:50

They still have that under five right , Just so people know that's under five lines .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 20:54

Yeah , that's not a thing anymore . It's not a thing anymore . It's not really . No , not with .

Larry Samuels 20:58

Sag , I mean , does that mean they don't have to pay you because it's less than five ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 21:01

lines . It's a certain scale . No , it's a tier .

Tushar Saxena 21:04

It's like a tier of- .

Larry Shea 21:06

Yeah , that's a good way to say it .

Tushar Saxena 21:07

Yeah , I thought everyone gets their start essentially with the under five . I mean , look , was it Law Order . I mean famous for that , yeah , actually .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 21:13

Law Order . That is one of the biggest under five shows because it's usually like someone's , like they , but they talk , so they have to get a contract Right . Or not . My mom yeah , or something .

Larry Shea 21:27

Whatever Easy to remember your lines , at least these pretzels are making me thirsty .

Tushar Saxena 21:32

Nice , that was a great plot .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 21:37

Nice , but I would consider my first real gig , the one that I got residuals for Paranormal Activity 2 .

Larry Samuels 21:45

So you go to Tisch , you're doing all this work , you're working with these legendary coaches , and then you start to audition . And were you auditioning for acting roles ? Yes , how did this whole stunt thing happen ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 21:58

So I did a bunch , actually a bunch , of theater . Still , I was doing some regional theater . I even did like a couple of community things like in between , like I'd I'd jump back to Pennsylvania , um for like a month and I would um do a community theater show . I did I love you are perfect . Now , change was musical .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 22:17

I remember auditioning for some national tours I got called back for but never ended up booking . One of them was Urinetown . I just remember I got called back because I told a really dirty joke and two dirty jokes and another show called East Meets West . That I started to actually become one of the developers for this Broadway show and then it got shut down for whatever reason probably money , but it was like a martial arts musical . It was like right up my alley . But these things just kept getting shut down and I just never really fit into very cleanly a musical theater box . I decided very early on into going to NYU that I was not meant to be a Broadway ensemble dancer . So stunts came about . I was doing Anne Frank and playing Anne Frank in when I was 20 , early 20s and she's , you know , 13 in the play . But I looked very young . I think I look pretty young still you still do , absolutely .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 23:14

I don't look like I'm in my 40s . So , doing Anne Frank , I had like a life changing thing happen to me where I kind of was questioning my life and was faced with the decision of what do I really want to be ? And I remember watching a behind the scenes of and this is pivotal moment behind the scenes of one of the Tomb Raider movies with Angelina Jolie I was obsessed with her , by the way and I saw in the behind the scenes Angelina Jolie was doing martial arts kicks to a pad to someone that looked like her and I was like , oh , what's that ? Oh wait , that's a stunt performer . And I remember that clicking in my head like , oh , that's a job . It involves acting , it involves being physical . It also involves not being the star , which is I don't . I never really wanted to be the star , even though I , like I said , I pictured myself like being interviewed for being an actor . But the reality of it stressed me the frig out , I don't know . It just seemed kind of perfect and I immediately was like how do you become a stunt performer ? What is a stunt ? Double Blah , blah , blah .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 24:18

I found a stunt school . This is like this dirty backwards Florida kind of gross , I don't want to say gross , it was just like just like dirty and raw and I was like that's cool , I want to learn how to jump off this thing and do fights . I want to fall , I want to learn all like the basics and like it looked like a pretty comprehensive . Although it was kind of like quick and dirty , it was like very comprehensive . It looked really safe for for all intents and purposes . But it was kahana stunt school and I found that one and I found another one that was in seattle , but , um , this one was cheaper and uh and closer in closer florida , you know it's an easier drive , it in a day or two kind of thing .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 25:03

I basically sold everything that I could . I eventually did . I sold everything . I bought this little Toyota Matrix so that I could drive down there and got to stunt school . And my teacher he actually just recently passed away , kim Kahana in his 90s but he said you know , you have to pick something . You can't just be doing everything all at once . He said eventually you can get to it all , but you're never going to truly succeed at something if you can't water . You can't water all the plants at once . You got to really to make it grow . You have to really tend to it , to your garden .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 25:37

That was definitely a pivotal moment . I was like all right , I'm going to commit myself to this , I'm going to commit myself to this , I'm going to do it . And I just put all my energy and focus into stunts . And , sure enough , he was absolutely right . I honed in on my skills .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 25:49

I started watching movies and writing down the names of all the stunt performers that would come in the credits and I'd look them up . I'd send letters . I sent close to like 500 , I think Wow , all said and done like letters and emails and to directors and coordinators and stunt performers like a long list of stunt performers , and like four or five wrote me back . Of the four or five , I was like , what do I do ? So , after going back and forth , I'm still those five people , or four or five people that I reached out to .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 26:20

I can think of four off the top of my head , but I'm pretty sure there might have been another one . Anyway , I know who all of them are . I can think of four off the top of my head , but I'm pretty sure there might've been another one . Anyway , I know who all of them are . I'm still in contact with them , or friends with them . One of them has actually become a really close friend . And then that web of people you know , they know somebody , and they show you this person , that person , that person . So it started at five and then 10 and then , like you know , 50 , and then start to when you're committed to something and when you show up , people see that . And as long as you're not an idiot and you just show up and you have at least , you have to have like a monogamous skills are implied at this Sure .

Tushar Saxena 26:51

Sure . So that's a mantra on this show . People can like at least deal with you , like tolerate you for more than , let's say , 15 , 20 minutes .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 26:58

That's half the battle You're going . It's who do you want to hang out with , to be honest ? Yeah , basically right , that's right , that's it .

Larry Shea 27:04

I'm glad you're talking about the various types of stunts , though that you have to learn the basics right .

Larry Shea 27:10

You said that a few minutes ago , because what you don't realize about this profession until you dig into an interview like this is there's firework , there's fighting , there's weaponry , there's driving , there's all sorts of different types of stunt work and just from hearing what we've heard so far , a lot of these were threads in your life already the martial arts stuff and the fake fighting when you were a kid and things like that . So how do you ? Obviously you're going to learn the basics , but how do you particularly find what you're good at , what you want to focus on ? Do you you think that when you're going to school at this point , or is it like I'm just going to do it all and whatever I'm good at I'll start to focus later ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 27:50

I went to stunt school , right . So you kind of go over all these things and I'm like , oh , actually , because of my martial arts background and because I like to direct , and because of this that the other thing I'm actually very well suited for this direction . So I kind of became known as being a fighter . Ground pounder is kind of one of the terms that is used for someone who's not afraid to take a fall , which I think all stunt performers should be . But that's my own thing .

