Ep7 Samuel Hübinette

Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with soun K and Amelia Hartford.

And today we have an old friend. I met him on.

The set of Tokyo Drift and he happened to be my driving double. So he's the one that made me

look like I knew what I was doing, which should I do not?

Our guest has so much courage and passion, and it takes a lot of that to leave your home country and come to America.

He's a true example of the American dream working out coming from a small town in Sweden and then Megan Olie to Hollywood.

Yeah, and outside of all the stunt work that he does, he's also a two time Formula Drift champion, has won X Games, rallycross medals, several podiums, and short course off road racing. He is an incredible driver. Yeah.

Then he's a great example of someone that knows how to balance their professional life and family life. He's an

amazing husband, amazing father, and lucky to call him an amazing friend without further ado.

Samuel Hubenet, So did.

You start with commercial stunt driving or he went straight into movies?

Okay?

So I started in Sweden I grew up in Lapland, Sweden about the Arctic circle. It's like northern Alaska. To

give you an adea how far up. I grew up

in a smaller the town called Yokmok. It means a

river bend in Laplandish language jockmock. Anyway, I started driving

on frozen lakes as a kid. My dad let me

start driving for fun, just in his old Mercedes three hundred Diesel nineteen seventy six model, which was power enough to just spin the tires on frozen ice on the lake frozen lakes, and that's where I learned to drive as a young age, around the eight years nine years old.

He started letting me. Soon as I reached the paddles,

I started driving. Of course, way back then we had

no idea what drifting was, but it was with sliding cars was fun. I think around the fifteen years old age.

I remember because I was watching him driving and I was like, no, he should do this, and I started to go faster and the eyes track than him, and I mean I just had a passion for it.

Then no one told me what to do.

I just felt like I learned very quickly and was natural and that's kind of where it started for me.

From there, I had a mechanical background school.

I wasn't into being in school much was studying, but I just wanted to get out and drive my dirt bikes in the summer, or get on the ice track in the winter, or snowmobile riding was a big passion for me. Having long winters there seven months six seven

months with snow so spent most of my money in my youth age working the summer planting trees in the forest to make money to buy a newer snowbill every winter, which I crashed a lot, but back then insurance was doing well.

And the side stories.

Yeah, finally my insurance company kicked me out because I crashed my snowmobills so many times because I was just going crazy crazy. But yeah, so dirt bike riding, snowmobile

riding in winter combined with driving the frozen lake. I

just like driving gravel roads in some and my dad took me out to we had a lot of gravel roads.

That's where a lot of the rally drivers become big stars from Finland, Sweden, Norway. Solberg and all the other

drivers from Finland. They learned just driving on. We have

a lot of gravel roads, just a lot of freedom there.

Not many people, just roads, so you just go and do a thing there. There's not many cops and up

there because there's not many people, so people can't handle their own business up there. That's that's They gave me

a lot of the basic in my skills to.

Move into a professional career.

And I heard about Volvo testing cars up in Sweden from someone that knew they were up there.

They were very secret about it.

They were using an extra military airfield up outside my town that was blocked. Couldn't get in there. It was

a military air base with three runways. Anyway, volves renting

that in winter testing prototype cars. It's like, Wow, what

a dream job to be paid to drive cars. I

was like, but I was like, it's impossible. I mean,

I live up here, this I could never become a pressure drive for driving cars. I mean, I proba have

to settle with driving trucks for my dad. And that was,

you know, good enough. But anyway, he gave me a

number to call Volvo to see if I could get a job as test driver. This person in an answer,

so he said, okay, I'm just gonna pull up yellow pages back then big phone book for Sweden, yellow page of Volver Sweden. One it handed Revolvo pretty much called

them and said, hey, I want to talk to the person in charge of testing in jock Mak for winter testing.

Okay, I'll connect to you. She said.

His name is Uligil Nason and he answered. I was like,

I got nervous, like wow, well, hey, my name is Samuel.

I live in Joka for you testing cars here? Do

you need a local driver? He's like, well, matter of fact,

I might need one. So what's your back on. Well,

we can it background my dad at a trucking comp when I be driving trucks for you him and well, you know where the parts are then that's good. And

you've been driving a lot so those are some good bases.

I'll let you know in two three weeks I'll call you back. And he did, and I remember it was

like nine in the morning. I didn't have much work

for my dad at a time, so I was kind of slow and I was sleeping.

