Todd Schneider's Neat Trick

You may not know Todd Schneider [1]’s name, but he appears in five films that have played local theaters in the past month — as a stunt man. The graduate of Waitsfield’s Green Mountain Valley School and UVM has taken (premeditated) tumbles on the sets of everything from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” [2] to The Soloist [3] since starting his Hollywood career in 1999. In the blockbuster adaptation of Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons [4], Schneider, 40, was Ewan McGregor’s stunt double — and got to show his face on screen as a Roman carabiniero.

Schneider, whose dad, stepmother and in-laws still live in the Burlington area, was captain of UVM’s 1994 NCAA Championship Ski Team. In L.A., he trained with George Clooney’s stunt double, a fellow ski racer, and the film jobs followed. In Live Free or Die Hard [5], Schneider took a series of terrifying plunges on a safety wire, but he’s especially happy about the time his 3-year-old son got to see him dressed as Spidey for Spider-Man 3 [6].

For Angels & Demons, on which he also served as assistant stunt coordinator, Schneider stood in for a character who miraculously escapes an exploding helicopter. What appears to happen in midair was actually shot on a stage: “You’re 20 to 30 feet up on a parachute rig; the camera’s moving around; you’re getting yanked back and forth,” says Schneider. The high altitude was added with green-screen technology.

Next up? Schneider will be taking spills for Gary Oldman [7] in The Book of Eli [8].