Larry Shea 28:15

A round pounder , ground pounder , so someone that you can just throw around and you don't have to worry about them breaking .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 28:21

They're going to fall correctly and that's the thing about Pound them into the ground .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 28:25

Exactly . But so I'm the thing that's getting pounded , I'm pounding the ground with my body . So , like from the time I was , you know , I think I started karate in classes when I was , you know , seven . So six or seven I'm already in karate classes by the time I'm 12 , I'm teaching adult classes , teen classes , all that kind of stuff getting thrown around .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 28:42

So my body I'm , I've been thrown around from the time I was a kid until , you know , into my well , into my twenties , and that became an asset in stunts to know that I'm not fragile , I'm not that breakable you can throw me down . And that was like a really good break-in point for me in stunts . And that , coupled with the fact that I did martial arts and I could dive , roll over something because that was karate You're always doing like rolls on either side , you're , you know , getting uh just safe ways of break , falling uh , was just an everyday thing for me . So that was kind of a really good break in point . And then , because I did like track and field , I could run fast , I could play basketball so I could jump and I had very good accuracy because of martial arts , because of basketball , because of this All right .

Tushar Saxena 29:30

So when you go to stunt school , obviously , as your teacher told you , you can't water all the plants at once . So there must have been like that one stunt that you kind of honed in on and said you know what I really enjoy this ? Was it falling , was it holding weapons , was it playing with fire , so to speak ? What was that one stunt that really kind of connected with you ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 29:48

I mean just honestly like fight scenes in general . I ended up on a show called Blind Spot and I was on that show for all five seasons . I came in about halfway through the first season as a character , the main lady on the show , her lady , the main woman on the show , her stunt double , ended up having an injury that took her out and I became kind of close with her while we were doing that episode and she's like how tall are you ? And I'm like , why do you ask ? So by the end of that first season I ended up switching to .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 30:20

I kind of phased her out and me into being the stunt double and I was afforded an opportunity , many opportunities , but my all-time favorite to this day stunt opportunity was going to Japan for several weeks learning a sword fight on a rooftop in Tokyo overlooking the Tokyo Tower . So I had like two major fight scenes . One was with four-on-one me and four guys and then me with a girl with two swords . It was incredible . To this day nothing could beat it . When I left Japan I was like I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and be happy .

Larry Samuels 30:52

How do you train for that Like is there a choreographer there

Conquering Fear of Heights

Larry Samuels 30:55

? What's that process ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 31:05

TV because it has to be repeatable and it has to be shot from different angles . For those of you who don't , who are maybe listening and don't know that , when you shoot a television show , like a Law and Order or Blindspot , every scene you do you shoot it multiple times . So anytime you do a fight scene , you have to , it has to be repeatable , has to be something that they can get from different angles . And that's where a fight choreographer comes in and we often do now what's called a previs or previsual , where the stunt team will get together and do this choreography and shoot it from what we think the angles should look like , so that when we get to set we're not wasting time shooting angles that don't work or things that might not blend together . So the fight choreographer has a really choreographer , has a big role in doing that .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 31:44

And in Japan I got there they had all this choreography ready , plugged me into that . I did not speak Japanese , they did not speak English . This was fun . I spoke . Luckily , because I studied Japanese martial arts , I was able to kind of communicate with them At least . Like I was like oh , front kick , side kick , you know , maegiri , yokogiri , Moshi , so like I knew all like the Japanese terms in fighting , which was actually super awesome because I could at least communicate with them with choreography . So they had it all planned out with their stunt team , plugged me into the choreography in a couple of weeks and then the rest of the crew came to Japan , to Tokyo , to film it .

Larry Shea 32:24

Let me ask you , though , after stunt school like what I assume you're auditioning for these stunts Like what is that breakthrough , Like holy cow moment of I just got this job ? I what ? Was it an audition ? A recommendation ? Like how was , what , was that moment for you ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 32:41

It's funny because stunts is very much so a by recommendation type of thing you want to work with who you want to hang out with , right . So you don't know that until you get to know the person . So the first thing I did was find out all these stunt people . And then the people that did get back to me , like I was saying , they kind of told me what to do , which was a thing called hustling , where it's a little different protocol these days .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 33:05

But back in the day you'd go to a set , you'd find the stunt coordinator , you'd wait patiently on the side , like if they're shooting , like in a downtown area or if they're shooting in a public place , you'd never really want to break into a studio . That's not really good form , unless you're working on another project and you can scoot over , but that's kind of like later in your career . So you'd find the stunt coordinator , you'd have your resume and you'd wait until they were like you know whatever , and then you say , excuse me , mr , so-and-so I just I hope I'm not interrupting , I just wanted to introduce myself . And you know you get your face out there enough and they see that you're committed to the year around . All right , tell me about this girl . You train with this girl , is she okay ? So that's how you get hired in stunts , or how you used to anyway .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 33:45

And then you get an opportunity grab that mat over there . You got it , sir , can I help you with anything else ? And I carry pads and mats and build boxes for box catches . And I remember hustling a set once and they were building box catches and I was like , can I help you guys out ? And they're like , yeah , grab some boxes .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 34:02

So basically you build boxes like empty boxes , you fold them up like into their shape and then layer them in a specific way so that you can do a high fall or a fall into the boxes as opposed to an airbag and you've probably seen movies or maybe behind the scenes of like people jumping into these big pillowy things . Well , box catches are used . I prefer a box catch actually to an airbag , because airbags you can bounce out of and it's kind of weird and they actually feel like cement sometimes , depending on how high you are and how stiff and full the bag is . Anyway , there is a very nuanced thing . High falls , that's a whole other thing . So box catches would be . You know , you're jumping off of something . You're not really exactly sure where the landing is going to be , so it's a great way to land safely . Or they do it for vehicles as well . Sometimes they'll have a cargo maybe off of a ramp into like layers and layers and layers of boxes to catch it . My first time into a box catch I was like great , I feel great .

Tushar Saxena 35:00

I would be like . . . Fuck , how do I get out of here ?

Larry Samuels 35:02

Do you remember the first time you fell like that ? I mean in a show , in a movie . What are those emotions when you're finally taking that leap ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 35:12

Let me just I know I'm not going to get into like a deep story here , but in stunt school when we first do high falls , you fall into a like almost like a pad , a resi pad . Like almost like a pad , a resi pad . So think of like a big gymnastics like foam pad off of a kind of a low , a lower like up not even 10 feet , maybe eight to 10 feet Like , if you think about it , your ceiling is eight feet . Jumping up doesn't feel like it's too high . Putting your feet on something eight feet high and looking down is actually kind of terrifying if you're not used to the height , I guess . Or even just like looking over a balcony over a second story , that's only 10 feet . But when you're standing up there you're like , oh , I don't want to fall . You know you get a little a lot of people .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 35:52

Anyway , I have a fear of heights . I didn't realize until I went to stunt school and standing at the 10 foot mark , I was like , all right , I'll get over this . And I did . I got , went into the pad and I just kind of like talked myself into it get up to the 20 feet . They had a small airbag . Airbag has a running fan through it . Think of like a bouncy house kind of situation with a fan that runs in , except this has flaps on the side so it absorbs when you hit the bag , otherwise you'd bounce out or you'd like a bouncy house , you'd bounce out so these flaps open up and you have to know like , okay , okay , I'm going from this height , I'm this much weight , I want the flaps to be open a little bit more .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 36:29