So he woke me up and I was like, hell, are you sleeping. I'm like, yeah, I am. I'm glad.

To be honest, this is Vulvo calling, will you get another Involvo? Can you come and meet me? So he

wanted me to meet him another two hours north of our circle to another town called Kidro. Now that's where

the Isotel is, which is famous around the world the Isotel.

So bought my mom's car, drove up there, met him, and he hired me and started as a winter test driver.

And that started my career as a professional driver driving cars.

And I was fortunate enough to do a commercial for him that win because they were scouting up there for a Volvo commercial for the new Volvo eight fifty turbo in the team there looking at this test track and they were going to film there and I was like pitching my test car siways when as I drove by them sires, trying to show off for them, and it worked.

He asked my boss if they could use me locally, and I got to drive from my first commercial for them, and this.

Was nineteen ninety two ninety three the winter over there.

Wow, that's amazing.

So yeah, that's how I started.

Yeah, what a great story.

I mean, it's a testament to pursuing and going after your dreams. Yeah, some of it is Lucky had to

call you back, but you went after it.

That's that's pretty I know. I think that's it could

be encouraging for a lot of people, because you know, I think a lot of people here in the beginning, when I came and got into drifting, it thought I was I know, some people thought I was on the silver plate. They saw me the first thing in the

Dodge Viper competing. But to get there, I was involved

with them for nine years testing and doing core commercial.

I got into the race team, involve them doing touring car raising as wed and build up a lot of experience, but decided I wanted to pursue basically just living California, in the sunny California and work around cars. At the time,

I got into instructing with Skip Barber raising school and working with rich Rudtherford, which also was in part of Drifting Beginning and Fast and Fears and tenor files. We

were instructors for different schools. Of course, I was in

front seat writing shotgun instructing, not the dream, not a whole lot of income, but I was still happier than I was back in Sweden. I was in sunny California,

living my dream. But still I want to, of course

be paid to driving. Lucky and blessed enough. Drifting was

introduced two thousand and three by D one came Over introduced it at Urundell. Me and Rich heard that they

were looking for local American drivers who compete against the D one drivers for a exhibition competition.

Rich to who's Rich?

Rich Rudtherford, He's a stuntman. He was part of drifting beginning,

great old friend of mine and of Reese Millen and Rich drove of Fast and fears. It was so reach

tann myself there anyway, what's gonna go with this?

Oh?

Yeah?

So then sport of drifting we heard it was like, wow, it sounds very interesting sliding cars. This could be my

opening to get into stunt world. I get into drifting,

and that should be able to show me my skills so I can maybe get a job in some movie or commercials. That was just you know, even if I

don't have the best equipment or whatever, if I'm part of it in the beginning, it's going to be a smaller group and it's easy to get in there and get momentum.

I end up showing up with them.

Must and convertible with the V six because the car I was going to rent, the M three was rented out and the Corvette was gonna rent didn't get return in time. And I show up with must and convertible

with the V six to the first D one drivers search with the drift king and they didn't even let me even try because it was a convertible. It was

too unsafe. At the Urbandel Speedway, this is the one

that Succia came to. Yeah, wow, yeah, so she came

over to look for American drivers to compete against the D one drivers for the first exhibition competition two thousand and three in August, I believe it was.

Anyway, Rich and Nick let me pop it up in their car and we go out.

Then fifty two drivers or they DIEU Shihara, Chris Forsberg, all kinds of historically format drift drivers. But he only

accepted eight guys out of fifty two that was trying out, and he told me I call for number one. I remember,

and in the rental knees on three fifty z.

Wow.

And this is before major wide angle kits in massive forest power and all that. Or were you guys still

modifying suspension.

No, no, this was a stock knees on three fifty Z we rented. We just switched red tired to come

there and compete. Some guys had their own cars, we

didn't have once we rented just a stock one and had snapped the fuse to take away the traction and stability control out of it. Six months later two thousand

and four, in February, the first competition with points, they were not going to hold back and I was lucky enough to get into it super the same super recent random I believe, and he had built it for Pike speak.

I think, so it's a good car, and I managed to come into top ten in the first D one competition I competed in and the only non Japanese on the American drivers to make it top ten and Dodge what their more part looking for this new sport and they call me and asked me to join them for drifting for them in a viper for form a drift that start that year.

Well you kind of like the Swedish Takumi from initial D really I think about it. You grew up driving

in the snow and the gravel back home, so you naturally learned how to control a car and drift without anybody really teaching you, right, and then you come over here and you qualify number one at the first d one so chee a hand picks you and then you're in the top ten.

