7 Clever Ways Movies Hid Their Stunt Doubles

Movie stunts don't just revolve around car chases and melee fights. Real-life skills that would be tough or even impossible for the actor to learn on a tight schedule (such as playing a musical instrument) also require the use of a stunt double in some cases.

Take 2014's intense tale of ambition, perseverance, and jazz, Whiplash. Since the focal point of the film is the drumming ability of protagonist Andrew Neiman, the drumming scenes had to be convincing, or else the drama would simply fall flat.

And to give actor Miles Teller a lot of credit, the majority of the drumming in the film was actually him, something that was only possible after he spent months training with a coach. But it simply wasn't possible for him to pull off every single shot in the film, and so, the crew enlisted the help of a "drum double" to fill in those gaps.

During the bombastic finale specifically, editor Tom Cross had to use a few clever tricks to blend the footage of Teller with that of the double, describing the challenge of building the scene in a chat with IndieWire:

"There is a moment with the drum double playing with a closeup of drumsticks slowing down and speeding up on a snare drum where I had to do jump cuts to sync up the drum hits."

While it's difficult to make out which specific shot Cross is referring to, any of the shots in the final scene that feature a set of hands or a set of drumsticks (i.e. shots where you don't see Teller's face) could easily be the double, and these small moments blend in with the rest of the scene beautifully.

The fact that we actually see a lot of Teller no doubt helped mask the fact that he wasn't present 100% of the time (another example of change blindness), and it all came together to create one of the best movie endings of the decade.

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Know of any other sneaky ways movies hid their stunt doubles? Let us know in the comments section!