"I'm Spiderman" / Tom Holland

10 / Tricks & Doubles

"Okay, thanks Lorry. That's all of your basic movements done. We can work with the stunt-doubles from here." The stunt coordinator says loudly. I frown over at her, straightening from a squatted position.

"You don't want me to do any flips or anything?" I ask in confusion. "Name it and I'll do it, or if you want a double to do it first, I can copy." The woman looks at Jon Watts, who nods once.

"Okay, uh, Buckingham, get in there. Standard flip routine." The coordinator says, and a woman comes over to me. She has a similar physique to mine, but she's blonde.

"Alice Buckingham. Nice to meet you." She says, a slight Welsh accent reaching my ears.

"Lorraine May." I nod respectfully, not moving to shake her hand since she's already adopting a flip-ready stance.

"Do your best to copy her movements." The coordinator tells me, then the athleticism begins.

Flip after flip, I match Alice's movements as best as I can. I can tell without being told that some of my jumps aren't quite as high as hers and my form isn't as strong as hers. She seems to notice these things as well and starts to slow her pace down to allow for my ability level.

It's probably good that we're doing this; I'm getting used to flipping and air tricks again, and she gets to learn my mannerisms better.

"Okay, very good. You two go well together. If you know how, we'll get you to move practice with wires now." The coordinator says.

"You know what you're doing to get rigged up?" Alice asks me. I shake my head, not wanting to speak in case they realise just how out-of-breath that made me; I haven't done that many flips or air tricks in a row for a long while. "Okay, come this way. I'll get you set up."

I follow my stunt double over to the other half of this long room, this end having padded floors and walls. A series of strange looking contraptions hang on either side of the room, and Alice takes me over to one of these.

"Lorraine, I have to leave the room for a minute, but I'll be back." Karen's voice reaches my ears and I simply offer her a thumbs up as Alice draws my attention to the mess of straps and buckles in front of me.

It looks like a messier, less efficient version of the ODM Gear from Attack on Titan.

"Step into here." Alice kneels and guides my feet into two separate loops of the harness. She then pulls them up my legs until they can't go any further. "Arms." She commands and I slide my arms through two more loops as if they're sleeves of a jacket. I can feel her pulling and jerking the straps that all seem to meet in the middle of my upper back. "This is a basic harness, similar to ones used for stage productions. The ones for the actual film, though, are a lot less complicated; most of the straps are integrated into your costumes, only needing to be connecting up when required. For the most part, I'll do the wire portions of filming. There will be moments where you need to do it for aesthetics though."

"The costume one isn't going to give me a huge wedgie like this one, is it?" I ask, trying to subtly change my leg position so that the harness isn't quite so uncomfortable. Alice chuckles.

"No, it won't be so bad. It will still take a while to get used to, but it's fitted to your exact size and it's more of a permanent, personal version of this." She comes to stand in front of me as she speaks, looking up and down at her handy-work to try and assess if there's anything that needs correcting. "Okay, that's it."

"So what happens now?"

"Now, I'll go over to the controls and lift you about a meter off the mat. Try to balance as well as you can, just to get a feel for the weight of the harness and where it pulls." Alice explains. I nod and she then walks over to a desk not far away, where she taps a few buttons on the keyboard in front of her and I suddenly feel as if I'm floating.