Twitter went a bit crazy on Sunday night when stylist and designer, actress and self-proclaimed stuntwoman Sulinh Lafontaine claimed she performed car-driving stunts in a recent CNN iReport interview in lieu of the latest premiere of director James Wan's new movie, Furious Seven. It wasn't the first time she claimed having performed work on the movie, having also given mention to it in a previous interview done back in January.
Well, it appears that her otherwise falsely-stated credits are paying a heavy price. The stunt community is a tightly-knit one and word tends to get around mighty fast when someone says or does something significant in any capacity. For Lafontaine, it looks as if this is no exception seeing as how the CNN iReport interview published by Joyce Chow was taken down sometime thereafter with a Facebook post later shared and messaged through by LaFontaine herself that reads as follows.
Dear friends and co-workers, Please accept my humblest apologies for any confusion and/or misunderstandings with... http://t.co/3mzwTyE0it
— Sulinh LAFONTAINE (@sulinh) April 6, 2015 Dear friends and co-workers,
Please accept my humblest apologies for any confusion and/or misunderstandings with regards to the CNN iReport article “Furious 7 World Premiere with female stunt car driver Sulinh Lafontaine”. As you are all aware I am new to this industry and I am learning as I go along. I had no idea that an inconsequential interview of a few questions about my experience working with all of you, would create such a rift between us. I assure you, I meant no harm and I hope you will accept my apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused. I am new to this industry and I hope that in the future you can give me advice on how to better handle this type of situation, if it ever arises again. The article has now been taken down. Thanks for being understanding while I learn the Hollywood ropes.
I had not heard of this woman until today, although Lafontaine's credits in film, while manipulable on IMDb, appear to extend as far back as 2003, so it's unlikely that her newcome stance into the industry is so new as to be so coy let alone think her apology would fly among other professionals (Comments on Twitter as well as Facebook are obviously telling a different story).
Moreover, it's unfortunate that someone in her supposed field would do something as foolish as this, and if there is anyway she can try to remedy this in some way shape or form, I certainly hope she finds it. If she's as talented as she claims to be, I would love to share her stunt reel, although at this stage any ascension of her career in film may have flondered as a result in this open (and repeated) lapse in judgement.
This is probably not the first time someone in the industry ever lied or mistated about something they did, as much as it is frowned upon greatly. In addition, I don't normally write pieces like this as it's quite discomforting to discuss controversy in any shape or form; In this instance, I think it's fair to advise not to let something like this get in the way of the bigger narrative set by this film's release as it is meant to be a celebration in the memory of one of the film's most beloved actors.
However, the fact remains that as vast as the community is, its internal networking pockets are tightly knit, especially with the use of social media to connect as well as to rally for an open a door to a conversation regarding the long-awaited and much-debated inclusion of stunt coordination as a major category for the Oscars, particularly with regard to this film's release at that. And, seeing as how this is bound to make the rounds anyway, and seeing as how my blog is, in many ways, relevant with my correspondence to the stunt community on a daily basis, as well as someone who has an artistic past of his own and knows what it means to be credited for hardwork done - whether its paid for or not, I felt compelled to say something. So, that's that.
Get it together, Sulinh, you've got a lot of work to do. And congratulations to stuntwoman Debbie Evans Leavitt for her work on this incredible film.
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