Let’s get real. No matter how beautifully they seem to move, those bat toys in The Dark Knight — or in any of the Batman films, for that matter — were designed for looks, not maneuverability. How else to explain the dune buggy tires and low-slung seat of the Bat-Pod? Still, where there are vehicles, there are people with the guts and skill to drive them. In the case of the Bat-Pod, that honor went to French stunt rider Jean-Pierre Goy.
Goy — whose daredevil jump from one building to another over a hovering helicopter in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies is one of the most awesome motorcycle stunts ever made for film — insists he is not “a crazy stuntman” and that skill and planning guide his moves. “When I say, ‘OK, we shoot,’ I am 100 percent sure that all is OK,” he tells me.
Goy began his career jumping with horses when he was a young child. At age 16, he says, “I sold my horse and bought my first motorbike. I began by trail racing. I went in the river, in the woods, on the rocks. … It’s very good for the balance.” He retired from racing in the mid’80s to concentrate on shows, and did a bit of work for television and film until his big break with the Bond film — a stunt he regards as his favorite.
But nothing quite prepared him for the Bat-Pod. “It’s not a car. It’s not a bike. It’s not a cycle,” he says in his beautifully accented English. “When you see the Bat-Pod, your eyes stay all the time on it and you can’t move them. It’s so big. It’s a crazy bike.”
He tried driving it in an empty parking lot. “I had a good feeling, but the bike had no brakes, the engine was not OK, and I had many problems with the front wheel — she move, she move. My specialty is motorbikes for show or movies.” Goy asked for a few adjustments, such as brakes, and was ready to roll.
During the two months he spent filming in Chicago, he rode only the Bat-Pod because it was so totally different from his usual bikes. He brought his wife and daughter with him. By day, they toured Chicago; by night, he worked on the film.
“It was a dream to work with Chris Nolan and Christian Bale, but the biggest dream was to work with the stunt drivers on the movie,” he says. “I think I am American because they accepted me very fast.” And the high point of the experience? “LaSalle Street — with the helicopter and the fire and the car, and I go very fast in the street with the bike and the cape, and in that moment I am really Batman. And this is a very good feeling. I am more happy to be the stuntman than an actor in this moment.”
The Bat-Pod has been such a hit with fans of Bruce Wayne’s toys that it’s likely to figure into any Dark Knight sequel made. If so, Goy is ready to don the cape and fire up the Bat-Pod for another run through Chicago’s streets.