So you open more tabs , the whole thing . So I realized I was terrified and you learn how to fall on the bag certain ways . There's a thing called a suicide , which is , strangely enough , like the safest , the easiest one to teach people , and they call it a suicide . A header is headfirst . We always land the same way Always land on your back . Whether it's that or face off is where you start to go in face first , and then you turn your body and you end up landing on your back last minute .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 36:53

So you learn all this kind of stuff like on a trampoline , so you know how your body moves in the air . So then we learned to do it into an airbag or into a box . So you're talking about my first time doing . It was at stunt school . Thankfully , one of the instructors I was talking to I'm like , dude , I can't . I climbed up to the third story on the day that we were one of the first days we were doing high falls and I was like can't do it , can't do it . I know I'll be fine , but I just can't do it . So what he did was we put on a climbing harness , went to the 60-foot tower and we slept on the tower overnight .

Larry Shea 37:30

Oh , my God .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 37:32

And there was about , I want to say maybe six by six foot . The top of it was very small and there were two of us up there Tied off Like I was very , very safe , but the tower swayed back and forth oh my god in the wind , so I'm up there and I'm freaking out , but I was like , no , I'm gonna do it , I'm gonna do it , I'm gonna do stunts . I , I trusted him , I trusted the fact that I was I don't trust anybody that much um I mean get over your fear of heights quickly , I guess I honest to god , I I shit you not .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 38:07

I woke up at the top of the 60-foot tower in the morning . I looked over the edge and I was like okay , and I went down , went back down to that 30-foot thing that I was freaking out about . I was like nothing , this is fine , but I remember that was like breaking the horse in that night .

Larry Shea 38:25

Yeah , it's so funny , funny . We have so many of these interviews where , like you can't have a bad day at the office , like bad things are going to happen , right , but let's get back to that breakthrough moment real quick , because I want to know what that first . Like someone's going to pay me to do all this stuff that I just learned how to do . What was that moment ? What was that thing ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 38:45

well ,

Fight Scenes and Tokyo Rooftop Dreams

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 38:46

aside from paranormal activity too , like I said , was the first kind of major movie residual stuff , like it was just uh , some tackling . There's some like basic kind of movement things and fight things . But I'm trying to think of , like what the first high fall I did ? I did a bunch . I did a bunch of high falls I did some into . I did one on uh , on jessica jones okay , now these are just phone calls that are happening to you . You go , you introduce yourself , you put your face in front of them , you you hand the resume , and then what a random phone call so then , and then it goes to those like carrying the mats and building the boxes and , um , you get a shot .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 39:26

And I think one of the first shots on television that I got was on a show where the character was barbed wired to a ceiling , face down and she was dead and hanging out up there in a harness , like you don't realize , like how hard that is because all the blood's rushing to the front side of your body . You can't have an actor do that . Um , I mean you could , but it would be very , very difficult . They wouldn't like it . They wouldn't like it no .

Larry Samuels 39:49

So it was like a little bit of acting Exactly .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 39:52

So you know , just being in a harness for that long , that was probably one of my first stunts and one of my first big , major things , and I know you're talking breakthrough moments . And it's funny because I feel like I was just sort of cracking the surface little by little and just chipping away until I was given that shot . You know , you gotta earn it , you know . So I started off small . I started off actually . I remember hustling a set once and the coordinator was like you ever been in a harness ? And I was like totally lying , yeah , totally , he's like you , afraid to be upside down . I was like , nope , he's like all right , the stand-in .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 40:28

We were to put the stand in in a harness , but she's scared , so we'll put you in a harness . We're going to hang you upside down in this car so they can set up this next shot . And he was testing me , totally testing me . I was just hustling , I wasn't working . There was no reason that the production should have allowed someone who was not working to be in a harness in a car upside down while they set up a shot . But I remember that that was a test for me and there were pieces of glass like tempered glass , which is great to break through because it breaks into a million pieces , so you don't get like shards of glass doing glass work . I don't know if you know that , but also they had a lot of fake glass around , but there were still some pieces of tempered glass from this windshield that broke .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 41:10

I remember climbing into the car and as I climbed in a piece of glass , sliced my hand off . I started bleeding . Oh wow , son of a bitch . I'm like I'm trying to impress this guy . I'm trying to hide the fact that I have this gash in my hand from this glass , just like crawling into the car .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 41:21

Um put the harness on and I remember one of the it was either the stunt person or it might've even been the coordinator at the time who was like if you feel like you're going to pass out , it's too late . And I was like , oh okay , he's like have you been upside down before ? I was like , yeah , he's like . Well , so you know that if you start seeing stars , it's too late . So when you feel like it might be getting close , let me know . And I was like shit , I don't want to be a wuss and say too early , I don't want to , you know . So that was a huge test . I ended up working for that coordinator down the line , and he was . He ended up being my one of my huge major mentors . His name is Norm Howell and I don't think he even knows that I cut my hand that day , so I didn't tell anybody .

Larry Samuels 42:03

Did you see stars ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 42:05

I was fine during most of them . The very , very last setup that I was up there , I was like I'm going to okay , I saw them coming over . I'm like , okay , we're good . But talking about that , the job where I was face down .

Larry Samuels 42:19

Yeah .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 42:20

Definitely , when the person came , it was supposed to be tested it out and we did 30 minutes . And that's when I started to feel things go numb in the test for that one . And then he was like , all right , so if we needed to go to 45 minutes we could . I was like , yeah , definitely , like I'll be numb but I'll be fine .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 42:38

Two and a half hours later , on the day that we shot it , I recalled I remembered Norm Howell saying if you see stars , it's too late , right . So I'm up there and I had like this like gash in my head of somebody carved in this like demonic thing into my head , right , right , right . And in the scene like they wanted to put a blood tube so that it would like drip onto the camera . So the last shot was the makeup person came up to put this tube in . So it looked like the blood was dripping down onto the camera . And she came up and I said , hey , can you just tell valerie ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 43:13

Valerie was one of the stunt girl , the stunt girl that was on the side . I was like , can you tell valerie I'm starting to see stars and she go and I'm going to pass out soon . And the makeup girl I remember she's like looking up at me and she's like , um , okay . And they're like , okay , let's go . And she's like , uh , uh , like now she has this responsibility and she doesn't know what she should do . To tell who to tell ? And I I realized now that was probably not a good idea did she save you ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 43:40

uh , she just backed away . They did the shot and I , I think I I'm not .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 43:45

I'm a little unclear as to what happened after this , because I did pass out , but she went around and I remember , as they were lowering me , the second , the , the like , because it was I was on , um , there was like a crane thingy that was holding me through the ceiling , so there was this wires holding me , and then there's wires up in the ceiling sucking me to it , and then the barbed wire thing on me . So then they started lowering me down . And as I'm lowering down , all I was thinking was , oh , bye-bye . And I woke up and Valerie was there and she's like you're okay , you're okay , I covered for you . So pulled me aside . I had oxygen , I had to put oxygen on . They asked me like who the president was , where I lived , and I was like I live in a house with bricks and they're like oh , put the oxygen on .

