Big V: Stunts and Saddles: The dual life of Chris Pace

After a successful career in horse racing, Chris Pace followed his childhood dream of becoming a stuntman, now working with Hollywood’s elite.

Chris Pace is a stuntman, he has been in movies such as Gladiators, Furiosa, Mad Max and Pirates of the Caribbean. Picture: David Caird

For over a decade, Chris Pace trained and rode some of the country’s best racehorses across the finish line before deciding to trade in the saddle for Hollywood stunt work.

But it wasn’t a straight road to shaping his passion into a full time job brushing shoulders each day with the likes of Liam Neeson and Johnny Depp.

Growing up in a Maltese household in Altona and attending Bayside Secondary College, Pace wasn’t a sporty kid.

But he did love doing tricks with his mates on BMX bikes and showing off his acrobatic skills by doing flips off playground equipment at school.

“I used to do some crazy stuff as a kid,” Pace said.

“I was much more adventurous than the other kids at school … Doing amazing, dangerous stuff that people don’t normally want to do made me feel good.”

His constant flipping and trick work prompted a friend to plant the seed in his mind that he should become a stuntman.

Aged 17 and inspired by an old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, Pace pursued the rigorous training to become a stuntman.

But after graduating high school, he entered the racing industry.

His decision was partly because he stands at 5’0” tall, but also because his best mate had embarked on the same path of becoming a jockey apprentice.

Throughout his racing career the former jockey of 12 years has ridden dozens of horses to first place, all while working with some of Hollywood’s biggest names.

Jockey turned stuntman Chris Pace in action at Flemington Racecourse. Picture: Supplied

“My highlight from being a jockey was riding Black Caviar doing trackwork. She was Australia’s best ever sprinter,” he said.

“Everyone who follows horse racing knows Black Caviar.”

Pace was also tasked with trialling 2010 Australian Racehorse of the Year Typhoon Tracy.

Despite the accolades and wealth that came with racing, Pace always longed for a career in stunt work.

“It’s not an easy job to be a jockey. I was getting up at 2.40am every single morning, working seven days a week,” Pace said.

“I did that for maybe 12 years or so – I didn’t really love it, it was never my passion.

“Every time I won a race and got interviewed it wouldn’t be about the race, it was always about wanting to get back into stunts – my heart wasn’t in it.”

Pace first got a taste of Hollywood filmmaking when he found his way onto the set of Pirates of the Caribbean 5 in 2015.

“I went to audition for the film up in Queensland, at this stage in my career I wasn’t pushing stunts, I was just dipping my toes in.

“From there I got the call that I was filling in for one of the main actors riding horses.

“Because it was my first and biggest ever set I had worked on at the time I just thought ‘this is amazing’. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

Stuntman Chris Pace wearing his stunt harness in pole position for his next stunt job. Picture: David Caird

However, it was after his time on Pirates when Pace faced some challenges.

A nasty injury during a race effectively ended his time on the track and a breakdown in his personal life was then followed by a global pandemic.

“After my jockey career I had some really hard times, really hard times. It was pretty bad, I was down and out,” Pace said.

“Went through a stage where I had suicidal thoughts and I thought life is too hard.

“I found a way with my friends and family to get out of that and push my dream to be where I am today, nothing can knock me down now.”

It was through these tough times that Pace found resilience to push further toward his dream of becoming a full-time stuntman in 2021.

In Pace’s surreal world, going to work now means brushing shoulders with the likes of Johnny Depp, Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and Liam Neeson.

Pace had trained to become a stuntman in Melbourne, which involves a grading procedure.

To pass, you need to train in martial arts, gymnastics, falling from heights, climbing, cars and swimming.

In 2023, he travelled overseas to the UK to pass their grading procedure, which is much more difficult, in a bid to secure more roles in large movie franchises that shoot overseas.

Chris Pace on the set of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Picture: Supplied

Pace’s stuntman career is now reaching new heights.

“I do everything, like fire burns, high falls, fight sequences, car stunts, car smashes, skydiving, could be skateboarding stuff – the sky is the limit.

“Sometimes they put you under the pump, they go ‘you’ve got to do this’ and I’m just like okay.”

He has worked with some very famous Hollywood red carpet faces, but still calls Yarraville home.

“I got to do some really amazing stunts with Mark Wahlberg,” Pace told the Saturday Herald Sun.

“We shot an upcoming movie, shot here in Australia, called Play Dirty.

“Once we crossed paths, got to talking and did our stunts together, the following day when he walked past me he would stop and say hello and have a good old yarn.

“I did stunts on The Mongoose as well but I was also the stunt rigger, my interaction with Liam Neeson was putting him in a stunt harness and rigging him up to hang off a helicopter.”

As part of his role on The Mongoose, Pace has been performing and organising daring stunts for the action thriller which was shot here in Melbourne.

Pace’s stunt work has featured in some of cinema’s biggest blockbusters such as Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the Planet of the Apes franchise and Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge.

He was even approached about performing in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter reboot – not bad for a five foot tall racer out of Yarraville.

Chris Pace is reaching new heights as a stuntman. Picture: David Caird

However, the real bucket list moment came when Pace was hired for Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated Gladiator sequel – a role that earned him and his team a nomination at the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year.

Working on Gladiator 2 was a career highlight, given the original featuring Russell Crowe was his favourite movie growing up.

The sequel was also shot in Malta, where his parents were born, so the whole experience was very special.

“Gladiator (2) was probably the most amazing thing I’ve been on. How does a little Aussie battler get on Gladiator?

“It was a dream come true honestly, to work on my favourite ever movie growing up and in Malta, the country that my parents were born in, was one of the best things I’ll ever do or achieve in my life.

Pace is amazed by how much his life has changed in the last few years.

“The great thing about my story is that not only have I gone from Flemington to Hollywood but in between that I was actually down and out,” Pace said.

“It’s unbelievable, I have achieved so much in the last few years but it still feels like I am only getting started.”