June 1, 2025 • 53 mins
David Holmes is the Harry Potter you’ve never heard of. That’s because he was Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double.
At just 25 years old, David Holmes was living the dream. He was working on the biggest film franchise in the world, out partying, and fully immersed in a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
A former gymnast turned stuntman, he was in all the Harry Potter films—growing up alongside the cast, almost like a big brother to a group of pre-teens who would go on to become global stars. But while rehearsing a stunt for the final Harry Potter film—a move he’d done many times before—something went terribly wrong. David was flung into a wall and broke his neck. He now refers to his injury as “the gift that keeps on taking.”
Over 15 years later, David has the use of only one arm. But as you’ll hear in this conversation, he doesn’t see himself as a victim. Life, he says, guarantees nothing. It’s what you do with what you’ve got that counts.
And David is doing a lot. From writing a novel to producing a documentary with his friend Daniel Radcliffe, hosting a podcast, advocating for disability rights—and yes, having the best sex of his life.
You can follow David and find his book, The Boy Who Lived, here: https://www.instagram.com/davidholmes83/?hl=en
If this conversation brought up any hard feelings for you - please seek help. You can reach Lifeline on 13 11 14
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CREDITS:
Guests: David Holmes
Host: Kate Langbroek
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Senior Producer: Grace Rouvray
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You know this is a No Filter podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I wanted to share that story on the fact that
me and Rosie had two quadriplegics having the best sex
of our life, so there is hope that you haven't
lost that sexual relationship.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hi, I'm Katelinebrook and welcome to No Filter. At just
twenty five years old, David Holmes was living the dream.
He was working on the biggest film franchise in the world,
out partying and fully immersed in a life of sex,
drugs and rock and roll. A former gymnast turned stunt man,
(01:03):
David was Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double in all the Harry
Potter films, literally going up alongside the cast, almost like
a big brother to a group of preteens who would
go on to become global stars. But while rehearsing a
stunt for the final Harry Potter film, a move he'd
(01:24):
done many times before, something went terribly wrong. David was
flung into a wall and broke his neck. He remembers
the sound, the feeling, and staying completely conscious as emergency
services arrived. He now refers to his injury as the
(01:45):
gift that keeps on taking Over fifteen years later, David
has the use of only one arm, but as you'll
hear in this conversation, he doesn't see himself as a victim. Life,
he says, guarantees nothing. It's what you do with what
you've got that counts, and David is doing a lot,
(02:07):
from writing a novel to producing a documentary with his
friend Daniel Radcliffe, hosting a podcast, advocating for disability rights,
and yes, having the best sex of his life. This
man truly has no filter and why should he. From
the moment this conversation began, I was laughing because David
(02:31):
Holmes is someone who brings a spark of silliness and
honesty to every moment. Hello, Kay, I didn't realize that
the extension of your skills had now spread to doing
acting and a little falsetto.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You'd be surprised what I've managed to achieve in my
life despite the fact of the barriers that are in
front of me. I've got very secret projects that I
can't publicly announce, but it involves acting and really very much.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So man, Yeah, well, you know, your talents not really
that secret, given that you have written a book. You
have written a book, The Boy Who Lived When Magic
and Reality Collide My story, which is an extraordinary story,
and a docco The Boy Who Lived. Now the journey, right,
(03:28):
what a journey, an epic one, an odyssey really. But
I've got to tell you I had an extraordinary day
with you that, of course you on the other side
of the world would have been unaware of. But I
watched the documentary about you with my son. I've got
(03:49):
three sons, like your mum. I've got three sons, and
my number two son is seventeen. Yeah, Ok, the same
age that you were when you started being the stunt
double for Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter movies. And
so we were this dooco together and you know, with
(04:12):
a seventeen year old, you just don't know a teenage boy,
You don't know what they're thinking. He didn't peel off
at any point during it. Yeah, he's stayed fixed with it.
I mean we all were. It's extraordinary. And at the
end he stood up and he went hmm, legend our
(04:33):
blessed and walked out of the room.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Oh, blessed. Yeah, that's whole.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
How's that?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
But to know that in a society where young men
are trying to navigate what it is like masculinity and
to be a man, to know that for your son
at that moment there that I showed him certain aspects
of my life and my journey through the documentary that
(05:00):
might help him get a grip of that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
What a gift day is.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So I'm very grateful to share my story to the
journey that I've had because if it hasn't knock on
effect for so many others, then it's start a good thing.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, it's also very appealing, I think because because you're
a stuntman, ye and outside of on a film set,
aside from either movie, there's the movie stars. We get that,
But then if you're going to go for who the
next alpha men are on a film set, it's the stunties.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, I believe it is.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, I mean the director's assistant directors that we're all
justling for, like our mark.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
On the creative experience.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
But some performers get to be the young sum heroes
and tell the story with their physicality and to make
the impossible possible, and for many years I did that,
and then it's you know, it's part of who I
was as a child, and it's part of who I
(06:09):
am now as an adult. Despite the fact I'm now quadriplegic,
I still perform stunts something last year I set my
head on fire, right, and every day I get wonderful
messages just like what you had with your son, where
people saying this, you know, really helped me gain perspective
and understanding on the journey that I'm on and some
of the difficulty or the trauma that I've navigating.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So well. It's such an interesting thing because you yourself,
i'man aside from the accident and who physically you are
compared to who you were, you know at the start.
I think that there's many lessons that can be learnt,
that can be extrapolated to different circumstances that aren't necessarily
(06:54):
to do with physicality.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, life's hard for all of us.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
This life is hard.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Broken neck or no broken neck, it's hot. We're given
this lesson, like this gift, and then you have to
understand it's a lesson of loss. I learned that lesson
the hardest way at twenty five with my accident, and
I continue to have to navigate that lesson now with
changing in neurology, or elderly dogs that are just shitting
(07:24):
everywhere in my house, or you know, seeing my parents'
age and stuff like that. So it's I learned that
lesson at twenty five and it made me make my
peace with the facts.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It teaches you gratude. All right.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I am here today now where I'm going to be
in ten years time in my body, I can't tell you.
No one can tell you that. You can't tell me
with yours. But with what I'm going through, with the changes,
with the journey, with what I've lost, it forces me
to be here now, to like take in the day
and it's a really crappy gray day in England, but
(08:04):
still the world presents gifts. Spring has happened, there's leaves
on the true I've had a visit by a greenwood
paper in my garden today. I've got I've made a
really good show on the steam room. I've done toilet routine,
which as a quadriplegic is very hard to navigate. Can
I be really crude in this podcast?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Please? You can be what however you are no filter.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, no filter? Right, so are you ready for this strapping? Okay, So,
as I go into detail in the book, I can't
have control of my bower routine. Yes, so my routine
involves in certain responsibitories in my house. Now I have
no act to do that. So that means I've had
(08:48):
more hands up my ass than the cast of the Muppets.
So yeah, you soon learn to think. All right, that's
just a process. That's what we got doing. Once that's done.
At the start, it's horrifying, it's really bad, it's degrading,
it's all of those things. And anyone who goes through
medical issues will navigate this at some stage.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And when you get older, you're going to navigate this.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
And there is a handing over of things that we
consider to be innate sort of rights, like the right
to autonomy or the right to privacy over our bodies.
And of course you forfeited that in a really sudden way.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I always say to people, never neglect the fact you're
sitting on a socially conscious asshole, because it tells you
when it needs to part, and mine doesn't. So I've
crapped myself everywhere top of Mountains film premieres. You name
it at about accident, and it never gets easier, but
if you can find the joy and humor after it,
(09:48):
it gets a little bit more digestible.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So I always just laugh at myself. Shit happens to us.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
So this accident that you refer to that will be
discussing happen in two thousand and nine. So you've lived
in this new incarnation of your body, yeah, for quite
some time. But before then you describe yourself as arrogant
and self centered and a bit of a knob. And
so this was when you were like flying high as
(10:17):
a Stundy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
The ego is so easy to creep in when your
number one s on call sheet, working on the biggest
kids franchise, driving a fast Mercedes, and you know, prowling
for sexual partners.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You know what I mean? I say prouding, that's not
that's the work, you.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Know, She's a different word. Yeah, but yes, you were
enjoying the array of gifts that life has to offer.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, and I had a lot, and I was enjoying
a lot and whether if that was you know, sex,
drugs and sausage rolls.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I've consumed them all.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And it's it was that was me then, and that
was me at the height of where I was with
the success that I was given. But that success wasn't
just handed out for free. There were years of gymnastics
and hurt and pain and turmoil and bullying that got
(11:15):
me to that point of success.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
The bullying. The bullying is interesting. Was the bullying because
of your height?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Or yeah, man, you've been in society we screw small men,
We give small men a bad wrapping life, and it's
that we're off on us foot. But mac milligates it right.
Why would you want to look down on people your
whole life? Looking up to people is the way like
aspiring looking up like never never being ashamed of your
(11:46):
height or your stature, or your social position or your wealth,
like because if you've got something to look up to,
whether that's physically or mentally, it gives you aspirations for
your life and it gives you a grounding to say,
you know, I want to be there or I want
(12:07):
to And I'm not saying like extended my legs and
get taller. I'm saying right that the humbling experience of
what it is to be smaller, to have people call
you half prime and ditch and all that lot and
some minute breaks. But for me, I learned to embrace
it and then eventually use it, and it turned me
into it very successful young man as a gymnast.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Incredibly because you're are you five foot two?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah? Five foot two one in three quarters, but I
take five foot right. Picking yourself up that extra each
always makes a difference, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So I've heard.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
But here's the thing with that turned out actually to
be to your advantage because when you first met Daniel Radcliffe,
he was eleven and it started filming the Harry Potter films.
