8 Things You Didn't Know About Richard Madden

Playing adventurer, Bill Haskell in the Discovery Channel's miniseries, Klondike lead Richard to decide to step out of most actors' comfort zones and try the ambitious task of doing all of his own stunts. He desperately wanted to maintain the theatrical veil of illusion to ensure that viewers believed what they were seeing. 

"I wanted it to be as real as possible — I wanted you to be able to see my face when I fall into the river rapids and not, 'And cut to back of stunt guy.' Or when I'm, like, on fire, I wanted to be set on fire. ... I just didn't want anything to break the wall for people to remember that they're watching a television show. I wanted them to be sucked in and be in it and be with us on that journey. I consider it part of my job."

Not only did he get lit on fire and thrown in a river rapids, he also learned how to dogsled for the role. Not an easy task to take on, Madden spent hours training on frozen lakes in bitter temperatures to make sure that in the final product he looked like he had been sledding his whole life.