Man of many stunts

Sli Lewis looks like an athlete. It is a matter of form dictated by function. He is an athlete in a distant sort of way; he’s also a rising movie star but his face rarely sees the camera.

To know that he crashes cars, wheelies motorcycles and bounces off walls for a living makes sense when you read Sli’s business card: professional stuntman.

Sli is quite likeable and when directors like Michael Bay are paying the bills for him to drive the world’s greatest exotic cars on location in Hong Kong and Detroit, he’s got a good reason to smile.

Sli’s origins are stemmed in Queens, New York and he still keeps in close contact with the boys from his neighbourhood. Friends like Chris Hart, who owns Showtime Transportation, a trucking company that moves high-dollar cars across the country.

He drove cars for Hart — expensive cars that belonged to powerful people. According to Hart, Sli has a natural feel for driving.

So how do you become a stuntman? It’s a question not often asked, but Hart tells a few secrets about Sli’s beginnings in Queens. Sli was always interested in motorcycles and cars, and according to Hart, Sli is still a member of the Miami Warriors.

The Miami Warriors were the bikes and bodies used in the film The Fast and the Furious. Through the club, Sli began doing on-road stunts on two wheels and that led to doing stunts on four wheels. There’s mention of ‘borrowed’ car and rental cars as practice equipment in Sli’s early career development.

“And Sli can rig a handbrake in a few minutes for stunt work. He showed me how,” said Hart.

Sli Lewis’ IMDb biography is only two lines — “Lincoln (2012), Sabotage (2014) and Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014).” He’s also appeared in End of Watch (2012) in an uncredited appearance. Go back a few years, and he claims his start in stunts began in music videos and small productions.

In Sabotage, Sli was Terence Howard’s stunt double. In Lincoln, he’s credited as a stunt performer. In Transformers: Age of Extinction, Sli is credited as a generic stunt driver.

And as we chatted, Sli mentioned he does everything from physical stunts to driving stunts on two and four wheels. At 37, his action career seems to be in an upward trajectory. He’s tied to 5150 Action Production Company and its founder Mike Gunther.

Gunther’s approach to stunt work in films, according to the company’s website, is to provide the best stuntmen as well as work with production teams and directors to create and capture action that exceeds audience expectations. Gunther has been on set performing stunts since 1990, and he was the second unit director on Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Sli can multi-task – look closely during the Corvette and Pagani Huayra driving scenes and you may just see him behind the wheel. Look very closely because Sli isn’t tall. He also did explosions, falls and whatever Bay and Gunther wanted. He snaps his fingers and says: “You gotta be ready.”

With the next Transformers instalment planned for release in 2016, Sli will be working through next year. He and Peter Cullen — the voice of Optimus Prime — will return, and word is that Megan Fox will also return.

Transformers: Age of Extinction is available on Digital HD November 12, and Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and DVD November 26.