You were seventeen. But you could be a perfect stunt
double for him because you had that physicality, not just
that all of the kids.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
In the first two films, I'm the Hermione when the
troll smashes through the bathroom doors.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I am the.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Ron sitting on the back of the horses. He gets
hit on the chest piece. I am the Malfoy in
the quidditch match, flying off with his broom. I am
the Malfoy flying on the table. And Harry Potter two
in the dueling sequence, there was I doubled pretty much
most of the young cars Neville in the first two films,
(13:33):
and then all of Dale grew up, and then Dan.
Thankfully he's only grew to five foot five. So Harry
lifts in my shoes. I could stay it's stunt double yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, right. And then you So during the course of
those movies, you became incredibly close.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, I was just pe teacher.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So twice three times a week he comes to the
stunt department. We'd shut the doors and we do things
that were giving Insurance Company an absolute heart attack. I'd
get him doing some sorts off and trampoline, jumping off
a pork cabin, swinging swords around, doing judo, keeping fit, exercise.
It was all part of being a gymnast growing up,
(14:13):
having coaches in plant, their coaching and their physical gifts
to me, learning how to be a good gymnast. I
was able to just do that for Dank, and now
whenever I see his body in a film or a
TV program, or if I see him do something that's
a sun element, I'm always very proud that I contributed
(14:34):
to that, to the man that he is on camera now.
And I'd like to say, and I'm sure I'm not overreaching.
I'm sure he would say that I contributed to the
man that he is in life as well, which.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Is well, he does say that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's a good things. You got to watch him grow
up on the camera. I got to watch him grow
as a human being, and I could not be proud
of who he is, whether that is his willingness to
stand up for what he believes in over certain issues,
or seeing him as a younger father and how the
(15:10):
joy that brings to his life. He's a great human
being and will sacrifice his life to make sure other
people stay employed. You know, Like recently he was on
a Broadway show and it was going to close down
and he's looking around and if he was to leave
his contract. They asked for an extension, and he looked
(15:32):
around and he's like, well, if I don't do the extension,
then all these people become unemployed. So he went back
and he'd done eight extra shows a week for three months.
You know, Like that's commitment to others, not commitment to himself.
So that's the mark of who he is.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
And you know him very well because the reading your book,
it really imparted a lovely sense of course, we all
know the Harry Potter movies. But for you guys, it
was almost like an annual summer camp. Yeah, because you
saw each other every year for ten years.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, pretty much. There was the longest break between the
films was maybe.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Four arms in total, So we were always interacting with
each other and we were able to because it was
Hogwarts Express was a runaway train after the second film.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It was just massive.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And I think keeping the continuity of crew helps keep
those young adults in an environment where they felt safe
to explore becoming better actors, that felt safe to grow
up without the prime eyes. And I'm a bit nervous
because they're redoing it now, and then the young cast
(16:49):
members are also now exposed to social media and the
damage that that is doing to our society. Now.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I use it as a tool like it's a worktool,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I use it to help promote an image of disability
that doesn't frame us as a victive. For young people
who are very impressionable that trying to work out who
they are. I think it's very damaging to be able
to click a button and put a filter on and
change your face.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
After this short break, David tells me what he remembers
about the day of his accident. Don't go anywhere well, interestingly,
because your physical body was your ultimate work tool, and
you sustained so many injuries as stunties do in the
(17:39):
course of your work. Before I'm going to call it
a fateful day. How do you think of that day
in two thousand and nine, You know, the day that sent.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Me down with different roads, that put me on a
different path. And it's a day that's hard. You know,
every time the analysty comes around, it's always that very
soon I'm going to be in a.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Wheelchair longer than i was on legs, you know, that's.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Always or when look, you know, time passing is hard,
and I try to enjoy the passing of time as
best I can. But at the same time, when you're
going through physical changes like I am, it is some
of those important data are quite difficult to navigate.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
When is when is the anniversary days?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Right towards the end of January.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I don't say it because yes, yeah, funny enough, it's
just certain aspects of my life, like Wikipedia's got my
birthday wrong and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
It puts me down as forty three. I'm actually forty one.
So and also now I'm a public person.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
There is just a few vula benities that are trying
to protect myself from.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And how do you recall the events of that day.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Fully conscious throughout the whole thing? I remember it. I
know the noise.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
What noise makes when your neck breaks, I know is
that I recover of breath. I sometimes relimit with posed
to make stress when a falling asleep. So funny enough,
I listen to podcasts when I'm falling asleep. So yeah,
that was something that I learned in hospital as I'm
slipping into sleep that I can go for pts and
(19:19):
relive that moment, like we live the plug socket that
was looking at to fix my eyeline and you know
the noise of the wire.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Pulling and all that lot.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
So I just find a coping strategy and know how
to use it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
For those who don't know, you were doing a stunt
that involved you being on a wire and then fired
pulled rapidly towards the wall, and you'd rehearsed at the
day before.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah you got it. Yeah, so we was doing Harry
battling the Guini and for the snake.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, so as we as we should have been doing
as some performers. In the Harry Potter series, we saw
so many spelled reactions that were used by a wire
and it's our job to always try and push the
boundaries of the action. And as the film's got more
intense and more serious and what, we were always trying
(20:13):
to make the spells a bit more serious, reactive, speedy
out and all that lot.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
And you succeeded, by the way, because those movies, I
think changed changed the way movie making is told with
any element of magic.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Very few franchises continue to hold their own as they
progress through each different film, and Harry Pottery is one
of those things.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Raised the day before, and then the suggestion was made
short in the distance and to put a slack line
in so the snatch off the floor was too quick.
That was two vital mistakes that sent me into a
wall SINNI mile an hour on my chest folding into
my nose that my spinalcle separated at the C six
(21:05):
c cent vertebrae, just at the bottom of your neck
before your thought rack starts. And I was instantly paralyzed
from that moment. And I knew that I'd done it.
I knew what a boken. Brain felt like and I
felt my whole body, and once I'd recovered my breath,
I kept consciousness, made some very good, smart suggestions about
(21:29):
making sure a camera was safe, that I had the
footage because I knew Health and Safety would have to
review that, and then told my best mates don't call
my mum to worry her, and then slipped into unconsciousness.
And then you come back to consciousness again. And then
it was the full rig more of a slow ambulance,
(21:49):
and I always gutted. I was then putting a helicopter,
you know, but yeah, the rigmar of snow ambulance, one
hospital and then onto the spinal lord. And then a
couple of days later, I woke up and some nurse
was rolling me over, saying you need to evacuate out
your bows.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
And then I realized I don't fill my arn, you know.
When she was telling me what you doing, I was.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Like, ah, and I'll feel that so and then you
have to learn to rebuild your up. And it's when
everything's taken away like that. It starts from scratch, you know,
you know, you're stripped back to how you are as Otoba,
so vulnerable, so needy, so you know, people needed to
feed me, people needed to dress me, wash me, you
(22:32):
name it. So and then grueling rehabilitation. And I'm thankful
for the gifts of gymnastics and my physical prowess to
understand that nothing's gained without hard work. So I worked
tirelessly at the hospital to try and regain as much
function as possible above my level injury. And then just
(22:54):
before discharge, I had developed a spinal series, which is
why I'm going through changes now, which.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Which is apparently quite rare.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Very rare, Yeah, very rare, right in the beginning. So
it's assists within this final called that mine actually board
up to the C one vertebrae because it was it
was just growing so quick, and that's the problem with
where I was so healthy and fear so many white
blood cells went to the area to sort the bruising out,
and they were they were trapped in so it was
(23:26):
a it was one of those things that doctor says,
if you don't go surging, now you're going to die.
It's going to stop your breathing. So big surgery, and
then I had to redo my rehabilitation again.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So bad hard luck on top of bad hard luck.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So yeah, and that's now because it goes up to
C one that's where independent breathing, speech and swallow is.
So as I get older, there's a good chance that
I won't be able to keep hold of those things.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
So the cyst I gather can't be removed, and it's
kind of like waiting for you, like Voldemort.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You got it.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, So it's inside my spinal cord. He's got a
shunk that's draining the pressure. If that shump blocks, and
it's back into the surgery again. And I two ninety
went from out a surgery to see if I can
check the status of the the pressure of the cysts,
shave back some scar tissue, and then I had some
really bad complications that it killed me. In twenty ninety,
(24:27):
was fighting for my life for surgeries, another little brain surgery,
and then came out and just about recovered to get
on a plane to go to Thailand. Got to Thailand,
and then COVID happened. And then when I was in Thailand,
I realized, hang on a minute, I'm still going through changes.