Tushar Saxena 44:34

They put the oxygen on my head .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 44:35

Close enough , let it go 20 minutes later , they're like okay , where do you live ? And I was like kingston , pennsylvania . My family's from there and I live in new york . And they're like who's the president ? And I remember being like obama and they're like okay , you're good and your takeaway was I want to do this again . I was like this is awesome , and now I know it's true if you start to see stars , it's too late all right .

Tushar Saxena 44:56

So you've done all this work now as a essentially as an individual of hustling , hustling gigs , hustling on sets , hustling , getting that gig . So you've built a career . At this point You've gone from being essentially a student to now becoming a real teacher . So

Learning to Fall: Training and Safety

Tushar Saxena 45:13

what was that first stunt coordinating gig for you ? Because obviously you said you've gone on to stunt coordinating . I have a whole bunch of other questions I kind of want to build off of that . But what was the first time you were being a stunt coordinator ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 45:24

So actual paid for a show of my own . So I did Blindspot . On Blindspot there was a unit production manager who really believed in me because as a stunt performer , you're working with set designers , you're working with construction because you're going to need them to build something for you to complete the stunt . You're going to need to talk to wardrobe because you're going to need to cut holes in things to put wire . So being a stunt coordinator is more than just coordinating the stunt . It is being able to have open dialogue and talk to the other crew members .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 45:59

So she really had faith in me and she did this show called At Home with Amy Sedaris and she gave me this opportunity .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 46:06

She's like look , I'll hold your hand through it . I know you've never really done the meetings and all this stuff and I was like , well , I just got to get the okay from the other coordinators in New York to like get their blessing . So I was in New York at the time , back in New York from LA . So I started in LA , ended up back in New York , be closer to family and started my blind spot career there , basically to family , and started my blind spot career there , basically and , uh , got the blessing from other coordinators that I . I set up lunch meetings with them so that I was like , hey , I really want to take this job . You know , do you think I can do it and can I maybe ask you questions along the way ? So had this really good backup references or people that I could call if I needed to . So that show it was a sketch show , kind of like a Saturday Night Live type sketches .

Tushar Saxena 46:51

The Sedaris show . Yeah , it was a sketch comedy show . I remember that , yeah .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 46:55

So it was a great first show to do too , because it was a lot of fun . Amy Sedaris was so much fun . I think I ended up spending more money than I made on that show because I would be like I just want to make sure my performers that I hire are safe and the production did not have a big budget like they would have major like . Uh , rose Byrne came in like there are so many amazing actors and they were working on these like $200 contracts , you know . So , like it wasn't , nobody did this show for the money . However , it was one of the most educational . I did three seasons . I was probably one of the only crew members in general that lasted all three seasons , um , but learned so much , um , and got to coordinate some really cool fun things . Like amy sedaris in one of the scenes runs onto . It was in a meat freezer and there's like a life-size whole ham or cow or something in this meat freezer and she wanted to run and grab onto it and slide . You know like how they have like in butcher shops .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 47:52

I guess In the meat freezer in a butchery Butchery . I don't know , is that what you call it , butcher Butcher ?

Larry Samuels 47:57

shop . I don't know . I think it's the butcher .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 47:59

Butcher . All right , she was like I want to run and I want to jump on a big slab of meat and slide across . I was like , all right , let's do it . So you know , fun stuff like that . And she had to do a stair fall , she had to be in a jazzy and crash into , you know , an armoire . It was fun stuff .

Larry Shea 48:15

I want to ask you about your proudest moment on set . I'm sure it's not jumping onto a big meat slab and sliding across the room .

Tushar Saxena 48:22

That sounds like fun , though I gotta admit .

Larry Shea 48:24

Do you have like a moment where you're like maybe even the stunt was intimidating and you're like I think I can do this , and then you pull it off and you were just like whoa . An amazing , proud moment like that I feel like or favorite moment .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 48:39

Honestly , in Japan just getting through that was- .

Larry Shea 48:42

That's right .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 48:43

So I was very proud of myself for just surviving . No , I was actually so gifted , I was so lucky and so grateful , and so it was such a gift is what I'm trying to say to have had the people , um , that I had in every step of the way . Now I'm talking about , like any stunt I've ever done , it's never . You're never alone . You're always relying on other people .

Larry Shea 49:07

Right , I read it was like 90% talking and planning and 10% doing .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 49:12

Yeah , maybe even less yeah .

Larry Shea 49:14

Okay , yeah .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 49:16

And people they go , oh , it's such a cool job . I'm like , yeah , the 3% you see is like the cool stuff . But that other 97% is the training , is the training , is the setup , is the .

Larry Shea 49:24

This is the talking is the other people like the people that build the boxes .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 49:28

You know , and I'm there the day that I'm doing a high fall , I'm building boxes too , until I have to go prep or do whatever I'm doing . Um , jessica jones , like when I broke my neck , I had a pretty bad neck injury from a high fall into boxes actually , but it had nothing to do with the setup , had nothing to do with the people , was just a very unforeseen . But that is actually one of my most proud moments because I rehearsed . I went and , knowing the stunt , went to my friend's house . We blew up the airbag .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 49:52

I kind of got a rough estimate about how high I was going to be , because the stunt was jumping over a balcony into the bank and I knew I had to do a face-off , so it had to look like she was going to land on her feet . But then the last second I turned over and landed on my back into boxes . So I practiced this on my friend's rooftop enough so that I felt super confident when I got there . And we get there , they're like oh , we have to jump on this bench and then a banister that's like the size of half of the width of your foot and then do the high fall over the thing . But because I had been super diligent and practicing , I was super confident in the stunt itself .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 50:30

So , like , adding on those two extra elements were fine . It wasn't like I was showing up and I had to do the jump and the leap and the this and then figure out where I'm going to go . And you know , I already had that stuff planned out and as best as I could . People think that sometimes they're like oh , you know , know , you're really over-preparing . I'm like that is kind of a what is over-preparing when it's not for a job like this when you're talking about not trying to break your neck .

Tushar Saxena 50:57

Yeah , over-prepare , yeah .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 50:59

So when I landed , it was just an unforeseen stiffener in the boxes , like the upright of the box had a thing in it that nobody knew was there and it caught my shoulder blades . And I was going at such a high height that when I hit it it slid from my shoulder blades and got stuck on my neck . And this is where that martial arts background comes into play too , where I , every time you fall , as a martial artist , you want your chin to go slightly to the side , because you don't want to . If your chin were to go straight to your chest , in theory you could snap your spinal cord , but if you're off to the side , at least you have a chance , chance or shot . I said shot , that's weird , a shot . Chance .