That's like a crazy success story.

That's amazing, Sam, because kids dream and they practice every day today to like become you. Right, But then you

grew up with this. It's like and you naturally were.

I think we're like born to be a stunt driver or a drifter or pro driver. Pretty crazy, you know.

But what I want to ask you, and I think a lot of people listening, especially young folks, is what gave you the courage to just leave home and come here?

Because you know, like through these conversations, I want to you know, share people's journeys and you know, kind of give people the process of how someone becomes successful. I mean,

I'm sure it was pretty scary to just drop everything at home and come to America. Yeah, you know, so

what gave you the courage to do that? And what

was the process of that before all the drifting stuff?

Yah know, I almost asked myself that too, now, you know, knowing how how long this journey was to get more established here and make a living driving cars because it was not an easy task. But yeah, I had a

solid test drive a job I was doing commercial for voll Over there, so I had a lot of cool stuff.

The only thing I really knew I was doing really well was and to be able to make a living doing that in motorsports or stunt drying. Was to get

over to Los Angeles and get into this part of the world where there were so many more opportunities. So

I think the sunshine the blue sky was a big drought because I was really over long winters and South Sweden has a lot of just cloudy, rainy winters. And

also one friend, Andrea, suddenly he's like, Okay, I'm moving to Floria and he just quit and moved over there.

I was like, wow, I've been talking about this for years to him, and I just did it. Life is short.

I was thinking I got to do too. If not,

I'm going to be stuck and just not getting it done.

So I just mediciation. Okay, I'm quitting my full time

job selling everything I have and I'm just going to head over here and give it a try. Because I

was like, Sweden is still there, I can always fly back to go planes every day. So when I'll give

you a chance, and I didn't, and I had to grind here for a few years, just kept knocking on doors and finally, you know, God will open up the right doors as they come, but you have.

To keep trying.

Did you know anybody in LA to help you?

I didn't know anyone in Los Angeles. Now, basically knew

a childhood friend, Linda. She married a man here, and

you peach end up there because she helped me introduce me to people down there because she knew people in Orange County. I met some people in the industry were

doing instruction stuff, so yeah, that I had got to know. Yeah,

some people which were basically want to be raised drivers that were doing instruction jobs. So I knew some people

that were scared around there, more of the a lot of the states, but we were all just hungry to be doing the sane getting and be paid a drive instead of being in the front seat pretty much.

So it's crazy now when you hear the name Tanner Fowls and Reese Millen and Samuel Hubernet, it's like the legends of the the driving community, right.

You guys, are like stable names. Now, wow, in the space.

I hope you realize that because like it's you have such an incredible story. You've kind of paved your own way.

I mean you definitely have. You sold everything to pursue

a dream, which is something that a lot of people only dream of doing but actually do it, and then to fight do your survival job, try to establish a career driving. And you're one of the I don't want

to say like the founding fathers of this, but in a way, you know, you think of stunt or drifting and who were kind of the ogs that really helped with the evolution of everything. And your name is up

there along with a couple others.

Thank you, thank you.

It also means you're old now exactly.

We are old. We are getting old, yeah, I.

Mean people talk when they bring up Tokyo Drift, where you and I met. Right, So Sam was my stunt driver.

He would actually wear a wig to look like me, right.

I mean they talk about this movie as like a classic.

Now yeah, so waiting kind of a it's a little weird, you know, so so give us just the evolution or the story, the origin story of how you eventually got into Tokyo Drift or I just started driving for Fast and Furious.

I think a lot of fans would love to hear that.

Yeah, So, as I mentioned, I saw drifting to be in a gate into the stunt world. So I was like, Okay,

I'll just do this drifting whenever is landing cars and that should be able to showcase my skills and then I get into stunt driving. That was kind of my goal,

but at that time I didn't know how big drift it was going to be, and so drifting took off, with former Drift being the US sanctioned series. I was

in Agri Champion two thousand and four and then Reas one two thousand and five. I took it back two

thousand and six, and I think ten and one two thousand and seven when I was in a charger because my car was too heavy to beat him.

I'm blaming the car.

I've had a good battley back and forth, but I was locked on a contract with some major responses like Beef, Goodrich and Dodge, so I had a lot of obligations.