(24:47):
That surgery didn't work, so I had that to deal with,
and then COVID, and as a vulnerable individual, I was
asking myself is my last worthit? When I have to
risk covers to come to work. You know, like a
lot of people in the same spectrum, we're doing that,
which is not a nice place to be. Could have
done with a bit more support from our governments and
(25:08):
all that lot. But I was very grateful at one
of my best friends with me and look after me,
and we just got through it like weel did.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
It is extraordinary, both in the book and in the
documentary and just speaking to you now that when I
think there's a great physical trauma or a great loss
of any kind, or a debilitating condition, and this is
really spoken about, I think people like to have this
idea that people are just kind of like peacefully wasting
(25:38):
away or whatever. But often there's a lot of bitterness,
and there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of resentment.
But you seem to have consciously made the decision to
focus on the positives.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Well, what's worse than breaking your neck, It is in
your pain, in your loved one's eyes. What's worse than
getting a diagnosis is having to tell your family and
holding on to those emotions, those vacuous emotions, you actually
hurt yourself the most first. So if you can go, okay,
that's you have to let go of the things I
(26:15):
can't got, you know what I mean. Like I'm not religious,
my dad is. But there's a prayer there. I will
always say.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
It's a good prayer, and it's God grant me the
grace to accept the things that I can't control, embrace
the things that I can. And I think that's a
really nice way of just going.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
You know, life is going to happen, and asteroids could
come and fucking wipe us out right now, we have
no control over that.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I hope. I hope not not before our interview.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
No fingers crossed, not now.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, I mean yeah, if I saw one, I might
be sticking my hands down my shorts just so in
case my body's you know, like the blokes in Pompeii's Yeah,
I masturbated in.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Lying on his side. That's the guy I want to be.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
They got they got done instantly.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, done instantly. But his body was preserved in that position.
So he's just lying on his side, having a way
because like, yeah, wicked. No dignity, Yeah no, there's no dignit.
He was final point injury, not just like living with
like with the barroutines addressing there's the other. But I mean,
I'll tell you now, I'm in a relationship and my
(27:24):
girlfriends are four quadriplegic, so she's got less function than
I have. But we don't connect over our injuries. We
connect over our love for each other and how shared
experience of being loved by great families and friends and
committed care teams. How did you?
Speaker 3 (27:42):
How did you meet?
Speaker 1 (27:43):
She owns the property that I rented in Spain, and
she was emailing me quite a few times about my requirements,
and it was very just email exchanges, and then it
went to voice notes, just going back. Do you know
it's how being disabled them it's the other? And then
she'd never stayed at anyone else's house after a hospital
(28:06):
discharge because she went to a mom and dad's house
and she couldn't and she had her accident in the
same year as me, and I said, well, I built
this house and I can accommodate for you here and
your care team, and next time you're in London, why
don't you come and see my house? Because I knew
that she was building her own property up in Sheffield,
(28:27):
which is you know, three hundred miles away annoying me.
And because this house is a smart home, all the
doors are controlled, all the lights to controlled, the TV,
everything by by boys and thirteen years ago. I'm very,
very independent in this property, like to the degree that
I'm probably more able in this environment than most people
(28:49):
that are able bodied, just because I know how to
navigate it and control it with the technology.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I must sound very admiring of the fact that you
get technology to work for you.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
And I wanted her to incorporate those things in her
life because I know what it does for me, and
I would want every person.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
In with his final cord injury to have an environment.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Like this, because the most the saving thing about and
being a wol Che user is the environment you interact with,
you know, like so in here, it's not like that.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So she came down. She was going to a gas
like Anthont gig in London, and she stayed the night
for the first night.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And her function is she can bring her arm to here,
but she hasn't got the shoulder function to lift it
out right.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So we was outside sitting in the sun.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
In my garden and the wind blew her hair in
her face, and I saw her trying to blow it
out and I was like, do you want me to
get that for you? And as I brushed the hair
out of face, I was like, we're really beautiful. And
then you know, I went to a place in Spain.
She I had a week where there was space at
the end, and obviously it's her house, and I was like,
(30:03):
why don't you come out for that last week and
we can get a bit of time together. And then
I just looked at her, was like the world's unfair
in it, but if we were able bodied people, we'd
be doing something very different right now. And she's really
really shy, like shocking me shy. She could barely look
up look at me. She just she raised her eyes,
(30:24):
she looked at me and she gave me a nude
and I was like, oh, it's on. And then we've
been able to achieve connection despite what we can't feel,
what we can feel is phenomenal. What we can embrace
and what you know, it takes a team of people
for us to another couple the kiss together, but it
(30:46):
makes it mean more when we have to work so.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Hard for it.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
You know, our shared life experience, when we go on
holiday together it means more because we have to work
harder for it. And then, you know, every orgasm that
we both give each other it means more because we're
having an orgasm below our level of injuries, something that
most people say it's unachievable. I'm like, no, I don't
accept that reality. So yeah, I'm a prime numbers man.
(31:14):
I ain't happy until she said at least eleven, maybe thirty.
But I tell you a really funny story. And she
doesn't mind me saying this. Asked her for a permission.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
What's her name? By the way, her name is Rosy Rosie.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
But anyway, this is a great story. So we was
in Thailand two years ago and we got both got
hoisted on a couch. We're watching a film together. We've
already had our first kiss. We're sitting under the couch
and we used our phones to call people. So do
we Yeah, but we have to use voice control to
(31:50):
ask someone to come and help us.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Okay, yes.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
So her phone's on the armrest next to her, My
phone's on my leg next to me, and I'm sitting
there and she's got a skirl and I've got a
carecter cut and nickers off because they were just getting
in the way, and I was just fuck it on
going for it. So I leant over to perform our sex,
(32:13):
not realizing half an hour later that both her phone
is falling off the sofa and down by the cushions,
and my phone is falling down by the cushions. So
I've only got one arm, like with half a muscle
on it. So now I realized that I'm stuck. So
my first portal call is but we've got to call someone.
(32:35):
We were laughing about it. It's funny, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Stuck, so we go like, hey, Siri, Like so we're
asking Siri, and it's not hearing us.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Oh all right, because it's smothered in the cushions.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Because it's smiling in the cushions. So now I was
stuck on my partner like.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
This, oh, trying like literal we breatheing through her never
regions like a scuba diver while simultaneously trying to shout
from my phone. And we were stuck there for like
forty five minutes before or just one of our candygivers
just open the door upstairs, like you guys are. Rose
(33:15):
is softly spoken, and she was like no kind of
needs to help when they come down and rescue me.
And as I was pulled up by the candgiver that
all I said was tell missus Huggs, he died the
way he wanted to.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
You know that we find.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Ourselves in situations like that all the time.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Now we can ever make light of it and embrace
it as a comedic moment, or we can let it
really break us down and dehumanize us. And I refuse
to not find shit funny because everything in life is
laughable because if you don't, you forget it.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
That reminds me of something that you said when you
said after the accident to your family and your friends,
try and hope for me to be happy like I am, ye,
happy like you want me to be, which was so
powerful for people at many levels in how we love people.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Everybody looks at my story and goes, eat a musk's
going to get you walking again, you know, or you know,
let's we're going to end paralysis and all that. And
I'm like, yeah, great, we should pursue that because it's
like a life changing, life sentencing thing. But we should
also try and accept and push for a society that
(34:42):
does see me and accept me for who I am,
because regardless of spinal cord injury being fixable or not,
there will always be children born into wheelchairs. There will
always be elderly people needing wheelchairs to navigate society you
know yourself, including disability is not if, but when for
all of us. And we're all focusing on these silly
(35:03):
little issues right now that talk about very important for
marginalized people in society. But my community is the ones
that you know governments always think less than. And I
will say to everyone, if you are able to live
like this, then you are more that because you are
(35:26):
a great problem solver. You've been able to navigate great
difficulty and you've still been able to remember that their
happiness can be found leaving in the darkest of places.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
You know, because you had always lived a life that
was characterized by is it a lack of fear that
a stuntman has? No?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Not at all?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I thought, is it it was the ability to embrace
the fear and overcome it.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
It's definitely the ability to say, all right, that's scary,
but I'm confident enough in who I am and my
ability and my conviction to be able to achieve the impossible.
Now that goes the same for gymnastics, Formula one drivers,
anybody that has to navigate something that's quite sketchy, even
(36:19):
people in Australia that get in the water with a
sharp you know, you know you're getting in and you know, oh,
there could be could be the day that I lose,
But you still get in because the ocean is a
beautiful thing and you know you can't compartmentalize the risk
and you take navigated, calculating risks to achieve.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, the storytelling process.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So I take great comfort in the fact that despite
where I am in my life because of Harry Potter,
my contribution to those films brings comfort and joy to
people every.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Single day around the world.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
There are kids in conflict zones right now, petrified their
part of their parents. Put Harry Potter on a own
in front of them and it helps them escape their reality.
There are people struggling with mental health issues right now
that are always like turning to those films to help
them get through a tough time.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
So yeah, I'm very very grateful.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That I was able to contribute to that fact for
tons and tons of people, and say with this podcast
now right I get to share my perspective and hopefully
someone goes, you know what you know that's helped me
today and wicked, I think you came for that and
for me and the people that helped love me to
(37:49):
being the person I am.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
That's not all of my conversation with David Holmes coming up.
We talk about the close and enduring bond that David
has with Daniel Radcliffe and Tom Felton. We'll be right back.
