Story behind my final stunt

Jackie Chan is "the biggest martial arts movie star of all time" (according to GQ) – in fact, he probably has more fans than any Hollywood action star dead or alive. His breathless, death-defying stunts are the highlights of over 40 films. Some of these nearly cost him his life. But who is this boyishly handsome, lightning-fast Charlie Chaplin of martial arts movies? And what possessed him to make a career out of putting his life on the line to keep us on the edge of our seats?

Below, he talks about his final stunt in The Medallion:

I’m standing in the sky on the roof of a glass and steel office tower in Ireland. There are 21 floors of air between me and the concrete pavement below. I am about to do what I do best. I am about to jump.

My stuntmen tell me that the fall is safe – well, not safe, but maybe a little less than deadly. Of course, they’ve only tried the jump from the 16th floor. And I realize a 16-floor fall is too predictable.

Too possible.

After all, my producer has been bragging to reporters that this will be the world’s most dangerous stunt. And who would I be if I didn’t live up to my press?

Not Jackie Chan.

So, against the advice of my director and my co-stars and studio executives, I have decided to add five stories to the stunt.

That’s 60 more feet of very thin air through which my 45-year-old body will be sliding.

A few more seconds of excitement for the cameras.

A few more tense moments from an audience starving for adrenaline.

The formula is simple. The more terrified my friends and family are, the more satisfied my fans will be. And they mean everything to me. They come to the theaters hungry for a hero, someone who can laugh at disaster, who can make funny faces at death. Someone who can show them for real that the only thing to fear is fear itself.

But whoever said that never stood on a roof in Ireland. He never looked down over the edge of a skyscraper to see a foam target 250 feet below. From here, the mattress looks like a postage stamp. When I hold out both hands in front of my face, I can just about cover it entirely.

Sorry to contradict you, Mr. Whoever, but the only thing to fear is fear itself, and hitting the ground at 100 miles per hour with nothing between you and the emergency room but a few inches of foam rubber.

I’m tired.

My heart feels like rock in my chest.

My body screams at me about the abuse I’ve put it through over the last four decades. My body and soul are complaining about how badly I’ve treated them. And despite the mob of extras milling around the base of the building– hundreds of Irish marines and firefighters and police, looking nervously up at the sky–I think to myself: Is this jump really necessary?

But the answer is there as soon as I ask the question: Yes.

Because the jump is special.

It isn’t just for the fans, the critics and the box-office charts. This one is for the man who made it possible for me to stand here today, aching and shivering in the spotlight.

This is for my Master Yu Jim-yuen, buried a week ago in Los Angeles.

My trip from Ireland to California for the funeral brought production to a grinding stop, costing my producers a quarter of million dollars. They knew better than to tell me not to go, even if for them every wasted dollar is like a drop of spilled blood.

I remember a frightened seven-year-old walking into the dark and musty halls of the China Drama Academy, holding his father’s hand. Inside, he sees young boys and girls leaping and tumbling and screaming. Paradise.

How long do you want to stay here, Jackie’?"

"‘Forever’!" answers the boy, his eyes bright and wide. And he lets go of his father to clutch at the hem of his master’s robe…

For the next 10 years, I sweated and cried and bled under my Master’s hands. I cursed his name when I went to sleep at night, and I swallowed my fear and hatred of him when I woke up in the morning. He asked for everything we had, and we gave it to him, under pain of injury, or even death.

But when we came of age, we realized he’d given it all back. With interest.

It was Master Yu Jim-yuen who created Jackie Chan, and I do what I do today–I am what I am today–because of him. And so this leap is in his memory, a final act of gratitude. A last gesture of defiance.

Someone slaps me on the back. Asks me if I’m ready. I nod, barely understanding. Another voice calls for quiet on the set, and suddenly the only sound is the wind and the blood rushing in my ears and my heart beginning to pound like a giant drum.

"‘Camera’!"

"‘Rolling’!"

"‘Action’!"

"And I suck in my churning stomach. Launch myself into the sky.

I fly.

I remember.