10 Stars Who ONLY Trusted Themselves To Perform Big Movie Scenes

5. Jackie Chan Refused A Stuntman For The Pole Stunt, Got Electrocuted & Burned - Police Story

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Jackie Chan was unparalleled as cinema's most daring - and most insane - stunt performer, flatly refusing to let a stuntman do any of the work for him because, let's be honest, who could do it better than Jackie?

And though most of Chan's stunts are more smoothly controlled than they actually appear - Chan wore a harness for the famous skyscraper slide in Who Am I?, for instance - he totally threw caution to the wind for perhaps his most dangerous stunt ever, the famous pole slide from 1985's Police Story.

At the end of the climactic shopping mall set-piece, Chan leaps from the top floor of the mall, sliding down a pole, smashing a string of lights on his way down before careening through a glass floor and finally crash-landing below.

Though on paper it might not sound like Chan's most death-defying stunt, the fact that the production used real lights rather than more delicate movie prop lights presented a far greater risk to Chan, especially as these lights were hooked up to the building's battery for maximum luminescence.

Because suffering second-degree burns as he smashed through the lights wasn't bad enough, Chan also received a mild electrocution along with spinal damage, pelvic dislocation and partial temporary paralysis, the latter injuries received as he crashed through the glass floor.

You have to hand it to Chan for suggesting that nobody would get put through the wringer instead of him, but maybe refuse to do the stunt until they rig up some movie lights and a proper, soft landing for you, yeah?