I couldn't take on stunt jobs as I wanted because I had different appearances and competitions and quite frankly started making quite a lot of money doing it, so the drive of stunt driving kind of faded a little bit.

But obviously when Fast and Furious they needed the legit drifters in the movie, they had to pull people from outside and not use their current stunt drivers. So that

gave the opportunity for Reese became the main stunt driver, and Tanner and myself and Rich the four us got to do all the driving and I got to be your double. And it was a huge thing for me,

you know, finally, and it was like, wow, I was in a movie from not much experience at all here in the States, suddenly get to be part of that big movie.

And it was brutal. It was night shoot.

I think I worked for like seven weeks or something on that movie, and we worked night Monday to Friday night and then weekends off and you were just messed up because you were tweaked the hours.

I was nervous. It was like very important for me.

The car I drove. Your car was terrible.

It was so hard to drive because it was a show carven FD or Ex seven with no tour.

Just high RPM and tried to make those tire spin through the corners. In the beginning, it was so challenging,

and there was right hand driving top of that, which I hadn't had too much experience in either, So man tired middle of the night depression and slide through traffic there and keep it sideways with so much traction. It

was unbelievable. After have it take I was like, thank god,

I didn't hit anyone. Okay, that went well again, And

as we went we toarded and modified a little bit more because I popped several gear boxes and stuff because I had to clutch kick so hard to make those tides break traction. And then after a while we start

to be a little more smart about it, so we put some smaller tires in the area I wasn't. I

was too afraid to ask for anything. I was like,

I'm just going to figure out. But after a while

I was like, hey, do you want to take off some traction?

Yeah? Can we?

So they put some narrow tires towards the end, which made it so much easier. So I was like, now,

I was like, this is a piece of cake because we took away amazing so much easier.

But in the beginning, in the first couple of weeks.

It was brutal and it was not pleasant for me, but it was like just grinding, make make the best oft of this, and hopefully you get to work again.

Did you feel driving technique from racing was any different from stomp driving, because I know sometimes you want to make it look like you're not in control of the car.

I know Tokyo Drift is a different example because everyone was like green drivers in it. But did you find

there was a big difference in driving style between the two and what you needed to do?

Yeah?

I think what I learned was to keep down the speed and basically left foot breaking way more you know, more tire smoke. Yeah, slower and more more smoke and

more solids. You can do it over and nor again.

That would be the difference.

You know.

What I learned obviously pretty quickly, because I came from competing and drifting and you're trying to go as fast as possible sideways. Here was more like can we slow

it down a little? Because in camera you can make

it look fast anyway with closer angles and such. So

I learned that, yeah, you don't have to go fall glass.

You can slow it down with just left foot breaking a little bit and keep keep it smoke going, make it look spectacular, but keeople in the safer area.

And what about for modern cars, do you I imagine with all you know how smart they are. If you

love it break, does the car allow you to? Does

abs kick on? What do you guys do for stuff

like that?

Yeah? A lot of times you can't do it.

Like you know, we do a lot of car commercials all the time, and most cars they flip out if you use two feed on the pallets at the same time and goes into limp mode for like feels like seconds, but it is maybe a second or two sometimes, but sometimes it dies. So you have to just figure out

how to do without that to make the action at the right place. So that's what you always think. Where's

the camera going to capture your action? And that's when

you need to make it happen. After that, you can

spin out to do whatever, but the angle has to be there if it's about drifting, and then you can even, for example, let it rotate around if it's outside the frame.

Because as long as the director gets his shot, he's happy.

So you do whatever you can to make it look good just for the camera moment.

That's fascinating.

Do you personally like the older cars or are you Are you always keeping up with new cars in your personal life.

So, yeah, I like the future. I like new technology,

you know, I think it's exciting. I don't know much

about historic cars, Like if you go to a car show and there's a lot of fifties and forties or whatever, I don't know much so much about that. Yeah, I'm

definitely more interested about today's and the future. But for

driving wise, yeah, it gives us definitely a challenging times sometimes because the electrons. The ability control kicks in when

you're trying to get the car side way, so you can't turn it off. A lot of times you can

turn off the traction control. You can do you can spin,

you can do little burnout or get some tires rotating.

But as soon as you turn trying to get some steering angle, c kicks in and that's something sometimes you can even defeat. Sometimes we actually pull the abs sensors

and that shuts down all those features as long as the car isn't go into limp mode. Sometimes the car

can go into the limp only if you pull a few so so such so you have to figure out.