Larry Samuels 51:37

let's go with shot . That sort of fits the theme , I think , for today . Can you tell us what your scariest moment was ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 51:45

I don't know what that would be , because I feel like they're all kind of scary in their own way , um , and also I don't think I would do something if I was truly , genuinely scared . However , oh , I actually know , I , um , I have , I'm terrified of drowning . I drowned when I was 12 and I had to get like resuscuscitated from a lake because it was dark and I couldn't see . I dove really deep in a lake and I couldn't figure out which way was up and I finally , like , let a bubble go and I figured out , but by the time I got to the top , I had inhaled water and there was like a fish head with a scale like you see in , you know , cartoons .

Larry Shea 52:22

Oh , my goodness .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 52:23

Terrifying . After that I and , oh my goodness , terrifying , uh , after that I and I used to be like a water bug . I used to be in the water all the time but uh , I , I had to get drowned . I had to get , was it ? Yeah , I had to get drowned on blind spot and the guy had to shove my head into water . It was terrifying and every night .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 52:39

But leading up to that stunt , I actually started off by putting my face just in in a bowl of water in my sink . I filled it with water and put my face in and then I went in the bathtub and did it and I held my breath and then I tried to get myself to breathe a little bit of water to see what it felt like . So that I was doing . I did like everything I could possibly do to alleviate what like the initial shock onset . Like when I trained martial arts , they train you getting choked so that you know what it feels like and you get over that initial . You know your central nervous system like freaking out , your parent sympathetic nervous system like freaking out . So I did that like for the weeks leading up to it and I still had a little bit of a panic moment on set and it was just terrifying . But I thank the Lord I did the prep work for that because I would have that and getting buried alive . Actually

Being Buried Alive and Underwater Stunts

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 53:27

I had to be put in a box in the ground .

Larry Shea 53:29

It's called being human , oh my .

Tushar Saxena 53:31

God . So let's see , I trained by waterboarding myself .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 53:40

I did , I did , I trained myself . Actually , waterboarding was one of the things and Jamie was like I got this .

Tushar Saxena 53:43

I'm like are you sure , Because they put the towel over her face , yeah , the towel over you , right .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 53:47

And she was like I literally drowned like , yes , because that's what happens when you put a wet towel over your face and pour water on you . You drown .

Larry Samuels 53:52

That's the whole thing yeah , can we go back to buried alive for a second ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 53:56

yeah , what happened there ? Um so I in the storyline they put her in a coffin .

Larry Samuels 54:05

In a wooden coffin . Which show is this or which movie is this ? Blind Spot , okay Blind .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 54:07

Spot and I knew it was coming and so I prepped myself for that too . Like mentally I used to have like so afraid of heights and claustrophobic , so bunk beds were like out for me when I was a kid and I just remember being like okay , I need to like breathe . And I went through this whole like breathing . I knew I was going to be in a box , so it was like a pine box . I had to lay in the box and I knew that he was going to close the box and throw dirt on me six feet in the ground and that was like a real thing . That was happening .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 54:34

Oh my god and they had the medic there and they had everybody and they had everyone ready to like because . And then , of course , I rabbit holed and like , went on the internet and buried alive and how long do you have in a box and like how ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 54:44

another day at the office and so like having like a code word if I was really freaking out or you know , that was helpful but also like well , what if I pass out and I can't say the code word and I died , and then I was like , well , they're not gonna let me be in there that long .

Larry Samuels 54:59

So worst case scenario , I pass out easy for you to say how long were you down there not , it was seriously not that long , but it was terrifying for everyone else to watch .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 55:10

And it was also the lead up to it . I had finally come to peace with it , like come to terms with it myself throughout the day . But leading up to it , everyone's like oh , are you ? Are you freaking out about getting buried alive and all this stuff that could go wrong , and I'm like you're not helping .

Larry Samuels 55:27

Yeah , I am now .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 55:29

Thanks for making me aware of that .

Larry Shea 55:31

Why does somebody have to be in the box at all ? Because they're shooting inside the box .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 55:36

And then they did a whole other thing where we did like on the stages , we created like stuff inside the box , but they needed to see her body go in , Right , they thought this would be a really good shot of her no cutaways of her getting in the box , the box , a box , shedding the dirt going on Right . Oh my God , it did look really terrifying , cause you're like there's no cut , there's a person in that box .

Larry Shea 55:54

Yeah , someone's in the box , yeah .

Tushar Saxena 55:56

Did you ever see the movie buried with Ryan Reynolds ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 55:59

No .

Tushar Saxena 56:00

Oh , my God .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 56:00

Watch this . I'm probably glad I didn't see it . Watch this movie .

Larry Shea 56:03

That's such a great story though .

Tushar Saxena 56:07

Wow , you kind of lead us into our next question , which is the training involved , the lifestyle that's involved in what you do . Obviously you can't train for , or maybe you do , maybe you can train for every injury , so you don't get it , but injuries are going to be part of the day-to-day . So what is that lifestyle like ? What is that training like ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 56:28

So I like to say we get hurt a lot . We try to avoid injury . So you're going to get hurt because that's your job . Your job is to do the dangerous stuff that people don't do , but your job is also to not get injured and become a liability . So you're right in a sense that you do train to not get injured and the more experience speaks volumes , because experience over time you see what could go wrong . Unfortunately , you see the bad things and there are always going to be more bad things . But the more experience you have and the more you take in from people who have experience , so you have your own experiences .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 57:05

I try to talk to as many people as possible before doing a stunt . Hey , have you done this ? Have you done this ? What's your experience ? Like doing like a bail out of a car . You have your own experiences and you can train it . You can like . When I did my first car bail , which is a moving car , you jump out the door . The first time I did that I went to my friend's farm . He had a four by four , what's it called ?

Larry Shea 57:30

Yeah , like a four wheeler type .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 57:35

Did I mention I got hit in the head a lot , no .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 57:37

So we like , timed it , the quad , I had this , the speedometer on it . I did different speeds and marks . So if I jump out here , if I see the mark , then it's eight feet from the time I see the mark and the time I jump , If I'm at 15 miles an hour it's 10 feet , If we're at 15 or 20 miles an hour , whatever the thing is . So I had a little notebook , I had my own experience . I asked people like how do you fall out of the car , how do you do it ? And I've got you know . You layer on these experiences so you do prevent , so you can prevent yourself from getting injured as opposed to getting hurt .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 58:09

I have a huge scar on my hand . I call it my blind spot tattoo , because we changed the N mark for one of these car bales and I was like , if my calculations are correct , I'm going to land right on that manhole cover , but I'm going to protect my head . So when I land on it it'll be my hand , not my head . Nothing I can do about it . That's just where we're going to land . I'm telling you because if this is the mark and we move the mark up eight feet , I know where I'm going to land . So luckily I was prepared for that . I did hit the cover . They tried to put dirt on it . We tried to do the best we could with what we had and have this nice little hole in my hand now . I say blind spot tattoo because in the show , the blind spot , the character I doubled , was covered in tattoos , Jamie .

