Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Mary Kim.
Lauren, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised in Stockton, CA. At a young age, I did acrobatics and competed in local competitions throughout California. Soon after I began training as a dancer, and after High School, I moved to LA to pursue a dance career where I danced in music videos, tours, movies, etc.
I felt like this career path just wasn’t me… meanwhile my parents thought this alternative career route was just a phase in my life. And in some way maybe I thought so too. I did after all get a business degree at Cal State Northridge… I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life as many others feel at such a young age. After taking a couple of finance and accounting classes in college, I just felt that working at a 9 to 5 wouldn’t make me happy.
For fun one day, I decided to enroll in an adult gymnastics class while in college and met a couple of stuntmen who introduced me to martial arts. I instantly fell in love with martial arts, and soon learned about the stunt industry. I slowly started to transition from a dance career to a stunt career and my parents were so confused. They surely thought this was a phase. But 15 years later, I’m still in this career and loving every minute of it.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
In the beginning of my career, it was slow, and I was broke… actually severely in debt. It wasn’t easy to get stunt jobs. Back when I started there were less jobs, we didn’t have all these new media platforms like we do today. Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc. created so much more entertainment content.
Also as an Asian Female 10-15 years ago there were hardly any Asian women on film and TV. Which means there are less actresses to stunt double for. And there were still a lot of stereotypical roles for women of my type. I think when I started, Asians were the least represented on Film and TV. Until recently it’s starting to change thanks to Crazy Rich Asians & Fresh off the Boat to name a few, but thankfully there are more roles for Asian males and females.
There were a couple of periods throughout my career where I had nervous breakdowns of “what am I doing with my life” when there were slow periods in the business and the fear of “is my career gonna be over after 40?” or “is my career gonna end once I have a baby?”
And I think a lot of women in my business may have had the same concerns as well. Many women work past the age 40 whether they are still performing or coordinating and even more women work after having children. In the end, age is nothing but a number.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
When I was introduced to the stunt world, I was first taught basic stunt fighting. First was kicking drills then basic boxing. I wanted to probe deeper, so I enrolled in a Tae Kwon Do class and years later received my black belt at Jun Chong TKD in LA. Then I trained Wushu and a little bit of BJJ.
After that, I started training Silat, Filipino Martial Arts, JKD, and Muay Thai at Inosanto Academy and Capoeira at Fit Arts. Stunts are many more things than just martial arts, it’s just one component of many things. So you might ask, “what is stunts?”
Stunts in my opinion is the physical act of performing something highly skilled or engaging in a physical act that may be dangerous that only one that is competent on how to use/manipulate the body, so it has the least amount of damage — knowing how to access a situation to do it as safely as possible.
Knowing how to fall, react, act, and timing is very important. Knowing how to move the body and take several directions and notes is key as well.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
You can never do anything alone in life. Along the way, I have met some very gracious people who gave me tips to become successful. My parents, even though in the beginning didn’t quite know what to do with me, still was supportive of me.
Different martial art instructors have encouraged and guided me positively like Master Chong, Guro Dan Inosanto, and Alfred Kendrick. And my husband, Ofir Anchel has always been supportive of me and always there for me when I needed it most.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.v10stunts.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: Laurenmarykim
- Facebook: Lauren Mary Kim
- Twitter: Lauren Mary Kim
Image Credit:
Mik Kelly, Virisa Yong, kali active, Blackbelt magazine
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