Zoë Bell
Encyclopedia
Zoë E. Bell is a stuntwoman
Stunt performer
A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...

 and actress from New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. Some of her most notable stunt work includes doubling for Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....

 on Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess is an American–New Zealand supernatural fantasy adventure series that aired in syndication from September 4, 1995 until June 18, 2001....

and for Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman is an American actress and model. She has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action movies. Among her best-known roles are those in the Quentin Tarantino films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill...

 in Kill Bill
Kill Bill
Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart, the second volume being Kill Bill Volume 2....

. As an actress, she has appeared both on television and in feature films and also starred in the web series
Web series
A web series is a series of episodes released on the Internet or also by mobile or cellular phone, and part of the newly emerging medium called web television. A single instance of a web series program is called an episode .While the popularity of web series is continuing to rise, the concept...

 Angel of Death
Angel of Death (Web Series)
Angel of Death is a web series of eight to ten minute episodes created by Ed Brubaker. The series stars Zoë Bell as Eve, an assassin taking revenge on her former employers, and costars Lucy Lawless. Angel of Death was produced by White Rock Lake Production and distributed by Sony Pictures Television...

. She is probably most recognized for playing herself in the Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

 film, Death Proof
Death Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...

.

Early life

Bell was born in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 to Tish, a nurse, and Andrew Bell, a doctor. She has a younger brother named Jake. She grew up on Waiheke Island
Waiheke Island
Waiheke Island is an island in the Hauraki Gulf of New Zealand, located about from Auckland.The island is the second-largest in the Hauraki Gulf after Great Barrier Island. It is the most populated, with nearly 8,000 permanent residents plus another estimated 3,400 who have second or holiday homes...

 in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

. At a young age, she participated in competitive gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

 and at the age of 15, she began studying Taekwon-Do. She also participated in dance, high diving, scuba, and track and field activities. Bell attended Auckland Girls' Grammar School
Auckland Girls' Grammar School
Auckland Girls' Grammar School is a New Zealand secondary school for girls located in Newton, in the Auckland central business district. Established in 1888, it is one of the oldest secondary institutions in the country...

 and Selwyn College
Selwyn College, Auckland
Selwyn College is a co-educational public secondary school in the Eastern Suburbs of Auckland, New Zealand.Selwyn offers the NCEA qualification, and a Certificate in Performing Arts...

.

Career

Bell began her career in 1992 when her father treated a stuntman for a head injury and came home with a phone number for her to call. Her first stunt job was jumping out of a car in Shortland Street
Shortland Street
Shortland Street is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera, first broadcast on Television New Zealand's TV2 on 25 May 1992. It is the country's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously for over 4500 episodes and 19 years, and is one of the most watched television programs in...

, a New Zealand soap opera.

She did stunts for Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is a television series, filmed in New Zealand and the United States. It was produced from 1995, and was very loosely based on the tales of the classical Greek culture hero Heracles...

and Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess is an American–New Zealand supernatural fantasy adventure series that aired in syndication from September 4, 1995 until June 18, 2001....

, both of which were filmed in New Zealand; by the fourth season of Xena
Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess is an American–New Zealand supernatural fantasy adventure series that aired in syndication from September 4, 1995 until June 18, 2001....

, she was the stunt double for Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....

. She fractured vertebrae in her back doing wire work on the show, but continued working for a week until another stunt, in which a breakaway chair was smashed on her back, incapacitated her.

After Xena, she did a number of small films and TV stunt work, including stunt coordinating and playing a small role in a short film Reflections
Reflections
Reflections may refer to:*Reflections, Lubbock Christian University's alumni publication*Reflections , a British drama film*Reflections , a Yugoslavian film*Reflections , a British documentary film...

 with Adrienne Wilkinson
Adrienne Wilkinson
Adrienne Marie Wilkinson is an American actress.- Biography :Adrienne Wilkinson was born in Memphis, Missouri. She is of Irish, Scottish, English, Cherokee, Danish and German heritage....

 (with whom she had previously worked on Xena). She then went on to double
Stunt double
A stunt double is a type of body double, specifically a skilled replacement used for dangerous film or video sequences, in movies and television , and for other sophisticated stunts...

 for Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman is an American actress and model. She has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action movies. Among her best-known roles are those in the Quentin Tarantino films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill...

 in Quentin Tarantino's
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

 Kill Bill
Kill Bill
Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart, the second volume being Kill Bill Volume 2....