At what point did you and I don't imagine it
was a critical defining moment. I imagine that it was
(38:15):
maybe a gradual realization, But at what point did you
realize that your approach to physical fear you would now
have to turn into a different approach for your life
as you now know us.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I think that's a gradual process that's always tested.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I think, you know, someone asked me on social media
recently or I put up a post about me being
in a Liz Holy film and it just got picked
up by just like the land of misogyny on social
media and someone I was trying to defend it. I
was like, come on, can we just be a little
bit respectful? You know, we've all got wives or partners
(38:58):
or sisters or daughters in our life. And just think
if someone was talking about your loved one like that,
and then all the boys that were saying all these
several things jumped on top of and someone said you
knew here. I was like, Well, to be honest, I'm
a new person every day.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
We all are.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Every single day the sun comes up, We've got the
opportunity to be a new person. And I feel that
in society where we've championed the rights of others and
women especially, we should always realize that when one gains
another one doesn't have to lose another, one doesn't.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Have to be threatened, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And there's a team of young men right now, I
say team, there's a generation of young men right now
that are looking to outside sources to try and work
out what it is to be a map. So I
would always say that conviction of who you are comes
(40:00):
from accountability. Are you accountable for who you are to
this day? Are we accountable?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
On? This conversation interesting because I know Daniel Radcliffe and
Tom Felton described you as an older brother to them. Yeah,
Dan Radcliffe said, an older brother that had spent his
whole life wanting and then when you had the accident,
(40:27):
because you had that physical sort of prowess and superiority
taken away from you, how did that relationship change because
there's such deep affection and love there.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
So they were young to have to see me like
that with wied in me and stuff hanging out my
nose and you know, even some stage's fire for breath,
and they were my bedside between breaks and filming, and
they kept it together and they for me being brave
(41:04):
for them on camera all those years and help giving
them the some of the foundation on what it's like
to be a little bit older and to have a
little bit of success or whatever it is. They got
the opportunity to flip that and be braave for me,
(41:24):
and I look back on top of that while still
navigating the pressures of finishing off the biggest film franchise
in history. Well yeah, so, yeah, So I'm very grateful
for who they are that day and this day. They
are amazing human beings that carry the torch of what
(41:48):
they were part of and will do for the rest
of their life.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
It's interesting because you're talking about people who had a
constancy to them and showed bravery for you as you
said when you needed it, as you had tried to
show in your role for them. But watching the DOCI
entry in particular, what I was so struck by was
(42:14):
the relationship with you and Greg Powell, who got you
into who was a father figure to you when you
were a young stunty, who.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Was my film father.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, yeah, he was one of the men, like my
gymnastics coaches, that helped me and loved me to be
the man that I am. And despite the fact and
our relationship like had what happened to me in it,
I still love him like deaddy and look up to
him and aspire.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
To always make him proud.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
And there are worse things to have in your life
than good men that will always.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Have your back, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (43:01):
It was it was knowing what the nature of your
relationship had been, and how paternal and beautiful and us
it was how he guided you through those stunts and
had such a deep love for you. And then he
said he was the last person to hold you when
you could walk, and he was the first person to
(43:23):
hold you when you couldn't walk.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, yeah, messed up so and.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
He can't he can't handle it though.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
No, I know, because that's that generation of men that
would bottle up emotion instead of being able to articulate it.
And as we are, I mean, there's a push now
for that idea of masculinity to come back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
And there is a point of Gars smoking. He's a
cigar smoker.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
The Gars smoking, tony soprano, bad boy, gangster because of
his background. You know, his dad was a you know,
an unlicensed boxer and then licensed boxer and then celebrity.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
He's some man and navigated some of the criminal.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Underworld in London and all of those things that make
him the man that he is and the life lessons
that make him the man that he is. But I
always take it back to we're all children, ones, right,
And if Greg and me were in a playground and
he accidentally knocked me over and I was crying and
(44:34):
then he got upset and me getting upset, then I
would want to comfort that child, you know what I mean,
so we will remember that we're all babies.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Ones. I find that your capacity to understand that incredible.
Thanks me, I really do, because it seems sometimes that
I think when you're in the situation that you're in,
aw I had a son who was bravely ill with leukemia,
and sometimes you find yourself cast in the role of
(45:09):
not only having to deal with the shiitthand that you've
been dealt, but also comforting the people around you. How
is that pressure?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It's can either embrace or you can try and run
away from it very head in this ad. But the
problem is still going to be that, you know what
I mean, Like, there's only so much avoidance. We will
go for our life trying to run away from pain,
but it's inevitable if your archae or not.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
So you can.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Share your see others share your pain and come to
an understanding that you can work as a team to
get through it. Or you can't take someone's pain away
from them, but you can be there for them when
they're going through it, you know what I mean, Like
your son, you couldn't take that away from it. You know,
(46:08):
you are fighting your own voldemont in your family, your
own demon, and you couldn't stot it.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
But you could just be.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
And like as a mum should I say, it's your job,
It's not, it's you. It's your blessing.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
It's your blessing to be able to do that. It's
a blessing to be able to hold someone's hand when
they're going through something.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Sometimes it's a really painful blessing.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah yeah, But nothing's free in life, right, nothing? No,
nothing's for free. No, not in any like there's no
free mills. You know, we sit there reading stories about
horrendous things on these digital devices, going oh, that's shocking,
And then you've got realized that the digital device that's
(47:00):
in your hand is built and mind through people that
are working in horendous circumstances.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So you know, there's always a contradiction. Nothing is for free.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
How futuristically do you think for yourself?
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Now?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Try not to. I have to because I have to
navigate my life with.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
A relationship with my partner and hurricane teams and just
trying to get together in a relationship that's three hundred
miles apart, and booking podcasts and writing books and going
on holiday and so I have to try and playing
ahead as much as possible. But the more you put
in front of it, the more present you can be
(47:46):
in the moment, you know what I mean. So this morning,
whilst I was playing puppeteer on the toilet sea while
playing with the puppet. I should say I was just
having to think of what did I want to share
with you today. You know this is a no filter podcast.
I wanted to share that story on the fact that
me and Rosie had two quadriplegics having the best sex life,
(48:10):
So there is hope that you haven't lost that sexual relationship.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Do you feel differently us having this conversation now than
you would have had before you met Rosie because there
was a period in your life that was yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Yeah, definitely yeah. I didn't think that was on my journey.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
I didn't think that sharing life and love outside of
my support network and friends was on my journey. But
in that song that I recommend to your lovely producer, Grace,
the song was by k Tempest and the song is
called Grace, and in it there's a line that said,
when I stopped looking for me, I found you, and
(48:56):
that for us, the two of us, we're constantly looking
for ourselves with living with a spinal cord injury. How
am I going to get through the hudhips today? How
am I going to navigate? Someone get me out of it?
Someone else with me goes toilet, someone helping me eat someone.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
You know. But when you yield to all of that,
and yield to those pressures and yield to who am
I now? I've got a broken neck and my listener.
When you just let go of all that, then you
can embrace the gift of life. So the gift of
my life now is my rosing, and I'm very very grateful.
(49:35):
I love it dearly, and despite how hard it is
for both of us, it's the most beautiful spiritual thing
that I've experienced. And I grew up in a church
and my dad's a Baptist, so a Baptist minister, not
a full time minister. He's just a deacon.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
So he has faith and he turns the scripture to
help him navigate his mental health. I have to hold
my breath underwater and do meditation for as long as possible.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Are you vevim halffing? Ah?
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah, well I do, because breaming speed swallows on my radar.
I'm not just going to sit in that that happen.
So I do breath work, breathwork in a fifty degree
stem room every morning and every evening, and then in
twenty minutes, my physio turns up and I'm going to
sit at the bottom of my swimming pool. I sit
on a scuba bowl, and I will breathe and then
(50:28):
hold my breath for as long as physically possible. Now,
being that I have no intercostal muscles whatsoever, and I
only breathe from my diaphragm, you might be amazed that
my record's four minutes and twenty five seconds.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Yeah, because my brains.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
I am amazed.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, my brain is. Part of my brain's going you're
not breathing, You're not breathing, you're not breathing, And the
other part of me goes, I got you. You know,
you know I got this.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
That's the stunt man.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
That's the stummail.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Today, I'm aiming to get past four minutes, and there
is not a world record set for a quintia bleeding,
So I think I'm going to push.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
For a world record this year.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
There's always a goal.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
At least that one. Yeah, at least give someone something
to aim for. That's like me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Dave Holmes, Yeah, thank you for sharing yourself so much.
I think you've really taken no filter to another definition.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah, of course, man, it's yeah, we get one chance.
In life to and the best thing he's sharing, I think,
to share the experience of being a dumb monkey on
a rock, spinning through space with a load of other
dumb monkeys on a rock, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
And yeah, it's like I get.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
To do that with a broken neck, and there'll be
a generation of people behind me that have a spinal
cord injury that will be like that lost little boy
that I was in hospital feeling like hope is all gone.
And then maybe, just maybe they might find my journey
in my story and it might give them hope.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
So you're not only the boy who lived, You're the
boy who.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Is living always yeah, always yeah, embrace the day, Carpe
dim and all that jazz, yeah and all else fowls.
