CTV Canada

From Driving Through Toronto Streets At Break Neck Speeds To Being Set On Fire: 'Flashpoint's' Craziest Stunt

by: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

Date: 11/29/2012

Most jobs don't require driving through Toronto at break neck speeds, rappelling through windows or being set on fire, but for the cast of "Flashpoint" it's just another day of work.

“I like to do the action stuff,” says David Paetkau with a grin. He plays Team One’s sniper, Sam Braddock.

The craziest stunt Paetkau pulls this year happens in tonight’s episode (with guest star A.J. Buckley!) and Paetkau hopes it translates onscreen.

“I had to jump these railing and climb up a boat. It was slippery and I had a gun and a rifle. It’s probably not going to look like anything, but that was the scariest one I’ve done because I really had to stick a landing and not break my ankle!

“There’s some reckless driving you don’t get to do in real life and machine gun fire you also don’t really have in real life, and running through crowds.”

So has he ever tripped while the cameras were rolling?

“I would never admit to that,” he laughs. “Um, maybe!”

Though Paetkau loves the high speed driving, his co-star, Amy Jo Johnson, who plays Jules Callaghan, is not quite as big a fan.

“I always like it when the director says, ‘Amy Jo, you’re in the passenger seat,’” Johnson says.

“This season, I was in the car with Hugh (Dillon) and we came flying in and it was so icy and the car fishtailed – on purpose, I think, and I was yelling, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ and then we had to get out of the car and run into the scene with our guns and start shooting. My heart was in my throat.

“Jules is supposed to be in control as soon as we stopped the car, but I screamed the whole way in!”

Sergio Di Zio, who plays Spike, says the craziest stunt he’s pulled happened in the very first season of the show. “I really wanted to prove myself,” he says with a laugh.

So instead of wowing the crew with his acting chops, he let himself be lit on fire.

“It was terrifying! Though it was also really cool,” Di Zio says with a laugh. “They put all this fire retardant stuff on me. It was this scene in the woods where a guy shoots a Molotov cocktail at me.

“So I’m standing there, with fire retardant stuff in my hair and all of these layers of clothes on, feeling really comfortable, really confident about the whole thing and then I start smelling gasoline, lighter fluid.

“And all of a sudden I realized that to be set on fire, you had to be set on fire. It hit me 10 seconds before they said, ‘action.’”

Luckily, they got it in one take and Di Zio came out unharmed.

“Everyone was really, really proud of us – me and the stunt team – but I will never, ever do that again,” he says with a laugh.

The countdown to the series finale is on! There are three more episodes left. “Flashpoint” airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV. Full episodes are also available online at CTV.ca.

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