.

Though she was initially hired as Thurman's "crash and smash" double, the stunt team realized Bell would also make an ideal double for fight scenes and she was trained accordingly. Bell had to learn to fight in the wushu
Chinese martial arts
Chinese martial arts, also referred to by the Mandarin Chinese term wushu and popularly as kung fu , are a number of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as "families" , "sects" or...

 style. Near the end of filming for Kill Bill: Volume 2, she injured her ribs and the ligaments in her wrist while simulating being thrown backwards by a shotgun blast. Bell required surgery and spent several months recuperating. After production wrapped on Kill Bill, she received "The Bells" sign which hung outside the home of the Vernita Green character. She later gave it to her parents.

Tarantino was so impressed with her that he cast her in a leading role in his next film, Death Proof
Death Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...

, in which she played herself and performed her own stunts, the most notable of which occurs when she hangs onto the hood of a speeding 1970 Dodge Challenger
Dodge Challenger
The Dodge Challenger is the name of three different generations of automobiles marketed by the Dodge division of Chrysler.The first generation Dodge Challenger was a pony car built from 1970 to 1974, using the Chrysler E platform and sharing major components with the Plymouth Barracuda. The second...

. After Death Proof, she did stunt work for the movie Catwoman
Catwoman (film)
Catwoman is a 2004 American superhero film and quasi-spinoff of the Batman film series directed by Pitof and released by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures on July 23, 2004....

, in which she performed high falls and acted as a double for Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...

.

In 2004, the documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Double Dare
Double Dare (documentary)
Double Dare is a 2004 documentary film about stuntwomen, specifically Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell, directed by Amanda Micheli. The documentary follows Epper and Bell over several years, Epper from 1997 and Bell from the end of Xena: Warrior Princess in 2001, to 2003.-Overview:The film begins with...

was released. It focused primarily on Bell and veteran stuntwoman Jeannie Epper
Jeannie Epper
Jeannie Epper is an American stuntwoman and actress. She has performed stunts in over 100 feature films and television series and is perhaps best known as Lynda Carter's double on the Wonder Woman series. She was featured in Amanda Micheli's 2004 documentary Double Dare, along with New Zealand...

, following them during their travails in Hollywood. The film presented a view of opposing ends of the stuntwoman spectrum, with the aging Epper continuing her search for work in an industry where age is not necessarily considered an asset and Bell, then a Hollywood newcomer, trying to break into the industry. The filming of Double Dare covered Zoë's career from the end of Xena to the beginning of her work on Kill Bill: Volume 1.

In 2004, Bell and Angela Meryl (Vivica A. Fox
Vivica A. Fox
Vivica Anjanetta Fox is an American actress and television producer. She is best known for her roles in the films Independence Day, Set It Off, Soul Food, Why Do Fools Fall In Love,Kill Bill and Juwanna Mann....

's stunt double) were nominated at the Taurus World Stunt Awards
Taurus World Stunt Awards
The Taurus World Stunt Awards is a yearly award ceremony that honors stunt performers in movies. It is held each year in Los Angeles.- Categories :*Best Fight*Best Fire Stunt*Best High Work*Best Work with a Vehicle*Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Woman...

 in the categories "Best Overall Stunt by a Woman" and "Best Fight" for their doubling of the knife fight between the characters Beatrix Kiddo
Beatrix Kiddo
Beatrix Kiddo, primarily known as "The Bride", is a fictional character and the protagonist in the movie Kill Bill by American director Quentin Tarantino...

 and Vernita Green in Kill Bill: Volume 1. In 2005, Bell was nominated for a Taurus in the categories "Best Overall Stunt by a Woman," "Best Fight," and "Best High Work." She and Monica Staggs
Monica Staggs
Monica Staggs is an American stuntwoman and actress.-Early life:Staggs was born in Boulder, Colorado, the oldest daughter of Thomas Staggs, an architect, and Nova, a teacher. She enjoyed frequent trips to Casa Bonita and developed a lifelong, diehard love for the Denver Broncos...

