Aja Frary has nearly 20 years of experience working in the film industry

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

It has been almost 20 years since Aja Frary took a breather from competing at a world-class level, a track and field standout from Vancouver.

She took a break after an injury. 

It turned into the biggest break of her life.

“Pun intended, it’s a career I fell into,” Frary said in a phone interview this week.

For the past 19 years, Frary has been falling down, jumping off buildings, crashing cars, fighting, and taking the occasional bullet or two, working as a stunt woman in the film business.

Her biography on the Internet Movie Database lists 149 credits, plus 11 more in the works, including the new Superman, which is set to be released in the summer of 2025. Frary has worked on many huge projects — Joker, The Dark Knight Rises, The Wolf of Wall Street, a couple Spider-Man movies, and more — as well as television institutions such as the Law & Order family of productions.

“The career basically found me and swept me off my feet,” Frary said.

It was a journey that allowed her, in a way, to become a professional athlete. Just not in the traditional sense. She never made the Olympics, but she has used her athletic ability — a gift from God, she says — to become part of an incredible team of stunt performers in an industry she adores.

Frary was a multisport athlete at Evergreen High School in the 1990s, excelling in track and field. From Evergreen, she went to Washington State University for one year, with the goal of becoming a heptathlete. Her coach in Pullman told her she was not the right fit for the heptathlon, so she left the Cougars for San Diego State. 

Within a year, she earned a full scholarship with the Aztecs and would go on to win two conference championships. After her junior year, she was ninth in the U.S. Olympic Trials. Her senior year, she finished third in the NCAA Championships. By the way, the No. 1 heptathlete from WSU that year finished fourth. 

“That was a great way to end my (college) career,” Frary said with a laugh, still the competitor. 

After college, Frary took on the challenge of becoming a world-class athlete on the world’s stage, hoping to make the Olympics by 2004. An injury put that dream on hold, but led to a series of events which would change her life.

She was living in New York when a college friend, who had a brother in the stunt business, told Aja that a production in the city was looking for young, strong women.

“The stunt business, because of my athletic background … just really embraced me,” she said.

It turned out, falling off a building or getting beat up was easier than taking on the athletes in the heptathlon.

“At a world-class level, those girls are 6-1, 6-2. I’m 5-7, 115 pounds,” Frary said. 

Her first film was American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington. She was the stunt double for “Eva,” the main character’s wife, in the film. 

Her first stunts were not difficult, Frary said. She fell out of a car, she recalled. A lot of shootouts, and falling to the ground. Nothing too crazy.

“Nobody is going to take you off the street and tell you to go jump off this building,” Frary said. “You have to train for many years to have the know-how and gain the trust.”

That first experience on set, though, was “enough for me to see a door into a new life.”

A member of the union, she jumped all-in into the biz.

Now, she is closing in on 200 movie and TV credits, performing gags — stunt lingo — with various degrees of difficulty. 

A few years ago, she performed a “car cannon.” 

Frary was driving a car, and then she pushed an execution button. 

“The car goes boom, and over I went. It went over on its side,” Frary said. “The actress was being chased by the bad guy. He deploys a rocket and hits her car.”

Oh, is that all?

Frary says it as if it is just another day on the job. Well, it is the job, but it is not just any day on a set. A stunt like that takes days of preparation. There are many departments working on the stunt, too. 

“Safety is the No. 1 priority,” Frary said.

The stunt coordinator needs to trust the stunt performer, and vice versa. That is why, Frary said, it takes years for a performer to earn that trust, first starting in the business with “easy” gags before the more complicated, dangerous jobs.

Frary said she uses her background in sports to help her prepare her for the more challenging stunts.

“I’ve always done well under pressure,” Frary said. “I’ve always been able to execute under pressure. It was a natural fit for me.”

A major track and field meet, or a big stunt, requires a strong mindset.

“It is like a day at a big competition,” she said. “You’ve done the work. You can expect the results because you prepared. Now it’s time to execute.”

Frary has jumped off a 50-feet building, using a wire for safety, of course. She has driven Hummers and tanks, and she has had a lot of on-camera fighting through the years.

Her 3-year-old daughter, Daren, knows what Mom does for a living. Aja is looking forward to showing Daren some of her work, when Daren gets older.

Speaking of aging, Aja Frary is in her 40s now, but she proudly displayed on her Instagram recently that her biological age is 14.2 years younger than her real age. Those were results from a recent health test she took.

“That gave me a great tickle, a good laugh,” Frary said.

She plans on retiring at the real age of 55. Frary said she has always been a “saver” and is doing well with her finances. 

“You’re only as good as your last job,” Frary said of the challenges of being in the film industry. “As soon as I’m done with one job, I’m unemployed.”

She also was out of work when she was pregnant, then in the pandemic, and during a recent strike in the industry. 

“If I wasn’t a saver, it would have made life a lot more difficult,” she said.

She is also an investor, with properties in New York, Georgia, and Alabama.

“I don’t ‘live’ anywhere,” she said. “I am pretty much bi-coastal. I work in L.A., New York, and Atlanta.”

With close to 20 years in the business, she has several favorite sets. In her world, it is about the people she works with, her family in the stunt business. So while she has performed on much bigger films, she said one of her favorites was Premium Rush, a story of a bike messenger filled with chases throughout New York City streets. 

Frary was even nominated for a Taurus World Stunt Awards for “Hardest Hit.” The Taurus is similar to an Oscar, but for stunts.  

She has also worked with some big names. 

She recently was the stunt driving double for Halle Berry for an upcoming film called “Crime 101.” 

“I had a great time on that. Halle is such a genuine, kind, amazing person,” Frary said.

Frary also worked on 21 episodes of the TV series Quantico, the stunt double for lead actress Priyanka Chopra Jones. Frary said Chopra Jones is an athlete who can do just about anything, including many of her own stunts. 

Frary also had a “fight” with former UFC champion Ronda Rousey in Blindspot. Frary said she was honored when Rousey used one of her famous moves to take down Frary.

Frary has not lived in Clark County since leaving for college and then embarking on this incredible journey, but she still visits family and friends.

She said her time at Evergreen High School was instrumental in her life, noting how supportive her coaches were, naming Tina Bump and the late Gene Moore. Her time with the Plainsmen was her first introduction to what it truly was like to be part of a team. She said she has taken those lessons to heart in her stunt career.

“I still miss Evergreen. I loved Evergreen,” Frary said. “One of the best chapters of my life.”

Today, Frary’s IMDB page keeps updating chapters of her career. A stunt here, and a stunt there, and another one over there.

Look closely, though, and one will also notice a few acting credits. Yes, Frary has had some lines in front of the camera.

One in particular is of note. She had a monologue as “Manic Servant” on the show Twisted Metal just before being “killed.”

“I’ve had a few lines here and there over the years, but this was the first time all eyes were on me and I had to speak the words instead of just the action,” Frary said. “I don’t want to do lines. I was like a fish out of water. I never had the desire to act. Every once in a while it happens. But really, my lane is action. That’s where I’m comfortable.”

Then, speaking as a true stunt woman:

“Getting the bullet to the head and falling down is the easy part.”