Coordinator's Corner: Dennis Madalone

What has been the biggest highlight of your career?

There has been many big highlights in my career, I’ve been blessed… But going on THE JOHNNY CARSON SHOW and blowing him up is pretty cool - and putting on the super uniform on THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO.

These two make me smile and the way they have become iconic…

What is the greatest lesson you have learned over the years as a stunt coordinator?

One of the lessons I’ve learned over the years as a stunt coordinator is... as good as we are as a stunt coordinators we must be wide-open to keep learning every day to be smarter and safer.

Yes it’s our job to do crazy cool creative stunts but we must always remember that most importantly, we need to get everybody home safe because we are the lifeguards on the set and we must protect our stunt people, our actors, and the whole crew.

There’s no better feeling than when they call wrap and everybody gets to go home with a smile on their face.

‍What are the greatest qualities you seek out in a stunt performer?

The great qualities I would like to see in a stunt performer besides their talent is that they have amazing energy and excitement and a true smile that makes you feel good.

It’s a gift to be around someone with a golden soul and a happy heart.

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What advice would you give up and coming stunt performers?

The advice I'd like to give to all the new stunt performers is to just be yourself, show everyone your excitement, your happy energy, and keep putting out all your passion.

Good things happen when you work hard and you truly believe… because everything beautiful is possible.

What do you love most about the stunt community?

I love our stunt community because we all have something in common: we love doing creative crazy stunt action.

It’s in US ALL and it’s something that we all have in common which put us all in a unique circle of the super cool group of crazy fun stunt people.

The one thing about our community of stunt people is whenever somebody is in need, everybody will be there… and if you have someone then you have everything and we all have each other.

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