Larry Shea 58:49

Alexander , right ? Yes , the character I doubled was covered in tattoos . Jamie Alexander , right yes , jamie .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 58:52

Alexander . Yeah , she's incredible , one of the most amazing human beings on this planet by the way , very cool .

Larry Samuels 58:58

You know , as you touch upon her , I was going to ask about training and how often you have to be in the gym and stuff like that . But before we hit that , as long as you bring up Jamie Alexander , are there actors you've worked with who like to do their own stunts , are more brave than others , who are some people that stand out in that realm ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 59:19

Well , jamie , really in the beginning and I only say this because her body just got trashed after a while In the beginning she was really gung-ho about doing what she could . But also the good thing about Jamie is that she knew that this is a stunt thing Like you do this but she wanted to be as authentic as possible and not only did she want to do her stunt , she wanted to know what I was doing so that we could seamlessly go in and out . So , like I would do a role and she'd be like how did you come out of this ? And I'd be like and how are you going to go into this ? And I would see what she was going to do . She come out of this and I'd be like and how are you going to go into this ? And I would see what she was going to do , she would see what I was going to do , and we would really .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 59:56

We worked really well together in bridging that gap , which I think is paramount to creating a realistic performance . So she I have to commend her the most on that for really wanting this to look good and to do it right and not just say I did the stunt . You know what I mean . So she was always gung-ho for doing whatever she could to make it look as best as it could , to the best of her ability and knowing where her abilities lag . So I have to say that that was probably the best person and we worked together for a really , really long time . We would work out together . So because she was vegan , I was like I guess I'm vegan now because I got to look like her .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:00:26

So I'm vegan now because I got to look like her ,

Larry Shea 1:00:29

so that really , I mean Method .

Larry Shea 1:00:30

Acting , that's right . That's not acting , that's biology , that's just like .

Larry Samuels 1:00:34

I learned something today . There you go .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:00:41

And I have to say also , kate Winslet was really wanting to do a lot of things but again was like if this looks better , if you do it , I don't care if you do it . And there were things where I had to , like , fall down the stairs and I'm like you don't want to fall down , you're not even going to see me , they're going to see my legs , like getting beat up .

Larry Samuels 1:00:52

But she debated it , she thought about it .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:00:54

I don't think she even thought about it . I think she was like , yeah , go ahead . She was like if I don't need to fall down the stairs . I don't know , I'm not going to it . Just kind of had her at the , but she was . She's a badass , she's . Kate Winslet was just a doll to work with .

Tushar Saxena 1:01:12

And great show too . By the way , that was a great show yeah .

Larry Shea 1:01:15

Oh , so mesmerizing ? This seems like an appropriate question , but I don't want to put you on the spot .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:01:25

But if you could have any superpower that would make your job easier , what would it be Any superpower to make ?

Larry Shea 1:01:30

my job easier , like as a stunt woman maybe no pain ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:01:35

well , not no pain , because I think pain is a good indicator of reaction and being a good actor , but maybe like a regenerative super oh , okay , like a wolverine , yeah I like that .

Larry Shea 1:01:46

That's good . That's a great answer , because then you could still do the job and then just be , like good for another take . I have to ask after a crazy day on set of you falling down stairs and jumping out of cars , what do you do to unwind ? How do you get back down ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:02:06

You have to understand that social life doesn't exist . I have missed many a wedding funeral . I mean this if you're and this goes back to like watering the garden you're committed to your job , you get hired because you're reliable . You're hired because they know they can count on you and in order to make a living and to be that reliable person . You can't just be like , oh , I can't do the rest of this job , I have to go to a wedding . It's like that's your . You can't just be like , oh , I can't do the rest of this job , I have to go to a wedding . It's like that's your life . You know it becomes your life . But as far as like unwinding , honestly , my job is so , at least up until now in my career the job itself is so fulfilling that , oh , I do like to eat .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:02:47

I do like food and that is actually the one thing , like the one reward , and I found a group of other stunt people that share my love of food .

Tushar Saxena 1:02:56

They're all foodies like you .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:02:57

True foodie . When I got my first big paycheck , the first thing I wanted to do was to go to Blue Hill at Stone Barns and do their tasting menu .

Larry Samuels 1:03:05

Sure , that place is great .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:03:06

Oh God .

Tushar Saxena 1:03:12

It was worth every penny every penny , I assume you're no longer a vegan . Oh no , I was I mean and honestly , like it is crazy how I I saw her body changing .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:03:18

I'm like , oh , I gotta , you know , get a little thinner in certain parts of my body and I'm like I guess I'll . Just I couldn't think of what else to do , so I just started , I started eating like she did , and I did started looking like her , but and I did start looking like her . But then I noticed I was getting thin and things started hurting when I was falling because I wasn't as built and I figured it out eventually , but it's true .

Larry Samuels 1:03:43

So I'm curious and I don't want this to be a downer question , because it's certainly not intended that way , but I feel like I have to ask a realistic question . So you're in a business that's all about your body and your strength and your training and your ability to take a punch , so to speak . How long do people typically stay in your profession ? Are there stunt actors who are 50 , who are 60 ? And if not , what do people tend to transition to ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:04:17

Some people do transition into coordinating or directing , until the day she died . Jeannie Epper , who was Wonder Woman's stunt double , Linda Carter right .

Larry Samuels 1:04:27

Yeah , Linda Carter .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:04:28

Okay , wow , Again hitting it . Linda Carter's stunt double worked like the day she died .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:04:35

I was in amazing spider-man 2 with her when she was in I want to say her 70s oh , wow um , but like you know , you're not going to be doing full-on car hits when you're 70 , but like you get hit in the face and fall down and you were saying earlier about like all the different stunts , like , like the fire , the fighting , the driving , you're leaving out the things like protecting the camera or being the person that buffers the background to the main action , or there's a fire and you're just on the perimeter .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:05:02

That's the job of a stunt performer as well , because there's risk involved and there's one in maybe a hundred chances that something will happen . But in that case that stunt performer is worth every penny because you catch somebody , or you just happen to catch like a bullet shell to your face as opposed to a background person or somebody else , which has happened on set near me with stunt performers . So all this again , like that's where , like , the experience comes into play , and seeing what could go wrong and trying to prevent all that and that is another aspect of being a stunt performer is being that they call it the not hot hotspot is what Jill Brown used to say . So yeah , it doesn't seem like much , but it could be your saving grace in the scene .

Tushar Saxena 1:05:46

All right . What Sam asked was actually a really good question , which was , you know , the idea of the shelf life . I want to ask you a little bit more about the transition of what a stunt performer , slash coordinator has now become . Obviously , in my opinion , john wick is one of the most influential films in the last 20 years , easily , because you cannot have an action film these days without putting in the work of it has to look like john wick , right , because and that was essentially a stunt coordinator who then moved to the next evolution of his career , which was a director- Right , I mean second unit up to actually being yeah .