Do you get time ahead and time to try to figure this out on set or are you showing up in the day of Yeah.

It's funny how it is. It's such a short period

of time. You have time to shoot the commercial, you

say a day or two. Most of the time it's

a day, so we don't have any time. You just

got to figure out right away.

In the morning, you.

Look at the car and try to talk to the car for people if there's something you know, and then you figure yourself because as soon as the director's ready, you got on the street, you have the street locked up, you shoot and you move on and you guess said to get on the fly and don't screw up.

Well, what about for the movies like in Fast and Furious, you guys don't have time to work with the car and modify it for your personal needs to perform those stunts.

Movies are definitely better because all depends on who's making the cars to you know, Dennis mccarth, you know talent group of guys sometimes been building the cars for us for different movies, so then they're modified very well. So

it depends if you're in one of the cars for the back. Usually just another beat up car. You have

to try to do the best. But if it's a

hero car, you have some type influenced a lot of times, but unfortunately a lot of times you ask for a lot and then things are not done the way you want anyway, and you're like, really, I asked for a lot differential because this is all about triff and now they give you an open diff I'm like, okay, not to just try to flick this car and make it as size as a cant because someone missed that message getting down the line. Yeah, because there's so many people involved,

but like need for speed, throw that doublin Aaron Paul.

That was a good setup Mustang. So I made the

job very easy.

You know, good power and good diff and just normal steering angles fine on the Musting to make it look good.

I remember the Ft in Tokyo Trip when we were shooting that scene downtown where the car flips over. Yeah,

that's when they used to let the actors actually drive the cars around a little bit after that film, I basically never got in a car and drove it again.

Oh really yeah, I mean that movie was really fun because they sent us to or when they I don't know if you were there, but they had the viper, they had you know, they had the three fifty at the time, they had k car that at the Arc seven.

So they let us drive the cars around and really, you know, get a feel of it and teach us as much as I could.

After that film, we never did that again.

That's a bummer. Yeah.

And I remember Brad, one of the guys that build the cars for the movie, that works for Dennis. He

came up to me and he goes, hey, this has a like five hundred horsepower motor in it now, so be careful off the throttle because the body kid's gonna fly off.

And I was like, no, it's not, and he goes, yeah, be careful.

I thought it was joking, and then I gunned it and the bodykit fell off, so a big delay and had to stop.

And then like you know, like put it all back together. Yeah,

but I remember, yeah.

That's why that's why I had drive it, because you're broke.

Probably broka Yeah, yeah, yeah, they Yeah, we broke a lot of cars. I remember when they sent us to

irwin Dale. I got in the three point fifty and

I slammed against the wall right away because I never I never, nobody taught me how to drift. I was

just trying to just go for it. And I remember

I slammed into the wall and I was panicking.

I would have been so scared.

Yeah, I was like, oh.

Shoot, I'm gonna get fired, Like I'm gonna have to pay for this.

And then somebody came up to me and I was like, I'm so sorry, and he goes, eh, we got a whole bunch of them, don't worry.

I was like, really, So I started going crazy in all of them. That was a lot of fun.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, so you just got off of for Ari, you.

Said, Yeah, in Italy with the Michael Man and Nagel was the coordinator, so he got to do this and he did an amazing job and assembled some great guys there over there in Italy, and I got to go there there too. It was a fun experience working with

Adam Driver and the whole crew there were spectacular and see them doing their thing. Acting Patrick Dems it was

super cool with me, by the way, He's a gearhead and awesome guy to work with.

It.

We were working with him and the other actress over there too to get them to do their own driving.

So they got to drive.

And he got to see me in my element when we were coaching and driving with them, and then he got to see me in the movie setting and he saw me being nervous and he was he was like turning to encourage me because he saw that, the friend Samuel.

Because sitting there scale like my first line in my life.

I have to speak here. I barely speak English. I'm

in Sweden and now I to speak British English. But

we'll see. It was fun ad on driver's BIC Tech

with his playing and so on. To see them doing

their thing, it was powerful. So yeah, and then basically

focus on commercials and my wife's Stina doing the same.

So she's doing great too, so fun to see her doing so well. I saw her skills when we started

dating back two thousand and four, two thousand and five.

She was mainly focus in my career in the beginning, and then she got to go to a lot of driving schools when I was coaching back then, and I saw her She had a natural talent too.

