Name: Jennifer Caputo
Age: 30-something
Hometown: Longwood, Florida
Currently: Stuntwoman
The world of Hollywood stunt performers is an unforgiving one. Competition for jobs is brutal and every day another gaggle of potential stunt legends arrives at the Greyhound station. If a stuntman or stuntwoman doesn't execute their craft with precision and flair, a film production can be out hundreds of thousands of dollars. And beyond all that, it's pretty easy to get killed doing stunts too.
Jennifer Caputo has been at the top of the stunt profession practically from the moment she arrived in Hollywood more than a dozen years ago. She has a "go-to" reputation in a business that relies solely on reputation to separate the professionals from the wannabes and the never-gonna-bes. She's the woman you want behind the wheel when it's supposed to look like Sheryl Crow is spinning a '68 Mustang in her "Steve McQueen" video. She's the gal who's riding the motorcycle when the world is supposed to believe it's actually Halle Barry slicing through traffic with reckless abandon in "Catwoman."
Though she grew up in Florida, she began her conquest of show business after graduating from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a degree in hotel and restaurant management. "My brother was a gymnast who had just gone to the Olympic trials in 1992," she recalls. "He didn't make the team, so he called me up and said 'Do you want to go to L.A. and be stuntpeople?' So we came here, got some headshots, and started hanging around the sets and hustling the stunt coordinators to get work. I'll do anything they'll let me try. And anything they'll let me try, I'll like. But I do like jumping motorcycles. Motorcycles and car work are my favorite things to do."
Jennifer has doubled both Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in the Charlie's Angels films. It was Jennifer who was actually behind the wheel of that Indy car that magically managed to make it from California Speedway in Fontana to the Thomas Vincent bridge in Long Beach intact. She's driven in movies ranging from Oscar-bait like Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" to mainstream dreck like "The Fast & The Furious" and utterly forgettable trash like "Anger Management" and "Chasing Papi."
"I've had some concussions and some bumps and bruises," says Jennifer about her work life. "But most of my bruises come from racing motocross. My hobbies are what are killing me."