Tushar Saxena 1:06:36

Yeah to the guy . It takes that realism to a whole new level . Obviously , keanu Reeves is one of these guys who's all about trying to do his own stunts . Tom Cruise is another one . He does lots to do a lot of his own stunts , almost to the point where I think he might have a death wish . Yeah , he likes to do a lot of his own stunts , almost to the point where I think he might have a death wish . If you watch some of his other movies , are you a lot more impressed now to see the evolution of your profession , where it was essentially just you're just the person who falls off the building to now you're calling the shots in many cases . Like you are as important as the director in many cases because you make a movie look realistic .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:07:10

Oh yeah , stunt coordinator for sure , and moving into that role in those kinds of films , absolutely . I mean , if there is going to be an evolution , I'm glad it's going in that direction . You know what I mean . Like someone that has the eye and has the sensibilities of a director . I don't think every stunt coordinator does , to be honest , um right .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:07:28

However , chad's a really good example

Evolution to Director and Future Plans

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:07:30

of someone that sees it , he gets it , you know , he gets the visual , he gets the storytelling very much so , and there are many even within the stunt community in New York right now a lot of people that are it kind of came in when I did and who are my age . There's a guy named James Newman , a stunt guy . He went to film school and made film , so he already has this sensibility of how to direct and how to put stories together and tell a story . He's also a very accomplished martial artist , so he can tell stories through that and now I'm really happy to see that he's doing that on a smaller scale for now , but he's also coordinated at least in some other things and to have that storytelling capability . And , yes , that they're putting more responsibilities in a good way on stunt coordinators and fight coordinators to do that .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:08:14

And it's funny because when I was in Japan I spoke with one of the writer producers on that , about directing . I said you know , I really I really mad that I didn't do more directing . And they were like , well , why don't you direct ? I'm like I don't know , I'm too old , I'm too young , I'm too like that experience . He's like you have just as much experience as most of the directors that come in on this show , if not more , absolutely .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:08:36

And I just was a little head scratcher . And before the end of that , before I even left Tokyo , I was like I'm going to do it , I'm going to , I'm going to direct the movie and then get it , Just do something . And I thought I'll find a short movie and direct it , which turned into I'm going to write a feature and direct and produce it .

Tushar Saxena 1:08:54

So that happened . What was your feature ? What was your feature ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:08:58

I had a co-writer with me . My feature was called F Word . It was not a stunty movie whatsoever . There was one stunt in the movie .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:09:06

But I'm very much so like I love bridesmaids . I love those kind of movies . I'm very much so into comedy and also into storytelling , and I had a friend at the time that he was a straight dude that did like rocky horror and he would dress up for fun and people would be like , oh , you're gay , this . I'm like it's so funny how , just looking at someone , they'd call him the f word and throughout just talking about it with him . I'm like it's so funny how , just looking at someone , they'd call him the f-word and throughout just talking about it with him . I'm like do you want to write this movie with me ? Because I can't seem . Or I was supposed to be a short and we started brainstorming . I'm like this is too much to be a short , ended up turning into a feature .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:09:44

I didn't go to school for screenwriting whatsoever .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:09:46

So of course I like went to master class and did Aaron Sorkin's screenwriting class .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:09:52

I got Save the Cat , I got all the books that you're supposed to get to screenwrite .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:09:56

So one summer I just like read everything about screenwriting did practice runs with like little stories and as I went through it , the same guy that was like you can direct , he was a writer and he was like I will script , doctor , your script , which is , for those of you who don't know , people get hired to specifically do that to look at scripts and make sure that it makes sense to say that your points in your story happen when they're supposed to happen . You have your villain , you have your antagonist , you have all the people that you need to have . Make sure it happens on the pages , that it should happen on just whatever . And he did that for me and voila , I'm saying it like it was easy . It was one of the most difficult things , one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life and one of the most rewarding things and one of the . The thing that made me realize it was a passion beyond compare , because I would go days without sleeping and have boundless energy , like storytelling in its pure form and having that creative freedom .

Larry Samuels 1:10:53

Where could people find this ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:10:55

It is currently in my computer because I have to pay for some rights before I can .

Tushar Saxena 1:11:02

Got it , get it out . We want to see . We got to come over . You got to come over . It will . It will be .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:11:08

We are definitely planning on distributing it ? For sure it's , it's in the works , for actually , because of one of the songs , I'm actually going to be recording my own voice singing this song and then paying for the rights for it for that , and you'll see what it is if you check it out when it comes out . But it will , it will come out . So I will say F word written and directed by Heidi Doreen Schnapp .

Larry Shea 1:11:31

Very cool . You're so built for this . We could just see in this conversation you light up when you talk about your work . I just have to ask you one more before we get to some advice what's something and you've told us so much , you've shared so much already , but what's something that we would be surprised to know about being a stunt woman ? Just your life in general , like what your day-to-day is like and those types of things , or just something that your inner circle knows and the rest of the world does not ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:11:58

Well , wouldn't that defeat the purpose of us knowing , and you not ? We're trying to get that out of you .

Larry Shea 1:12:04

Maybe there's nothing , Maybe the answer is it is what it is .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:12:09

Well , here's the thing . There's a famous quote of Fred Astaire , and what's her face ?

Larry Shea 1:12:13

Ginger Rogers .

Tushar Saxena 1:12:13

Ginger .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:12:14

Rogers . I had Rogers in my head . I'm like Judy , where she's like we do everything men do , but we do it backwards and in heels . So that is being a stunt . Woman is , and even to this day I was going to say sometimes not so much , but no , we do everything the guys do , but in a nightie and without pads . There are dudes that have done like

Career Advice and Final Thoughts

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:12:36

naked stunts . I'm not going to take that away from them , but in general women's wardrobe just happens to be not as covering , much more revealing . You know , I've done many more , many , many very difficult , hard-hitting stunts in very little clothing . Um , just hits a little harder , literally larry , that was a great question .

Larry Samuels 1:13:01

Well , we did get there . So , heidi um , at the end of the show we always like to ask our guests to sort of lay out a roadmap for somebody coming up behind them . So if there is a younger person who wants to break into the business , become a stunt person , a stunt woman , what advice do you have for them ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:13:25

Advice I would have for someone who truly wants to be a stunt performer is to be specific , to commit to it and to find who you look up to , Find the genre , find the things that you like , find the people that do what you want to do . If you want to get into stunts , in general , I would definitely say to find somewhere to learn some martial arts , whether or not you want to be a fighter , Because , again , like I was saying that you're going to fall , you want to know how to fall right . Be humble , and I think this is kind of like general life stuff . The same goes for stunts as it would for anything else . Always ask people's names , write them down . You know these simple little things , like if you truly want to do it . Also , my number one thing I tell any young person whether I want to be a stunt person or not , have your dreams and follow them and don't be afraid to let them change something . And , like you see people doing fighting , you're like well , I'll never do that .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:14:29

No you're allowed to change your mind . What I would advise against is changing it too quickly and to give up on something , but allowing that to shift . You find something new in the thing that you're doing . Follow it , don't be afraid . Don't be afraid to allow your dreams to change .

