After Mountaintop’s Jon Trosky finished training Mickey Rourke for ” The Wrestler,” he decided to gamble away all of his earnings from the film.
But Trosky didn’t park himself at a blackjack table, or bend the arm of a slot machine. On the advice of stunt coordinator Douglas Crosby, Trosky spent $2,500 to join the Screen Actors Guild. ”I used every last cent I made on ‘The Wrestler’ and kicked in about $200 of my own money,” says Trosky, who wrestles as the Supreme Lee Great.
That gamble paid off. In the months since ”The Wrestler” wrapped, Trosky has re-invented himself as a stunt double. He’s done stunt work on two New York-shot productions starring Nicole Kidman (”The Rabbit Hole”) and Jennifer Aniston (”The Baster”). He was a Fire Nation warrior in M. Night Shyamalan’s ”The Last Airbender” and survived a run-in with a road-raging driver in ”Remember Me.” All the films are scheduled for 2010 release.
In ”Remember Me,” Trosky has a scene with ‘ ‘Twilight” sensation Robert Pattinson, whom he describes as ”a gentleman, and very British. Rob was really nice to me but I don’t understand why all the girls go crazy about him.” Kidman, on the other hand, impressed Trosky. ”She really jaw-dropped me,” he says. ”Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect body.”
At the moment, Trosky’s talent for taking a punch is on view in ”Big Fan,” a dark comedy written and directed by ”Wrestler” director Robert D. Siegel. In the film, opening Friday in Philadelphia, Patton Oswalt stars as an obsessed New York Giants fan. One night, Oswalt follows his favorite player from a Staten Island gas station to a Manhattan strip club. When the player realizes he’s being stalked, he serves Oswalt a knuckle sandwich.
”Then, I step in and take the beating,” says Trosky, 28, who also teaches computer science at Lehigh Carbon Community College. ”I get thrown to the ground from an elevated platform and then the player’s friends join in and they all give me a beat down.”
Trosky’s career as a stunt double is going so well that a few weeks ago he decided to retire from wrestling after whooping the Dynamic Sensation. Says the actor, ”Every time I step into the ring, I’m reminded of just how real ‘fake’ wrestling can be.”
TRICK OR TREAT
Keep your eyes peeled for Bethlehen native Daniel Roebuck in Rob Zombie’s ” Halloween II,” opening Friday. Best known for his turns in ”River’s Edge,” ”The Fugitive” and ”Lost,” Roebuck reprises his role as Lou Martini, the owner of the Rabbit in Red Lounge, in this continuation of 2007’s Michael Myers reboot.