This week on Liberty Risk, we sit down with a man who’s lived more lives than most movie characters - Vietnam Veteran, Navy Seabee, cowboy, and one of Hollywood’s original stunt legends: Jim Wilkey. If you’ve ever watched a semi-truck flip end over end in The Dark Knight, seen Stallone crash through a wall in Cobra, or watched Clint Eastwood tear through a chase scene in The Rookie, chances are Jim was the guy behind the wheel - or flying through the windshield.

The full Liberty Risk crew is finally back in studio, and the energy is full throttle from the start. Jim takes us back to Northern California, growing up as a cowboy kid hauling hay, riding rodeo, and unknowingly training for the future stunt life. When Vietnam escalated, he joined the Navy Seabees - operating bulldozers in the jungle, building runways under fire, and living through the kind of war stories Hollywood later tried to recreate.

When he came home to a country that didn’t want to talk about the war, Jim traded ammo for stunt pads and slowly carved his way into Hollywood. No scripts. No agents. He just knew how to ride, crash, fall, get up, and not complain - and that made him perfect for the kind of stunts directors couldn’t fake. Before long, he was crashing cars with Stallone, flipping rigs for Michael Bay, and performing one of the most iconic stunts in film history: that semi-truck flip in The Dark Knight. His philosophy was simple: if you did it right, people thought it was CGI - and if you did it wrong, they thought you died.

But the best stories aren’t just about wrecks and fireballs - they’re about the people. Jim talks about the old-school stunt crews who treated each other like family, the pride of knowing your work helped shape film history, and what it means to stay dangerous while growing older, being a dad, and tearing up during Pixar movies with your kids.

This episode is pure Liberty Risk - war stories, movie sets, bruises, brotherhood, legacy, and a look at what happens when real grit meets real heart.