She is an incredible driver. I was saying this before

we started recording, and I want to share with everyone listening that she has been a big inspiration for me for my entire career, and I have a vivid memory of a video she had posted on her socials years ago for her doing figure eights. I think in a

BMW in a parking lot. I don't know, if I

was around, I think, oh, sorry, though, yeah, for a Natto commercial. I was like, Wow, that is the coolest

thing I have seen a woman, not Dequals. In the world.

There's incredible women. I don't want to, you know, leave

anyone out, but that at the time for me, I was like wow that. I looked up to it and

I was like, I want to try to do that.

And that was a representation that I didn't have at the time to be like, you know, this beautiful girl is driving a car and out driving probably a lot of men out there too, like I want to I want to try that. I want to do that, And

she was a big inspiration to me starting to slide cars around.

First of all, it's cool, just you think it was Anito Tiger merge because we were just promoting them because they were hooking us with tires, so definitely it's crazy.

I remember specifically that too.

So manufacturers out there give people some free things. It works.

You know, we promote you guys and you will sell more pars. But yeah, Stina did that in the BMW.

This was way back when Facebook was more influence. I

had more power, and this thing went viral. A lot

of kids sitting there and just hammering on her, bash talking her, and I know it shouldn't affect you, but it did. But it did in a good way for

me because I was like, you know what, all these criticals bashing on my wife saying, you know, she should go back to the kitchen and what is she doing?

They did because I know they were all jealous, but it trigged me and made me inspired to take it to the next level. And that's the reason we got

the Lamborghini Hurricount, because like, I got inspired. You know what,

I'm going to shut them all off. I'm going to

get a supercar.

It's going to be a card.

They haven't even been sitting in think it's going to be so cool, so they're going to be as quiet.

And that's what I did with Stina. We got her account,

got need the tires on board, the sponsor us to go do a video with Donut Media, we got to do with Lamborghin you per Beach and we took the car and drifted Lamborghini and you pur Pach Dealership around millions of dollars of the cars.

And she did an amazing job.

And that video took her into a whole other level too, and she got more respect than she got more commercials, and no one criticized it because she did such an amazing job in a supercar, which is really hard to drink. Yeah,

they're not easy to handle with the engine sitting there.

It's a handful, especially with millions of dollars around you because that you had to pay if you crash them. Anyway,

that was a cool thing and it came out of that anger of naysayers. I'm going to show them wrong,

and she did.

I'm not surprised to hear that she got roasted. I'm

sorry that that happened, but I mean, I still get it today. I almost didn't even YouTuber pursue a career

in cars because of how terrible of a backlash I was getting of some of the worst things people could say to anyone, and you're reading them online, you're by yourself.

You get in your head about it. And it's people

who are just jealous at the end of the day, who like, well, I can't believe I'm not there doing that, so instead I'm just gonna hate on this person because I'm mad at myself.

Exactly. There were just sex there was so respectful for her.

Well good came out of it because for me, I was like, I'm going to learn how to do a figure eight and like slide right into the camera.

Exactly.

It's really cool.

That's the best way to use that type of negativity is make it to something better and go back and show them wrong.

What's the saying, No one doing more than you is going to talk shit on you or something like that, or you're never going to hear negativity from the people doing more than you. It's only people doing less.

Yeah, and she did something important. I mean she influenced

people like Amelia.

Now you are doing the same. So it's pretty cool.

It's just going to be a good wave of you know, positivity for other women.

Thank you. I hope only leave a good impact on

this earth.

You will. Thanks Sam.

When you watch these films with cars and these you know, car stunts, do you feel like from when we shot Tokyo Drift to where it is now with all the CG and special effects.

Do you think it's gotten better or worse in your opinion?

So for me, it's being worse. But I understand that

the new generation they're so use to CEGI and video game type of the experience. I haven't been playing many

video games the last ever, really, so I see that they feel it's okay when cars are flying to the moon and everything and being so unrealistic.

I still in an old school.

I like when it's just real deal driving and it's actually done for real instead of CGI and faking everything.

So for me it's tough to see. To be honest,

I haven't even watched the last first Fast and Few Moose.

I was in number nine myself, but I didn't see myself.

Did you drive in that film? Did you get to

do anything cool stunts or anything?

Nothing? Spectatically? I was asked to come and do doubling

four Vindez's brother. I believe it was himself in nine.

When they're done in Thailand for a month or two down there, I was going to do the driving main driving.