 (Daryl Hannah
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s, notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne and Kill Bill.-Early life:Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan...

's double) won Best Overall Stunt and Best Fight for their fight in Budd's trailer in Kill Bill 2. Her Best High Work nomination was for a fall of over 200 feet in the film Catwoman.

In August 2007, Bell confirmed she had signed on to play the lead role in a film about an American soldier who, upon returning to the US from a tour of duty in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, helps a young girl in trouble. She told the New Zealand Herald she would do her own stunts in the as-yet untitled film, and that the American accent was "a big challenge". In October 2007, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

reported that Bell would appear in the 2009 film Game, starring Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...

; the movie was later renamed Gamer.

Bell was a guest star in the fourth season of Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...

, playing the role of the freighter team's radio contact, Regina. She stated in interviews that the role required a little acting and some stunt work. She appeared on screen only in episode 7 of season 4, entitled "Ji Yeon
Ji Yeon
"Ji Yeon" is the seventh episode of the American Broadcasting Company's fourth season of Lost and 79th episode overall. The episode was written by co-executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and directed by regular Lost editor Stephen Semel. It was first aired in the United States and...

."

In 2008, Bell starred alongside her former Xena colleague Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....

 in Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

 (Crackle
Crackle
Crackle is a digital network and studio, featuring commercially supported streaming video content in Flash Video format. It is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and its content consists primarily of Sony's library of films and television shows...

)'s web series Angel of Death
Angel of Death (Web Series)
Angel of Death is a web series of eight to ten minute episodes created by Ed Brubaker. The series stars Zoë Bell as Eve, an assassin taking revenge on her former employers, and costars Lucy Lawless. Angel of Death was produced by White Rock Lake Production and distributed by Sony Pictures Television...

which debuted online in early 2009.

Bell also played a medical technician who moonlights as "Bloody Holly", a roller derby
Roller derby
Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...

 star, in Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...

's 2009 directorial debut, Whip It.

She appeared alongside Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Trent Snipes is an American actor, film producer, and martial artist, who has starred in numerous action films, thrillers, and dramatic feature films. Snipes is known for playing the Marvel Comics character Blade in the Blade film trilogy, among various other high profile roles...

 in Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 director Giorgio Serafini's 2010 thriller, Game of Death
Game of Death (2010 film)
Game of Death is a 2010 action film directed by Giorgio Serafini and starring Wesley Snipes, Zoë Bell, Gary Daniels, Robert Davi, Jaime Moyer and Frank Zieger. The film is shot in Detroit, Michigan.The first trailer released on February 12.-Production:...

.

Filmography

  • Shortland Street
    Shortland Street
    Shortland Street is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera, first broadcast on Television New Zealand's TV2 on 25 May 1992. It is the country's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously for over 4500 episodes and 19 years, and is one of the most watched television programs in...

    (1992–2005)
  • Xena: Warrior Princess
    Xena: Warrior Princess
    Xena: Warrior Princess is an American–New Zealand supernatural fantasy adventure series that aired in syndication from September 4, 1995 until June 18, 2001....

    (1995) TV Series (stunt double) (unknown episodes)
  • Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
    Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
    Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is a television series, filmed in New Zealand and the United States. It was produced from 1995, and was very loosely based on the tales of the classical Greek culture hero Heracles...

    – (1995–1999 TV series) stunt work
  • The Chosen
    The Chosen
    The Chosen may refer to:*The Chosen , a novel by Ricardo Pinto*The Chosen , a novel by Chaim Potok**The Chosen , a 1981 film based on Potok's novel*The Chosen , a novel by L. J. Smith...

    (1998) stunt work
  • Young Hercules
    Young Hercules
    Young Hercules is a spin-off from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. It was aired on Fox Kids from September 12, 1998, to May 12, 1999. It lasted one season with 50 episodes and starred Ryan Gosling in the title role.-Plot:...

    (1998 TV)
  • Jacksons Wharf (1999 TV)
  • Amazon High (1999 TV) – background action stunt work
  • Cleopatra 2525
    Cleopatra 2525
    Cleopatra 2525 is an American science fiction television series that aired in syndication for two seasons, from January 2000 to March 2001. It appeared as the first part of the Back2Back Action Hour, followed by Jack of All Trades.-Synopsis:...

