Va. Tech grad racking up Hollywood stunt credits

Everyone knows Superman comes from the planet Krypton. Yet it’s perhaps not so well known that his stunt double was born in Virginia.

Virginia Tech graduate Paul Darnell, 31, helped introduce the 75-year-old superhero to a new audience in the Zack Snyder-helmed summer blockbuster “Man of Steel.”

This doesn’t mean that there’s much to see of Darnell on-screen. He acted more as a proverbial guinea pig, testing and rehearsing stunts with the second unit director to figure out how they’d work best on film. Then star Henry Cavill would come in and perform the stunt himself. “Luckily for us Henry is a very physically talented individual,” Darnell wrote in an email. “Henry is pretty much a stuntman, he did all of his own stunts.”

However, Darnell did get to wear the suit and cape.

Born in Gloucester, Darnell was part of the gymnastics club team at Virginia Tech and had ambitions to become a stuntman from the get-go.

“College was my back-up plan,” he wrote. “I actually started off as a computer science major, but as the classes progressed my understanding of them did not and my interest waned. I then looked for a major that would help or be somehow related to stunts.”

He ended up graduating in 2006 with a fitness-related degree in human nutrition, foods and exercise.

While at Tech, he discovered a passion for freerunning — an athletic street activity that grew from the discipline called Parkour that involves running, jumping and flipping over, around and through obstacles.

“Being able to use my body to move creatively through my environment just clicked with me and I wanted then to help grow and expose the world to the sport,” he wrote. He moved to Los Angeles. “L.A., being the birthplace of skateboarding, seemed like the perfect place to build a freerunning company and pursue my childhood dream of becoming a stuntman.”

Skill at freerunning proved to be his ticket into the business. “My big break happened when a friend introduced me to Scott Rogers, who was looking for a Parkour double for Adam Sandler on the film ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.’ ” Darnell had a lock on the job, he wrote, “since Parkour and freerunning were still very new to the U.S. and I was the only freerunner in L.A. they could find . … It was an amazing experience getting to work with famous actors, big name stuntmen, travel in first class and make good money.”

Darnell went on that same year to double for Rob Pattinson in the smash hit “Twilight,” based on the Stephenie Meyer novel of the same name. Pattinson played sullen vampire hearthrob Edward Cullen. At the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, when Pattinson and fellow “Twilight” actor Cam Gigandet won “Best Fight,” Pattinson thanked Darnell, saying he “did pretty much everything in the fight.”

Other movies on Darnell’s resume include “Race to Witch Mountain,” “Fast Five” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.”

At the moment, though, he’s not on set, but concentrating on his business, Tempest Freerunning Academy.

“My dream was to create one of the funnest places for a freerunner to train and now we are opening up our second one. Now people will get two times the fun!”

Nutcracker auditions

Southwest Virginia Ballet will hold its annual auditions for “The Nutcracker” from 2 to 5 p.m. Sept. 8 at Tanglewood Mall. Auditions are open to children ages 7 and older. Dance experience is preferred but not necessary. Advanced dance students and adults should contact artistic director Pedro Szalay via email at pedro@svballet.org prior to the auditions.

The company requests that candidates arrive with a registration form already filled out. The form can be downloaded at www.svballet.org/nutcrackerauditions.htm.

Performances take place Dec. 13-15 in the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre at the Roanoke Civic Center. For more information, call 387-3978 or email executive director Nancy Kelderhouse at nancy@svballet.org.

RAMP dedicates new mural

The Roanoke Art Mural Project, RAMP for short, dedicated its latest mural on Aug. 24.

Roanoke artist Scott “Toobz” Noel painted “Whimcycle” on the side of the H20 Heater performance venue at 813 Fifth Street S.W. in Roanoke. The mural, which true to its title depicts a whimsical bicycle and rider, was co-sponsored by RIDE Solutions, a service of the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission that encourages cycling.

RAMP, run by Roanoke community activist Mim Young, has orchestrated the creation of four previous public murals since 2011, as well as the musical note-decorated crosswalk in front of Roanoke Symphony Orchestra’s offices at Campbell Avenue and Williamson Road downtown. The murals are funded in various ways, including by donations or grants.

RAMP has already announced a new project, a 53-foot-wide mural inside Valley View Mall to be painted by Craig County High School art teacher and Virginia Western Community College adjunct faculty member Jonathan Murrill.

For more information, visit the Roanoke Art Mural Project on Facebook.

Roanoke College art shows

The Olin Hall Galleries at Roanoke College begin their exhibition seasons Friday with two new art shows.

“Line/Body/Action/Time” by the college’s artist in residence, Christine Heller, includes paintings from her series “Lives of Children” and “In Our Name: Iraqi Children in War,” stark images depicting the trauma of war and the struggles of childhood. Heller will also create a mural in Olin Gallery reflecting her interest in dance and the human figure. For more about Heller, visit christinehellerstudio.com.

In “Dark Inside,” artist Jessica Wohl takes portraits and magazine advertisements and draws or sews on them to change images of smiling faces into something dark and strange, “subverting domestic representations of perfection and happiness,” as publicity materials put it. For more about Wohl, visit jessicawohl.com.

Heller will give a lecture at 5:30 p.m. Friday in the Olin Recital Hall. A reception in Smoyer Gallery at 6 p.m. will follow for both shows. For more information, call 375-2332 or visit roanoke.edu/olingallery.

On the Arts blog

Visit blogs.roanoke.com/arts to see an image of Fincastle artist Helen Hubler’s “Woman Warrior,” a portrait of women in the U.S. military.

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