Spiro called me, which is you know, the second year director for Fast and you're amazing talent man. So it

was an honor to have a phone call. But I

turned it down because the time away was not attracted to me that time. I have three kids, a wife.

I want to be home, and also we were going to We're going to Sweden every summer, so it's a tradition we want to do. And I was going to

be in Thailand for one or two months and then to the country Georgia for another month. So it was

it was too much commitment, so I turned it down.

But I did that the NASCAR scene at d you did, yeah, when when he had got a flashback with his father.

That's all I know because I didn't watching it myself.

But we got to drive Nascars for two three days.

It was fun, just going hard around there and get an experience a lot of seat time in Nascars.

It was fun.

That's cool.

That's the best part of the movie. By the way,

I did see the film, and that was the best part.

Maybe I have to watch it now, just watch that part.

It's really hard. It's really good. It's really awesome.

Okay, having a relationship and staying married in this business is hard because you have so much time away.

You know, like, how do you balance that your family?

You have three kids now, and you know, and I can see that you're super involved as a dad, and you have like a Hollywood family.

It's like some I see pictures.

Or a non Hollywood family.

Yeah, like it's a movie family exactly, family picture perfect.

So what do you guys do to balance that?

I mean, for me, basically, I never pursued the movie world.

I didn't.

I didn't take on and go travel the world and do big movies because there's film mainly out of California, a state focused on doing cor commercials to make a living and being home more. That's the best recipe, I think. Yeah,

so just trying to work here more. I take on

two three weeks of something, maybe on the movie car chase scenes, because that's what I do. I do car

chase more specific. I don't do big crashes. I have

an old bit bless I don't want to wake it up.

So yeah, that's for the stunt man.

Yeah, I'll do the driving. So I'm being blessed to

make a living doing that. It's a side note. When

I was at Fast and FEWIORUS three, I met a lot of stuntmen there legends done all the historic movies, and I remember one of them. I forgot his name,

but he said, well, if you're going to make in this industry, you need to be able to do everything right horses, fire fight scenes, everything. Otherwise it's not going

to work.

Okay.

I said, thank you for the advice, and I was thinking, no, that's not me. I'm going to make it through with

just driving cars because that's all I know I'm really good at and I don't want to fall from buildings because I'm afraid of heights. Yeah, type of thing. I

just believe it's going to work, and and it did.

But yeah, I mean, why not be great at one thing instead of good at several?

Right?

Yeah, I mean I think both works. But for me,

it was about just folks and driving. That's all I

want to do. I love driving anything. Just give me

a vehicle. It's fun.

Do you feel like the kids today are less into actually cars and like modifying cars from when you were growing up.

I mean, I think so, there's so many other distractions now and people can uber see they don't need to have a license, So it sounds like I mean, also, you read up about it how percentage have gone down to sixteen year olds to get their driver's license. Like

that was one of the biggest days in my life, the day I got my driver's license.

I mean, I was so happy. So, I mean, it

is what it is.

I guess here in La we wish there were less cars on the roads, so the traffics. I guess, my

biggod thing take the bus, so go together.

Do you notice that with your friends, Amilia, in your generation.

You know, I want to be in denial of it.

Say no, everyone's stole in the cars. I think when

I was living in Indiana, what we would do on the weekend was just work on cars, swap turbos, built engines.

And as I've gotten older and especially out here, it's more everyone's stile in the cars, but it's more let's go driving the canyons, let's wrench on the cars.

I mean, it seems like at least in LA there's like a massive explosion of JDM FURV. Like these kids

are like all into the you know, the R thirty fours and thirty five.

Yeah, there's definitely appreciation there, but compared to just wrenching on cars from like twenty years ago, I wonder.

I wonder if it's a status symbol thing with these maybe.

Yeah, late they also been, I mean starting to make more cowboy movies. Right, it's like a new trend with

yellow Stone and everything is like coming back with horses and stuff. So changing in the movie world, coming back

to some more western style old school movies and stuff too.

So when you do your stunts, who handles all the safety expects and stuff?

Is that you?

Yeah?

So when we do car commercials, generally we're just one or two cars usually in car commercials, and we are the ones handling ourselves, just between us and the camera.

Cord drive to be working with us such whoever got hired by the director, he's kind of more in charge, and he maybe brings in a couple more drivers for the other cars, and together we just discussed the shoot and we get it done and move on.