You could just row a few fucks to the wind,
and you know what I mean, Yeah, what are you
going to do? Is the pride of our life?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Why you're just going to take it and get the
best out of it.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
My son was right, You're a legend.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Oh, thanks very much.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
I don't know what I thought I was expecting before
I spoke to David Holmes. When you know that you're
going to meet someone whose life has been identified by
their physical prowess, and they've had it all taken away
from them. It would be easy to expect a person
who is dour, or embittered or angry, and David Holmes
(53:03):
is none of those. He's uplifting, he brings joy. He's
quite brilliant, and if you'd like to read David's book
or watch his documentary, we pop links in the show notes.
The executive producer of No Filter is Nama Brown and
the senior producer is Grace Rufree. Audio production is by
Jacob Brown and I'm your host, Kate Lanebrook. Thank you
(53:26):
for listening.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You know this is a No Filter podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I wanted to share that story on the fact that
me and Rosie had two quadriplegics having the best sex
of our life, so there is hope that you haven't
lost that sexual relationship.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hi, I'm Katelinebrook and welcome to No Filter. At just
twenty five years old, David Holmes was living the dream.
He was working on the biggest film franchise in the world,
out partying and fully immersed in a life of sex,
drugs and rock and roll. A former gymnast turned stunt man,
(01:03):
David was Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double in all the Harry
Potter films, literally going up alongside the cast, almost like
a big brother to a group of preteens who would
go on to become global stars. But while rehearsing a
stunt for the final Harry Potter film, a move he'd
(01:24):
done many times before, something went terribly wrong. David was
flung into a wall and broke his neck. He remembers
the sound, the feeling, and staying completely conscious as emergency
services arrived. He now refers to his injury as the
(01:45):
gift that keeps on taking Over fifteen years later, David
has the use of only one arm, but as you'll
hear in this conversation, he doesn't see himself as a victim. Life,
he says, guarantees nothing. It's what you do with what
you've got that counts, and David is doing a lot,
(02:07):
from writing a novel to producing a documentary with his
friend Daniel Radcliffe, hosting a podcast, advocating for disability rights,
and yes, having the best sex of his life. This
man truly has no filter and why should he. From
the moment this conversation began, I was laughing because David
(02:31):
Holmes is someone who brings a spark of silliness and
honesty to every moment. Hello, Kay, I didn't realize that
the extension of your skills had now spread to doing
acting and a little falsetto.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You'd be surprised what I've managed to achieve in my
life despite the fact of the barriers that are in
front of me. I've got very secret projects that I
can't publicly announce, but it involves acting and really very much.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So man, Yeah, well, you know, your talents not really
that secret, given that you have written a book. You
have written a book, The Boy Who Lived When Magic
and Reality Collide My story, which is an extraordinary story,
and a docco The Boy Who Lived. Now the journey, right,
(03:28):
what a journey, an epic one, an odyssey really. But
I've got to tell you I had an extraordinary day
with you that, of course you on the other side
of the world would have been unaware of. But I
watched the documentary about you with my son. I've got
(03:49):
three sons, like your mum. I've got three sons, and
my number two son is seventeen. Yeah, Ok, the same
age that you were when you started being the stunt
double for Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter movies. And
so we were this dooco together and you know, with
(04:12):
a seventeen year old, you just don't know a teenage boy,
You don't know what they're thinking. He didn't peel off
at any point during it. Yeah, he's stayed fixed with it.
I mean we all were. It's extraordinary. And at the
end he stood up and he went hmm, legend our
(04:33):
blessed and walked out of the room.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Oh, blessed. Yeah, that's whole.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
How's that?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
But to know that in a society where young men
are trying to navigate what it is like masculinity and
to be a man, to know that for your son
at that moment there that I showed him certain aspects
of my life and my journey through the documentary that
(05:00):
might help him get a grip of that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
What a gift day is.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So I'm very grateful to share my story to the
journey that I've had because if it hasn't knock on
effect for so many others, then it's start a good thing.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, it's also very appealing, I think because because you're
a stuntman, ye and outside of on a film set,
aside from either movie, there's the movie stars. We get that,
But then if you're going to go for who the
next alpha men are on a film set, it's the stunties.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, I believe it is.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, I mean the director's assistant directors that we're all
justling for, like our mark.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
On the creative experience.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
But some performers get to be the young sum heroes
and tell the story with their physicality and to make
the impossible possible, and for many years I did that,
and then it's you know, it's part of who I
was as a child, and it's part of who I
(06:09):
am now as an adult. Despite the fact I'm now quadriplegic,
I still perform stunts something last year I set my
head on fire, right, and every day I get wonderful
messages just like what you had with your son, where
people saying this, you know, really helped me gain perspective
and understanding on the journey that I'm on and some
of the difficulty or the trauma that I've navigating.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So well. It's such an interesting thing because you yourself,
i'man aside from the accident and who physically you are
compared to who you were, you know at the start.
I think that there's many lessons that can be learnt,
that can be extrapolated to different circumstances that aren't necessarily
(06:54):
to do with physicality.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, life's hard for all of us.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
This life is hard.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Broken neck or no broken neck, it's hot. We're given
this lesson, like this gift, and then you have to
understand it's a lesson of loss. I learned that lesson
the hardest way at twenty five with my accident, and
I continue to have to navigate that lesson now with
changing in neurology, or elderly dogs that are just shitting
(07:24):
everywhere in my house, or you know, seeing my parents'
age and stuff like that. So it's I learned that
lesson at twenty five and it made me make my
peace with the facts.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It teaches you gratude. All right.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I am here today now where I'm going to be
in ten years time in my body, I can't tell you.
No one can tell you that. You can't tell me
with yours. But with what I'm going through, with the changes,
with the journey, with what I've lost, it forces me
to be here now, to like take in the day
and it's a really crappy gray day in England, but
(08:04):
still the world presents gifts. Spring has happened, there's leaves
on the true I've had a visit by a greenwood
paper in my garden today. I've got I've made a
really good show on the steam room. I've done toilet routine,
which as a quadriplegic is very hard to navigate. Can
I be really crude in this podcast?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Please? You can be what however you are no filter.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, no filter? Right, so are you ready for this strapping? Okay, So,
as I go into detail in the book, I can't
have control of my bower routine. Yes, so my routine
involves in certain responsibitories in my house. Now I have
no act to do that. So that means I've had
(08:48):
more hands up my ass than the cast of the Muppets.
So yeah, you soon learn to think. All right, that's
just a process. That's what we got doing. Once that's done.
At the start, it's horrifying, it's really bad, it's degrading,
it's all of those things. And anyone who goes through
medical issues will navigate this at some stage.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And when you get older, you're going to navigate this.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
And there is a handing over of things that we
consider to be innate sort of rights, like the right
to autonomy or the right to privacy over our bodies.
And of course you forfeited that in a really sudden way.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I always say to people, never neglect the fact you're
sitting on a socially conscious asshole, because it tells you
when it needs to part, and mine doesn't. So I've
crapped myself everywhere top of Mountains film premieres. You name
it at about accident, and it never gets easier, but
if you can find the joy and humor after it,
(09:48):
it gets a little bit more digestible.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So I always just laugh at myself. Shit happens to us.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
So this accident that you refer to that will be
discussing happen in two thousand and nine. So you've lived
in this new incarnation of your body, yeah, for quite
some time. But before then you describe yourself as arrogant
and self centered and a bit of a knob. And
so this was when you were like flying high as
(10:17):
a Stundy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
The ego is so easy to creep in when your
number one s on call sheet, working on the biggest
kids franchise, driving a fast Mercedes, and you know, prowling
for sexual partners.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You know what I mean? I say prouding, that's not
that's the work, you.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Know, She's a different word. Yeah, but yes, you were
enjoying the array of gifts that life has to offer.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, and I had a lot, and I was enjoying
a lot and whether if that was you know, sex,
drugs and sausage rolls.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I've consumed them all.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And it's it was that was me then, and that
was me at the height of where I was with
the success that I was given. But that success wasn't
just handed out for free. There were years of gymnastics
and hurt and pain and turmoil and bullying that got
(11:15):
me to that point of success.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
The bullying. The bullying is interesting. Was the bullying because
of your height?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Or yeah, man, you've been in society we screw small men,
We give small men a bad wrapping life, and it's
that we're off on us foot. But mac milligates it right.
Why would you want to look down on people your
whole life? Looking up to people is the way like
aspiring looking up like never never being ashamed of your
(11:46):
height or your stature, or your social position or your wealth,
like because if you've got something to look up to,
whether that's physically or mentally, it gives you aspirations for
your life and it gives you a grounding to say,
you know, I want to be there or I want
(12:07):
to And I'm not saying like extended my legs and
get taller. I'm saying right that the humbling experience of
what it is to be smaller, to have people call
you half prime and ditch and all that lot and
some minute breaks. But for me, I learned to embrace
it and then eventually use it, and it turned me
into it very successful young man as a gymnast.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Incredibly because you're are you five foot two?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah? Five foot two one in three quarters, but I
take five foot right. Picking yourself up that extra each
always makes a difference, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So I've heard.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
But here's the thing with that turned out actually to
be to your advantage because when you first met Daniel Radcliffe,
he was eleven and it started filming the Harry Potter films.
