Nottinghamshire woman, Karen Saunders, from Skydive Langar, celebrates Screen Actors Guild Awards win as part of stunt team that worked with Hollywood actor Tom Cruise on Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning film
After playing a part in one of the most eye-catching stunts Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, a Nottinghamshire woman is celebrating winning an award with the team that made it happen.
Karen Saunders, of Newton, is part of the stunt team which took home the prize for ‘Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture’ at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, after working on the Hollywood blockbuster, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.
Karen and the team helped Tom Cruise launch his motorbike from a cliff and deploy a parachute as part of a thrilling chase scene during the film.
Her role was to maintain Cruise’s skydiving equipment — a job she holds full time at Nottinghamshire skydiving centre, Skydive Langar.
In the film, Cruise — who famously refuses to use stunt doubles — is seen making the death-defying leap from a mountain-top in a stunt that resulted from years of work and the contribution of a team experts to keep the star safe.
As the lead parachute rigger at the UK’s busiest skydiving centre, and with decades of experience in maintaining parachuting equipment globally, Karen was selected as Cruise’s personal equipment monitor.
Speaking of her role, Karen said: “It was a real pleasure to work with Tom and the rest of the team behind the movie, which included an amazing stunt team.
“I had so much fun working with everyone and it was a real professional highlight to be able to put my experience to work in such a new and challenging way.
“Of course, much of it was run of the mill parachute maintenance and I was very comfortable with all of that, but being on the set of such a high profile movie certainly came with its own unique moments.
“It’s amazing to be able to sit down and watch the final product and to know that millions of people worldwide have seen it too — I’m very proud of it.”
Karen works at the skydiving centre at Langar, where she is responsible for overseeing the proper maintenance of all of the centre’s owned equipment as well as providing those services for equipment owned by visiting jumpers.
When she’s not working with skydivers, she enjoys travelling on her motorcycle and has recently taken up bodybuilding.
With an estimated budget of $291m, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is amongst the most expensive films ever made and took $568m in box office sales.