You know, the stunt performers are the most underappreciated people on set. A lot of the times I think about

it and I go, you know, how many people on the movie set actually risk their lives to come to work, And it's the stunt folks that actually are in that position.

I mean, the actors, we don't have anything complain about them.

There are people, you know, bringing us water and holding an umbrella, like so you know, the sun doesn't hit you.

Like we're have a heated trailer and a TV and a couch and.

So spoiled, you know, and you know, so I just want to say thank you Sam for everything you do, because you know, a lot of people give me credit for these movies and they're like, oh, you're so cool and you're like an amazing.

Driver, and I tell them and I'm very like up front, I go, that's not me.

I'm not the one doing that. It's this guy from Sweden,

you know. I mean it's all hilarious. Look what when

he's in the costume, he's in my costume and he.

Has a wig on.

I hope you guys took a photo together.

We have photos, I know I have. I have them somewhere.

Yeh's fine. The Yeah, it would be fun to see.

I think I small ones. But yeah. No, there's no

Oscar at all for any of the stunt cred he or anything.

You know, I haven't thought about that. Do they do

stunt awards of any kind?

We have our own, but it's sponsored by Red Bull just for the stunt community itself. What's that called Taurus? Yeah,

the Taurus that makes Taurus world stunt to words, that.

Makes sense and it should be televised and you know, yeah, it's kind of like Hollywood's dirty secret that you know, these men and women risk their lives to make all the actors look good, and you know what doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Do you have advice for people who want to get into stunts or specifically driving, if they want to build their career into the space.

Yeah, so I get I get that question sent to me a lot on you know, social media platform. So

many people reach out to me and ask him because you know, of course it's a dream job for many and it's so hard because it's like there's no specific way to come in. But I usually tell them, got

to move where the business is to start, like I did.

You can't sit in some little town in Oklahoma and hoping to be a stunt driver or something. You got

to go where it happens. I would say Los Angeles

as a good spot. Maybe actually Georgia right now, Atlanta,

Georgia has a lot of TV shows and then just start networking. You have to build up some type of

restume on yourself, which means you need to spend some money and get your own car and start showing how eager you are and do driving and meet other people and hopefully meet someone that maybe get you in it says, as a backup driver or something, and just keep hustling.

And there's no guarantee. It could take many years.

It's so much responsibility because we're in big vehicles to cause so much damage if you make a mistake, causing lives and equipment. So I mean, I basically tell people

it's easy to become an actor. There's more actor jobs

than stunt work almost because there's a lot of different shows and acting jobs, but stunt drivers a smaller community.

It's tough, but if you really believe we are the best, the best and can succeed, just keep trying.

Let work.

Yeah, and also, you know, I can add to that a lot of you know, people that I've met, you know in the stunt community that you know, they fizzle out pretty quickly because they might have talent, you know, and they have the ability. But the thing that sets

someone like Samuel Laparte is that when he comes to set, there is this wonderful energy about him. You know, he

says hello and everybody, there's no ego. You know, he's

really pleasant to be around. That's why, you know, after

all of these years, it's like, you know, I'd love being around sam and you can only speak highly of him.

And that's something that I think a lot of people forget, is that you can have talent, but your personality and your enthusiasm and your passion for what you do and the energy that you know you put out there and you know, being a collaborator.

You know, he's just fantastic.

There are you know, some dudes that show up and they have this attitude and this ego and I'm too cool for school and stuff, and you know, after a couple of times, you don't want to be around those people.

So you know it's like it's a relationship is this and you know, and you know everybody loves Samuel, you know, so that's something that you know, you know, for the listeners out there, it's like work on your craft, but then also work on yourself, like you know, be a cool person to be around, being kind, to be kind, be a good mood dude, being nothing.

To be nice to people and everyone's fighting a battle you know nothing about.

So yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

I mean everybody is important on the on the commercial movie that you know, the ones cleaning or fixing or feeding.

I mean it's a team, so you have to respect everybody.

And again that little worker doing something over there, he might be the next producer.

So you never know. We all come from nowhere most

and then we get somewhere because we're going to keep climbing the ladder, So respect and treat everybody, saying.

Yeah, everyone has to start somewhere.

Yeah yeah, well thanks Sam, thanks for your time, thanks for your words.

You know you guys too. Yeah, still come up with

some more fun stuff.

I hope.

So yeah, yeah, we'll make some cool stuff yeah before we leave this earth.

Yeah exactly.

All right, thank you so much for coming on, having you guys.

Thank you all right.

M

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