Tushar Saxena 1:14:45

How much of it is . Don't be a can't . If you think you can or you think you can't , you're right , right , that's right , that's what I've always said .

Larry Samuels 1:14:53

Somebody says I can't do that . I agree . You've already made up your mind .

Larry Shea 1:14:57

That's great .

Larry Samuels 1:14:59

Well , heidi , this has been incredible . Thank you for all of this time . And , before we say our final goodbye , if people want to learn more about you , what are you working on ? Where can they find you ? Is there a website that people can go to ? How do people learn more about Heidi ?

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:15:15

Ah , yeah , well , I have . If you want to know about the directing direction I'm going in , I'm on Instagram , at TheOtherHeidi . If you want to check out some of my stunt stuff . I'm at StuntGirlHeidi on Instagram as well , and I have a website , theotherheidycom .

Larry Samuels 1:15:32

Which I have been to and I found it very , very interesting .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:15:37

I got to repair some links on there , but at least you know it's a good jumping . Well , I found it very helpful .

Larry Samuels 1:15:42

Yeah , so Heidi Schnappauf , did I say it correctly ? Yeah , mm-hmm , excellent , thank you so much for joining us .

Heidi Germaine Schnappauf 1:15:49

Thank you for having me , this was fun .

Larry Samuels 1:15:52

So that was Heidi Germaine Schnappauf . Just an incredible conversation about being I mean literally a fearless self-starter . Larry Shea , what are your takeaways ?

Larry Shea 1:16:04

Yeah , I mean , she's so courageous . I mean , just that's what I take away is she's brave , you know , she's truly brave and passionate about what she does . We talk about it all the time that some people are just built for what they become in this world . And between the martial arts and the acting out the fight scenes when she was a kid and the athletics and all of it , you could just feel like that was what was going to make her happy and she was going to find it through hell or high water and it was really cool to see . And there's a couple of pivotal moments in her life , right when she sees the behind the scenes Tomb Raider , she's like , ooh , what's that job ? I could do that , you know .

Larry Shea 1:16:43

I just love the fact that she sent like 500 letters to people . You can use this in any profession find the people that you admire or want to become and contact them . Get to know who they are , what they look like , what their names are , because if they're sitting on a bus next to you , you can have that conversation with them , but you don't know it unless you know who these people are . So so smart of her to do that and great advice , you know obviously be good to work with . We talk about that all the time . Right , but be specific , commit to it and find the people that do the stuff that you want to do . I loved her approach and I loved how she built a world for herself . That is truly remarkable . She's an incredible person . That is truly remarkable . She's an incredible person .

Tushar Saxena 1:17:29

One big thing I took away from this is you know , there's a line from a Dirty Harry movie with Clint Eastwood , which is a man's got to know his limitations , and it applies in this case because she was very much looking for her niche in the world of movies and we've spoken to other people before in this kind of world Some are producers , some are directors and that in that sense . But we rarely get this glimpse , this portion of this kind of world television and movies where you're in front of the camera but not the quote-unquote star . You're doing something different . And she learned early on in her career that she didn't think she had the makeup to be the big star , like she didn't have the makeup to be angelina jolie , but she had the makeup to be the person who kind of subs in for Angelina Jolie and is still in front of the camera . So in many cases she kind of understood what her role would be .

Tushar Saxena 1:18:19

In the world of making movies was more than content to follow that dream , and follow that dream very gung ho , making sure she builds out this world of people who do the same job that she does , getting advice from them . That's what we all kind of act and we try to put that forward in so many of the people that we speak with , that it's not simply going forward and pushing forward with a dream . Sometimes you want to try and get a bigger picture , a more realistic picture of what the job actually is , what it entails . So to do that you have to ask people who are actually doing it and once you get that base of people who kind of are in that world with you and give you and can give you advice , it better informs your choices moving down the line .

Larry Samuels 1:19:01

Absolutely . You know , and , building upon all of that , we were joking that she was wearing this t-shirt during the interview that said don't be a can't and I'm giving serious consideration to titling the episode don't be a can't . So it might already be that way , we'll see , but that was this overarching theme of everything we discussed and I found it so interesting and I think this came up when we were talking before and after the interview about she wanted to start a podcast . She learned how to do that . She wanted to write a screenplay , so she took a course to do that . She wanted to be better at martial arts , so she did that .

Larry Samuels 1:19:42

Like , throughout her life , throughout her journey , she has been continuously learning , which is one of the most important things for anybody out there to learn Always be curious , keep learning , which is one of the most important things for anybody out there to learn . Always be curious , keep learning , keep growing , keep evolving . And you know , one of the key things she talked about with her advice was don't be afraid to change your dreams , and I just thought that was so interesting . It's like you have to see them through , make sure that you give them an honest chance and to see things develop , but don't be afraid to pivot as you start to open your mind to what some of the different possibilities in life can be .

Tushar Saxena 1:20:19

Yeah , pete Dominick said the same thing to us , right ? I think he was like you know what ? There is no shame in changing the direction of your goal , right ? No one says that when you're five years old and you say I want to be a fireman or want to be a tree , then at 35 , if you're not a tree , you screwed up . No , that's not the case , right ? No , it's not the case . You can always be something else and there's no shame in that , especially if it's like the overarching goal is okay , I want to be in the movies , but I'm not going to be Angelina Jolie . So how do I be in the movies without being Angelina Jolie ? So that's really just shaping the goal to the surroundings that you're in . I think it's great advice , totally great advice .

Larry Shea 1:21:00

I agree wholeheartedly , and I'm telling you , if you're going to steal one thing from this interview and use it for whatever your dreams might be , it's her resourcefulness . She wasn't afraid to put herself out there and find people who had the answers to the questions that she had . So , whatever your profession is , do that , because look what it did for her .

Larry Samuels 1:21:23

That's exactly right , and she's still going . She talked about a writing project . We know that she was an actor and she acted . And we talked about Harry Greenberger off the top , somebody was on one of our previous episodes . She was in one of his movies as an actor . So just keep going , keep evolving , keep growing and follow your dreams . Heidi . Germain Schnappoff is a perfect example of doing exactly that . Heidi , thank you so much for joining this episode of no Wrong Choices . Thanks again for joining us . If this episode made you think of somebody who could be a great guest , we'd love to hear from you . Please reach out to us through the contact page of our website at norongchoicescom . While you're there , check out the blog for a deeper look at our takeaways from each episode . You can also connect with us on social media . We're on LinkedIn , instagram , facebook , youtube and X . On behalf of Larry Shea , tushar Saxena and me , larry Samuels . Thank you again for listening . We'll be back next week with another inspiring conversation .