You were seventeen. But you could be a perfect stunt
double for him because you had that physicality, not just
that all of the kids.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
In the first two films, I'm the Hermione when the
troll smashes through the bathroom doors.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I am the.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Ron sitting on the back of the horses. He gets
hit on the chest piece. I am the Malfoy in
the quidditch match, flying off with his broom. I am
the Malfoy flying on the table. And Harry Potter two
in the dueling sequence, there was I doubled pretty much
most of the young cars Neville in the first two films,
(13:33):
and then all of Dale grew up, and then Dan.
Thankfully he's only grew to five foot five. So Harry
lifts in my shoes. I could stay it's stunt double yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, right. And then you So during the course of
those movies, you became incredibly close.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, I was just pe teacher.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So twice three times a week he comes to the
stunt department. We'd shut the doors and we do things
that were giving Insurance Company an absolute heart attack. I'd
get him doing some sorts off and trampoline, jumping off
a pork cabin, swinging swords around, doing judo, keeping fit, exercise.
It was all part of being a gymnast growing up,
(14:13):
having coaches in plant, their coaching and their physical gifts
to me, learning how to be a good gymnast. I
was able to just do that for Dank, and now
whenever I see his body in a film or a
TV program, or if I see him do something that's
a sun element, I'm always very proud that I contributed
(14:34):
to that, to the man that he is on camera now.
And I'd like to say, and I'm sure I'm not overreaching.
I'm sure he would say that I contributed to the
man that he is in life as well, which.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Is well, he does say that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's a good things. You got to watch him grow
up on the camera. I got to watch him grow
as a human being, and I could not be proud
of who he is, whether that is his willingness to
stand up for what he believes in over certain issues,
or seeing him as a younger father and how the
(15:10):
joy that brings to his life. He's a great human
being and will sacrifice his life to make sure other
people stay employed. You know, Like recently he was on
a Broadway show and it was going to close down
and he's looking around and if he was to leave
his contract. They asked for an extension, and he looked
(15:32):
around and he's like, well, if I don't do the extension,
then all these people become unemployed. So he went back
and he'd done eight extra shows a week for three months.
You know, Like that's commitment to others, not commitment to himself.
So that's the mark of who he is.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
And you know him very well because the reading your book,
it really imparted a lovely sense of course, we all
know the Harry Potter movies. But for you guys, it
was almost like an annual summer camp. Yeah, because you
saw each other every year for ten years.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, pretty much. There was the longest break between the
films was maybe.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Four arms in total, So we were always interacting with
each other and we were able to because it was
Hogwarts Express was a runaway train after the second film.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It was just massive.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And I think keeping the continuity of crew helps keep
those young adults in an environment where they felt safe
to explore becoming better actors, that felt safe to grow
up without the prime eyes. And I'm a bit nervous
because they're redoing it now, and then the young cast
(16:49):
members are also now exposed to social media and the
damage that that is doing to our society. Now.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I use it as a tool like it's a worktool,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I use it to help promote an image of disability
that doesn't frame us as a victive. For young people
who are very impressionable that trying to work out who
they are. I think it's very damaging to be able
to click a button and put a filter on and
change your face.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
After this short break, David tells me what he remembers
about the day of his accident. Don't go anywhere well, interestingly,
because your physical body was your ultimate work tool, and
you sustained so many injuries as stunties do in the
(17:39):
course of your work. Before I'm going to call it
a fateful day. How do you think of that day
in two thousand and nine, You know, the day that sent.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Me down with different roads, that put me on a
different path. And it's a day that's hard. You know,
every time the analysty comes around, it's always that very
soon I'm going to be in a.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Wheelchair longer than i was on legs, you know, that's.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Always or when look, you know, time passing is hard,
and I try to enjoy the passing of time as
best I can. But at the same time, when you're
going through physical changes like I am, it is some
of those important data are quite difficult to navigate.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
When is when is the anniversary days?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Right towards the end of January.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I don't say it because yes, yeah, funny enough, it's
just certain aspects of my life, like Wikipedia's got my
birthday wrong and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
It puts me down as forty three. I'm actually forty one.
So and also now I'm a public person.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
There is just a few vula benities that are trying
to protect myself from.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And how do you recall the events of that day.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Fully conscious throughout the whole thing? I remember it. I
know the noise.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
What noise makes when your neck breaks, I know is
that I recover of breath. I sometimes relimit with posed
to make stress when a falling asleep. So funny enough,
I listen to podcasts when I'm falling asleep. So yeah,
that was something that I learned in hospital as I'm
slipping into sleep that I can go for pts and
(19:19):
relive that moment, like we live the plug socket that
was looking at to fix my eyeline and you know
the noise of the wire.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Pulling and all that lot.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
So I just find a coping strategy and know how
to use it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
For those who don't know, you were doing a stunt
that involved you being on a wire and then fired
pulled rapidly towards the wall, and you'd rehearsed at the
day before.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah you got it. Yeah, so we was doing Harry
battling the Guini and for the snake.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, so as we as we should have been doing
as some performers. In the Harry Potter series, we saw
so many spelled reactions that were used by a wire
and it's our job to always try and push the
boundaries of the action. And as the film's got more
intense and more serious and what, we were always trying
(20:13):
to make the spells a bit more serious, reactive, speedy
out and all that lot.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
And you succeeded, by the way, because those movies, I
think changed changed the way movie making is told with
any element of magic.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Very few franchises continue to hold their own as they
progress through each different film, and Harry Pottery is one
of those things.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Raised the day before, and then the suggestion was made
short in the distance and to put a slack line
in so the snatch off the floor was too quick.
That was two vital mistakes that sent me into a
wall SINNI mile an hour on my chest folding into
my nose that my spinalcle separated at the C six
(21:05):
c cent vertebrae, just at the bottom of your neck
before your thought rack starts. And I was instantly paralyzed
from that moment. And I knew that I'd done it.
I knew what a boken. Brain felt like and I
felt my whole body, and once I'd recovered my breath,
I kept consciousness, made some very good, smart suggestions about
(21:29):
making sure a camera was safe, that I had the
footage because I knew Health and Safety would have to
review that, and then told my best mates don't call
my mum to worry her, and then slipped into unconsciousness.
And then you come back to consciousness again. And then
it was the full rig more of a slow ambulance,
(21:49):
and I always gutted. I was then putting a helicopter,
you know, but yeah, the rigmar of snow ambulance, one
hospital and then onto the spinal lord. And then a
couple of days later, I woke up and some nurse
was rolling me over, saying you need to evacuate out
your bows.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
And then I realized I don't fill my arn, you know.
When she was telling me what you doing, I was.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Like, ah, and I'll feel that so and then you
have to learn to rebuild your up. And it's when
everything's taken away like that. It starts from scratch, you know,
you know, you're stripped back to how you are as Otoba,
so vulnerable, so needy, so you know, people needed to
feed me, people needed to dress me, wash me, you
(22:32):
name it. So and then grueling rehabilitation. And I'm thankful
for the gifts of gymnastics and my physical prowess to
understand that nothing's gained without hard work. So I worked
tirelessly at the hospital to try and regain as much
function as possible above my level injury. And then just
(22:54):
before discharge, I had developed a spinal series, which is
why I'm going through changes now, which.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Which is apparently quite rare.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Very rare, Yeah, very rare, right in the beginning. So
it's assists within this final called that mine actually board
up to the C one vertebrae because it was it
was just growing so quick, and that's the problem with
where I was so healthy and fear so many white
blood cells went to the area to sort the bruising out,
and they were they were trapped in so it was
(23:26):
a it was one of those things that doctor says,
if you don't go surging, now you're going to die.
It's going to stop your breathing. So big surgery, and
then I had to redo my rehabilitation again.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So bad hard luck on top of bad hard luck.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So yeah, and that's now because it goes up to
C one that's where independent breathing, speech and swallow is.
So as I get older, there's a good chance that
I won't be able to keep hold of those things.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
So the cyst I gather can't be removed, and it's
kind of like waiting for you, like Voldemort.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You got it.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, So it's inside my spinal cord. He's got a
shunk that's draining the pressure. If that shump blocks, and
it's back into the surgery again. And I two ninety
went from out a surgery to see if I can
check the status of the the pressure of the cysts,
shave back some scar tissue, and then I had some
really bad complications that it killed me. In twenty ninety,
(24:27):
was fighting for my life for surgeries, another little brain surgery,
and then came out and just about recovered to get
on a plane to go to Thailand. Got to Thailand,
and then COVID happened. And then when I was in Thailand,
I realized, hang on a minute, I'm still going through changes.
(24:47):
That surgery didn't work, so I had that to deal with,
and then COVID, and as a vulnerable individual, I was
asking myself is my last worthit? When I have to
risk covers to come to work. You know, like a
lot of people in the same spectrum, we're doing that,
which is not a nice place to be. Could have
done with a bit more support from our governments and
(25:08):
all that lot. But I was very grateful at one
of my best friends with me and look after me,
and we just got through it like weel did.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
It is extraordinary, both in the book and in the
documentary and just speaking to you now that when I
think there's a great physical trauma or a great loss
of any kind, or a debilitating condition, and this is
really spoken about, I think people like to have this
idea that people are just kind of like peacefully wasting
(25:38):
away or whatever. But often there's a lot of bitterness,
and there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of resentment.
But you seem to have consciously made the decision to
focus on the positives.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Well, what's worse than breaking your neck, It is in
your pain, in your loved one's eyes. What's worse than
getting a diagnosis is having to tell your family and
holding on to those emotions, those vacuous emotions, you actually
hurt yourself the most first. So if you can go, okay,
that's you have to let go of the things I
(26:15):
can't got, you know what I mean. Like I'm not religious,
my dad is. But there's a prayer there. I will
always say.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
It's a good prayer, and it's God grant me the
grace to accept the things that I can't control, embrace
the things that I can. And I think that's a
really nice way of just going.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
You know, life is going to happen, and asteroids could
come and fucking wipe us out right now, we have
no control over that.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I hope. I hope not not before our interview.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
No fingers crossed, not now.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, I mean yeah, if I saw one, I might
be sticking my hands down my shorts just so in
case my body's you know, like the blokes in Pompeii's Yeah,
I masturbated in.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Lying on his side. That's the guy I want to be.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
They got they got done instantly.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, done instantly. But his body was preserved in that position.
So he's just lying on his side, having a way
because like, yeah, wicked. No dignity, Yeah no, there's no dignit.
He was final point injury, not just like living with
like with the barroutines addressing there's the other. But I mean,
I'll tell you now, I'm in a relationship and my
(27:24):
girlfriends are four quadriplegic, so she's got less function than
I have. But we don't connect over our injuries. We
connect over our love for each other and how shared
experience of being loved by great families and friends and
committed care teams. How did you?
Speaker 3 (27:42):
How did you meet?
Speaker 1 (27:43):
She owns the property that I rented in Spain, and
she was emailing me quite a few times about my requirements,
and it was very just email exchanges, and then it
went to voice notes, just going back. Do you know
it's how being disabled them it's the other? And then
she'd never stayed at anyone else's house after a hospital
(28:06):
discharge because she went to a mom and dad's house
and she couldn't and she had her accident in the
same year as me, and I said, well, I built
this house and I can accommodate for you here and
your care team, and next time you're in London, why
don't you come and see my house? Because I knew
that she was building her own property up in Sheffield,
(28:27):
which is you know, three hundred miles away annoying me.
And because this house is a smart home, all the
doors are controlled, all the lights to controlled, the TV,
everything by by boys and thirteen years ago. I'm very,
very independent in this property, like to the degree that
I'm probably more able in this environment than most people
(28:49):
that are able bodied, just because I know how to
navigate it and control it with the technology.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I must sound very admiring of the fact that you
get technology to work for you.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
And I wanted her to incorporate those things in her
life because I know what it does for me, and
I would want every person.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
In with his final cord injury to have an environment.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Like this, because the most the saving thing about and
being a wol Che user is the environment you interact with,
you know, like so in here, it's not like that.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So she came down. She was going to a gas
like Anthont gig in London, and she stayed the night
for the first night.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And her function is she can bring her arm to here,
but she hasn't got the shoulder function to lift it
out right.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So we was outside sitting in the sun.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
In my garden and the wind blew her hair in
her face, and I saw her trying to blow it
out and I was like, do you want me to
get that for you? And as I brushed the hair
out of face, I was like, we're really beautiful. And
then you know, I went to a place in Spain.
She I had a week where there was space at
the end, and obviously it's her house, and I was like,
(30:03):
why don't you come out for that last week and
we can get a bit of time together. And then
I just looked at her, was like the world's unfair
in it, but if we were able bodied people, we'd
be doing something very different right now. And she's really
really shy, like shocking me shy. She could barely look
up look at me. She just she raised her eyes,
(30:24):
she looked at me and she gave me a nude
and I was like, oh, it's on. And then we've
been able to achieve connection despite what we can't feel,
what we can feel is phenomenal. What we can embrace
and what you know, it takes a team of people
for us to another couple the kiss together, but it
(30:46):
makes it mean more when we have to work so.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Hard for it.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
You know, our shared life experience, when we go on
holiday together it means more because we have to work
harder for it. And then, you know, every orgasm that
we both give each other it means more because we're
having an orgasm below our level of injuries, something that
most people say it's unachievable. I'm like, no, I don't
accept that reality. So yeah, I'm a prime numbers man.
(31:14):
I ain't happy until she said at least eleven, maybe thirty.
But I tell you a really funny story. And she
doesn't mind me saying this. Asked her for a permission.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
What's her name? By the way, her name is Rosy Rosie.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
But anyway, this is a great story. So we was
in Thailand two years ago and we got both got
hoisted on a couch. We're watching a film together. We've
already had our first kiss. We're sitting under the couch
and we used our phones to call people. So do
we Yeah, but we have to use voice control to
(31:50):
ask someone to come and help us.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Okay, yes.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
So her phone's on the armrest next to her, My
phone's on my leg next to me, and I'm sitting
there and she's got a skirl and I've got a
carecter cut and nickers off because they were just getting
in the way, and I was just fuck it on
going for it. So I leant over to perform our sex,
(32:13):
not realizing half an hour later that both her phone
is falling off the sofa and down by the cushions,
and my phone is falling down by the cushions. So
I've only got one arm, like with half a muscle
on it. So now I realized that I'm stuck. So
my first portal call is but we've got to call someone.
(32:35):
We were laughing about it. It's funny, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Stuck, so we go like, hey, Siri, Like so we're
asking Siri, and it's not hearing us.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Oh all right, because it's smothered in the cushions.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Because it's smiling in the cushions. So now I was
stuck on my partner like.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
This, oh, trying like literal we breatheing through her never
regions like a scuba diver while simultaneously trying to shout
from my phone. And we were stuck there for like
forty five minutes before or just one of our candygivers
just open the door upstairs, like you guys are. Rose
(33:15):
is softly spoken, and she was like no kind of
needs to help when they come down and rescue me.
And as I was pulled up by the candgiver that
all I said was tell missus Huggs, he died the
way he wanted to.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
You know that we find.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Ourselves in situations like that all the time.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Now we can ever make light of it and embrace
it as a comedic moment, or we can let it
really break us down and dehumanize us. And I refuse
to not find shit funny because everything in life is
laughable because if you don't, you forget it.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
That reminds me of something that you said when you
said after the accident to your family and your friends,
try and hope for me to be happy like I am, ye,
happy like you want me to be, which was so
powerful for people at many levels in how we love people.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Everybody looks at my story and goes, eat a musk's
going to get you walking again, you know, or you know,
let's we're going to end paralysis and all that. And
I'm like, yeah, great, we should pursue that because it's
like a life changing, life sentencing thing. But we should
also try and accept and push for a society that
(34:42):
does see me and accept me for who I am,
because regardless of spinal cord injury being fixable or not,
there will always be children born into wheelchairs. There will
always be elderly people needing wheelchairs to navigate society you
know yourself, including disability is not if, but when for
all of us. And we're all focusing on these silly
(35:03):
little issues right now that talk about very important for
marginalized people in society. But my community is the ones
that you know governments always think less than. And I
will say to everyone, if you are able to live
like this, then you are more that because you are
(35:26):
a great problem solver. You've been able to navigate great
difficulty and you've still been able to remember that their
happiness can be found leaving in the darkest of places.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
You know, because you had always lived a life that
was characterized by is it a lack of fear that
a stuntman has? No?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Not at all?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I thought, is it it was the ability to embrace
the fear and overcome it.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
It's definitely the ability to say, all right, that's scary,
but I'm confident enough in who I am and my
ability and my conviction to be able to achieve the impossible.
Now that goes the same for gymnastics, Formula one drivers,
anybody that has to navigate something that's quite sketchy, even
(36:19):
people in Australia that get in the water with a
sharp you know, you know you're getting in and you know, oh,
there could be could be the day that I lose,
But you still get in because the ocean is a
beautiful thing and you know you can't compartmentalize the risk
and you take navigated, calculating risks to achieve.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, the storytelling process.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So I take great comfort in the fact that despite
where I am in my life because of Harry Potter,
my contribution to those films brings comfort and joy to
people every.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Single day around the world.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
There are kids in conflict zones right now, petrified their
part of their parents. Put Harry Potter on a own
in front of them and it helps them escape their reality.
There are people struggling with mental health issues right now
that are always like turning to those films to help
them get through a tough time.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
So yeah, I'm very very grateful.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That I was able to contribute to that fact for
tons and tons of people, and say with this podcast
now right I get to share my perspective and hopefully
someone goes, you know what you know that's helped me
today and wicked, I think you came for that and
for me and the people that helped love me to
(37:49):
being the person I am.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
That's not all of my conversation with David Holmes coming up.
We talk about the close and enduring bond that David
has with Daniel Radcliffe and Tom Felton. We'll be right back.
At what point did you and I don't imagine it
was a critical defining moment. I imagine that it was
(38:15):
maybe a gradual realization, But at what point did you
realize that your approach to physical fear you would now
have to turn into a different approach for your life
as you now know us.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I think that's a gradual process that's always tested.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I think, you know, someone asked me on social media
recently or I put up a post about me being
in a Liz Holy film and it just got picked
up by just like the land of misogyny on social
media and someone I was trying to defend it. I
was like, come on, can we just be a little
bit respectful? You know, we've all got wives or partners
(38:58):
or sisters or daughters in our life. And just think
if someone was talking about your loved one like that,
and then all the boys that were saying all these
several things jumped on top of and someone said you
knew here. I was like, Well, to be honest, I'm
a new person every day.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
We all are.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Every single day the sun comes up, We've got the
opportunity to be a new person. And I feel that
in society where we've championed the rights of others and
women especially, we should always realize that when one gains
another one doesn't have to lose another, one doesn't.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Have to be threatened, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And there's a team of young men right now, I
say team, there's a generation of young men right now
that are looking to outside sources to try and work
out what it is to be a map. So I
would always say that conviction of who you are comes
(40:00):
from accountability. Are you accountable for who you are to
this day? Are we accountable?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
On? This conversation interesting because I know Daniel Radcliffe and
Tom Felton described you as an older brother to them. Yeah,
Dan Radcliffe said, an older brother that had spent his
whole life wanting and then when you had the accident,
(40:27):
because you had that physical sort of prowess and superiority
taken away from you, how did that relationship change because
there's such deep affection and love there.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
So they were young to have to see me like
that with wied in me and stuff hanging out my
nose and you know, even some stage's fire for breath,
and they were my bedside between breaks and filming, and
they kept it together and they for me being brave
(41:04):
for them on camera all those years and help giving
them the some of the foundation on what it's like
to be a little bit older and to have a
little bit of success or whatever it is. They got
the opportunity to flip that and be braave for me,
(41:24):
and I look back on top of that while still
navigating the pressures of finishing off the biggest film franchise
in history. Well yeah, so, yeah, So I'm very grateful
for who they are that day and this day. They
are amazing human beings that carry the torch of what
(41:48):
they were part of and will do for the rest
of their life.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
It's interesting because you're talking about people who had a
constancy to them and showed bravery for you as you
said when you needed it, as you had tried to
show in your role for them. But watching the DOCI
entry in particular, what I was so struck by was
(42:14):
the relationship with you and Greg Powell, who got you
into who was a father figure to you when you
were a young stunty, who.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Was my film father.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, yeah, he was one of the men, like my
gymnastics coaches, that helped me and loved me to be
the man that I am. And despite the fact and
our relationship like had what happened to me in it,
I still love him like deaddy and look up to
him and aspire.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
To always make him proud.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
And there are worse things to have in your life
than good men that will always.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Have your back, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (43:01):
It was it was knowing what the nature of your
relationship had been, and how paternal and beautiful and us
it was how he guided you through those stunts and
had such a deep love for you. And then he
said he was the last person to hold you when
you could walk, and he was the first person to
(43:23):
hold you when you couldn't walk.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, yeah, messed up so and.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
He can't he can't handle it though.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
No, I know, because that's that generation of men that
would bottle up emotion instead of being able to articulate it.
And as we are, I mean, there's a push now
for that idea of masculinity to come back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
And there is a point of Gars smoking. He's a
cigar smoker.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
The Gars smoking, tony soprano, bad boy, gangster because of
his background. You know, his dad was a you know,
an unlicensed boxer and then licensed boxer and then celebrity.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
He's some man and navigated some of the criminal.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Underworld in London and all of those things that make
him the man that he is and the life lessons
that make him the man that he is. But I
always take it back to we're all children, ones, right,
And if Greg and me were in a playground and
he accidentally knocked me over and I was crying and
(44:34):
then he got upset and me getting upset, then I
would want to comfort that child, you know what I mean,
so we will remember that we're all babies.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Ones. I find that your capacity to understand that incredible.
Thanks me, I really do, because it seems sometimes that
I think when you're in the situation that you're in,
aw I had a son who was bravely ill with leukemia,
and sometimes you find yourself cast in the role of
(45:09):
not only having to deal with the shiitthand that you've
been dealt, but also comforting the people around you. How
is that pressure?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It's can either embrace or you can try and run
away from it very head in this ad. But the
problem is still going to be that, you know what
I mean, Like, there's only so much avoidance. We will
go for our life trying to run away from pain,
but it's inevitable if your archae or not.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
So you can.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Share your see others share your pain and come to
an understanding that you can work as a team to
get through it. Or you can't take someone's pain away
from them, but you can be there for them when
they're going through it, you know what I mean, Like
your son, you couldn't take that away from it. You know,
(46:08):
you are fighting your own voldemont in your family, your
own demon, and you couldn't stot it.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
But you could just be.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
And like as a mum should I say, it's your job,
It's not, it's you. It's your blessing.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
It's your blessing to be able to do that. It's
a blessing to be able to hold someone's hand when
they're going through something.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Sometimes it's a really painful blessing.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah yeah, But nothing's free in life, right, nothing? No,
nothing's for free. No, not in any like there's no
free mills. You know, we sit there reading stories about
horrendous things on these digital devices, going oh, that's shocking,
And then you've got realized that the digital device that's
(47:00):
in your hand is built and mind through people that
are working in horendous circumstances.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So you know, there's always a contradiction. Nothing is for free.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
How futuristically do you think for yourself?
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Now?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Try not to. I have to because I have to
navigate my life with.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
A relationship with my partner and hurricane teams and just
trying to get together in a relationship that's three hundred
miles apart, and booking podcasts and writing books and going
on holiday and so I have to try and playing
ahead as much as possible. But the more you put
in front of it, the more present you can be
(47:46):
in the moment, you know what I mean. So this morning,
whilst I was playing puppeteer on the toilet sea while
playing with the puppet. I should say I was just
having to think of what did I want to share
with you today. You know this is a no filter podcast.
I wanted to share that story on the fact that
me and Rosie had two quadriplegics having the best sex life,
(48:10):
So there is hope that you haven't lost that sexual relationship.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Do you feel differently us having this conversation now than
you would have had before you met Rosie because there
was a period in your life that was yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Yeah, definitely yeah. I didn't think that was on my journey.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
I didn't think that sharing life and love outside of
my support network and friends was on my journey. But
in that song that I recommend to your lovely producer, Grace,
the song was by k Tempest and the song is
called Grace, and in it there's a line that said,
when I stopped looking for me, I found you, and
(48:56):
that for us, the two of us, we're constantly looking
for ourselves with living with a spinal cord injury. How
am I going to get through the hudhips today? How
am I going to navigate? Someone get me out of it?
Someone else with me goes toilet, someone helping me eat someone.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
You know. But when you yield to all of that,
and yield to those pressures and yield to who am
I now? I've got a broken neck and my listener.
When you just let go of all that, then you
can embrace the gift of life. So the gift of
my life now is my rosing, and I'm very very grateful.
(49:35):
I love it dearly, and despite how hard it is
for both of us, it's the most beautiful spiritual thing
that I've experienced. And I grew up in a church
and my dad's a Baptist, so a Baptist minister, not
a full time minister. He's just a deacon.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
So he has faith and he turns the scripture to
help him navigate his mental health. I have to hold
my breath underwater and do meditation for as long as possible.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Are you vevim halffing? Ah?
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah, well I do, because breaming speed swallows on my radar.
I'm not just going to sit in that that happen.
So I do breath work, breathwork in a fifty degree
stem room every morning and every evening, and then in
twenty minutes, my physio turns up and I'm going to
sit at the bottom of my swimming pool. I sit
on a scuba bowl, and I will breathe and then
(50:28):
hold my breath for as long as physically possible. Now,
being that I have no intercostal muscles whatsoever, and I
only breathe from my diaphragm, you might be amazed that
my record's four minutes and twenty five seconds.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Yeah, because my brains.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
I am amazed.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, my brain is. Part of my brain's going you're
not breathing, You're not breathing, you're not breathing, And the
other part of me goes, I got you. You know,
you know I got this.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
That's the stunt man.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
That's the stummail.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Today, I'm aiming to get past four minutes, and there
is not a world record set for a quintia bleeding,
So I think I'm going to push.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
For a world record this year.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
There's always a goal.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
At least that one. Yeah, at least give someone something
to aim for. That's like me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Dave Holmes, Yeah, thank you for sharing yourself so much.
I think you've really taken no filter to another definition.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah, of course, man, it's yeah, we get one chance.
In life to and the best thing he's sharing, I think,
to share the experience of being a dumb monkey on
a rock, spinning through space with a load of other
dumb monkeys on a rock, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
And yeah, it's like I get.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
To do that with a broken neck, and there'll be
a generation of people behind me that have a spinal
cord injury that will be like that lost little boy
that I was in hospital feeling like hope is all gone.
And then maybe, just maybe they might find my journey
in my story and it might give them hope.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
So you're not only the boy who lived, You're the
boy who.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Is living always yeah, always yeah, embrace the day, Carpe
dim and all that jazz, yeah and all else fowls.
You could just row a few fucks to the wind,
and you know what I mean, Yeah, what are you
going to do? Is the pride of our life?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Why you're just going to take it and get the
best out of it.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
My son was right, You're a legend.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Oh, thanks very much.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
I don't know what I thought I was expecting before
I spoke to David Holmes. When you know that you're
going to meet someone whose life has been identified by
their physical prowess, and they've had it all taken away
from them. It would be easy to expect a person
who is dour, or embittered or angry, and David Holmes
(53:03):
is none of those. He's uplifting, he brings joy. He's
quite brilliant, and if you'd like to read David's book
or watch his documentary, we pop links in the show notes.
The executive producer of No Filter is Nama Brown and
the senior producer is Grace Rufree. Audio production is by
Jacob Brown and I'm your host, Kate Lanebrook. Thank you
(53:26):
for listening.
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