In 2018, 27-year-old Casey Michaels was one of many stunt professionals playing undead wights on the set of "The Long Night," the episode where the Night King and his army of the dead fought against the living at Winterfell. In one stunt, Michaels and 26 other performers had to drop approximately 12 feet onto a landing rig below. The first take went fine. Then, Michaels alleges that stunt coordinator Rowley Irlam told them to drop "like a pencil." Since they were playing zombies, they wouldn't be able to spot their landings, and he would "call anyone out" who looked down. An assistant stunt coordinator claimed that, between takes thick crash mats were swapped for thinner ones. According to Michaels, the switch was made to increase dramatic effect and the performers were not told.
On the second take, Michaels landed with all her weight on her left ankle. “I hit the floor and heard my bones breaking underneath me,” she told Deadline. She alleges that she and another stunt performer had to be taken to the hospital. There's even video of the stunt (it's not graphic):
Michaels was on crutches for nearly a year and had five operations. Her career as a stuntwoman over, she sued a subsidiary of HBO's parent company Warner Bros. Discovery in 2021. The studio settled the case in 2023, paying her £7 million, or around $9.3 million.
Although HBO admitted liability in the lawsuit, Rowley Irlam was not a defendant. “As an experienced stunt coordinator of over 20 years, I have successfully and safely managed hundreds of complex stunt sequences across film and television," he said in a statement. "We put great care into designing stunt sequences with safety as the top priority. In the rare instances when an injury does occur, it is deeply upsetting for everyone involved."
"The unfortunate incident involving Casey Michaels took place seven years ago. The matter was resolved between Casey Michaels and the production company a year and a half ago. I was not a party in the litigation, and I was not involved in the decision to settle the claim. The settlement between the parties to the litigation does not reflect any admission of fault on my part. There were no rulings or findings of fault against me personally."
Deadline points out that there have been other stunt performers injured under Irlam's watch. Andy Pilgrim sued Fire & Blood Productions for £200,000 ($267,000) in 2019, claiming he was injured while performing as a wight in the season 5 episode "Hardhome." HBO eventually settled the case by paying Pilgrim, who continues to work in the field, £500,000 ($669,000). Two other anonymous performers say they were injured while working under Irlam in 2010 in the Marvel movie Captain America: The First Avenger.
Two months after suffering her injury, Casey Michaels was one of 80 performers asked to contribute £300 towards a gift for Irlam. That pool eventually raised £24,000, which was used to buy Irlam an an Audemars Piguet watch. Michaels was told that contributing towards the gift was voluntary and would “not impact any future employment,” but she doesn't believe that. “Everybody knew there would be repercussions for not paying,” she said.
Equity, Irlam's union, issued guidance to stunt coordinators some two years before this incident not to accept gifts from anyone they had the power to employ in of £25 in value, saying that it was “seriously out of kilter with sound practice in the modern workplace.” Irlam has acknowledged that “[t]he giving and receiving of the end-of-season gift reflected poor judgment."
This is not enough for Casey Michaels. “I can forgive accidents. I can forgive mistakes. I cannot forgive lies,” she said. “Two people went to hospital, and they [the Game of Thrones stunt coordinators] are still denying that they did anything wrong. Their egos are so great that they cannot put their hands up and say: ‘We understand this was wrong. We will correct this, we will do better, we will learn from our mistakes.”
Rowlry Irlam is coordinating stunts for the third season of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, which is filming right now. HBO is standing by him. “We are saddened to learn about the adversity Ms Michaels has experienced and take these matters very seriously," said a spokesperson for the network. "Mr Irlam is a celebrated and respected stunt coordinator and has an extensive history with HBO productions. As an expert in such a physically demanding field, we remain confident in his abilities and know he has always done everything possible to maintain the high safety standards that are required on our productions.”
It's unclear if Michaels will bring legal action against Irlam; at the least, it seems as though she wants to get the word out about these kinds of problems in the stunt industry.
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