    Female betrayer (1 episode, 2000)
  • Jack of All Trades (2000 TV)
  • The Bunker Murders (2002 TV)
  • Riverworld
    Riverworld (film)
    Riverworld is a sci-fi/fantasy feature-length pilot episode for a series that was never produced. It aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003. It was loosely based on the Hugo Award-winning "Riverworld" saga by Philip José Farmer. Production began in 2001...

    (2003 teleplay) stunt work
  • The Extreme Team (2003) (stunt double) aka The X-Team (USA: TV title)
  • Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) (stunt double)
  • Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) (stunt double)
  • Double Dare
    Double Dare (documentary)
    Double Dare is a 2004 documentary film about stuntwomen, specifically Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell, directed by Amanda Micheli. The documentary follows Epper and Bell over several years, Epper from 1997 and Bell from the end of Xena: Warrior Princess in 2001, to 2003.-Overview:The film begins with...

    (2004)
  • Catwoman
    Catwoman (film)
    Catwoman is a 2004 American superhero film and quasi-spinoff of the Batman film series directed by Pitof and released by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures on July 23, 2004....

    (2004) (stunt double)
  • Ultraviolet
    Ultraviolet (film)
    Ultraviolet is a 2006 American science fiction action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer and produced by Screen Gems. It stars Milla Jovovich as Violet Song and Cameron Bright as Six. It was released in North America on March 3, 2006...

    (2004)
  • Alias
    Alias (TV series)
    Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...

    (stunt double) (1 episode, 2005)
  • Penny Dreadful
    Penny Dreadful (film)
    Penny Dreadful is a 2006 independent American horror film. The film centers on a young woman who has a fear of cars and ends up stalked by a maniac hitchhiker preying on her fears....

    (2006) (stunt double)
  • The Devil's Den (2006) (stunt double)
  • Poseidon (2006) (stunts)
  • The Kingdom
    The Kingdom (film)
    The Kingdom is a 2007 film directed by Peter Berg and starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Ashraf Barhom, with Kyle Chandler, Jeremy Piven and Ali Suliman....

    (2007) (stunts)
  • Planet Terror
    Planet Terror
    Planet Terror is a 2007 American action horror film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, about a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit, including a go-go dancer searching for a way to use her "useless talents." The film, a...

    (2007) (stunts)
  • Death Proof
    Death Proof
    Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...

    (2007) (as herself)
  • Reflections (2008) (Woman in Mirror, stunt coordinator)
  • Lost
    Lost (TV series)
    Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...

    (2008) (Regina) (Season 4)
  • The Final Destination (2009) (stunt double)
  • Inglourious Basterds (2009) (stunt double)
  • Angel of Death
    Angel of Death (Web Series)
    Angel of Death is a web series of eight to ten minute episodes created by Ed Brubaker. The series stars Zoë Bell as Eve, an assassin taking revenge on her former employers, and costars Lucy Lawless. Angel of Death was produced by White Rock Lake Production and distributed by Sony Pictures Television...

    (2009)
  • Whip It (2009) (Bloody Holly)
  • The Chronicles of Nerm (2009) (voice)
  • The Collector (2009) (Stunt Double)
  • Gamer (2009) (Sandra)
  • Fallout: New Vegas
    Fallout: New Vegas
    Fallout: New Vegas is a first person action role-playing video game in the Fallout series developed by Obsidian Entertainment, and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is based in a post-apocalyptic environment in and around Las Vegas, Nevada...

    (2010) (Melissa & Diane & Linda Schuler & Alice Hoestler)(video game voice-over)
  • Game of Death
    Game of Death (2010 film)
    Game of Death is a 2010 action film directed by Giorgio Serafini and starring Wesley Snipes, Zoë Bell, Gary Daniels, Robert Davi, Jaime Moyer and Frank Zieger. The film is shot in Detroit, Michigan.The first trailer released on February 12.-Production:...

    (2010) (Floria)
  • Gossip Girl
    Gossip Girl
    Gossip Girl is an American young adult novel series written by Cecily von Ziegesar and published by Little, Brown and Company, a subsidiary of the Hachette Group. The series revolves around the lives and romances of the privileged teenagers at the Constance Billard School for Girls, an elite...

    (2011) (1 episode)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK