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Dee Bryant jams on the gas as her Mustang rockets forward toward a line of plastic bollards at the Irwindale Speedway. Suddenly, she takes her foot off the gas. The growling car whips around 180 degrees in a perfect arc.

Veteran stuntwoman Bryant is a top driver and a rare Black woman rising through the ranks. She has doubled for Angela Bassett, Kerry Washington, and Regina King, among many others. She’s here demonstrating the prowess of the Mustang as the iconic car turns 60.

It has appeared in more than 5,000 films and TV shows. Steve McQueen charging through the streets of San Francisco in his 1968 Mustang Gt is in every sense of the word, iconic.

Steve McQueen in 1968’s “Bullitt.”

From “John Wick” to “Gone in 60 Seconds” to “Charlie’s Angels” to thousands of other productions, “the producers want the Mustang because it creates a symbol. You know, they don’t...

It’s not often in a career that having your hard work go by unnoticed is actually the ultimate compliment. Movie crews, almost uniformly across any filmmaking disciplines, find themselves in this nebulous zone where the less their work stands out, the more accolades they get from critics, peers and audiences. If costumes stand out, the characters feel a bit off. If set decoration draws attention, it doesn’t seem like the story is grounded in a real-life environment.

Stunts may be the only exception to the rule. Seeing daring escapades on screen becomes the bait to get audiences into seats. Who didn’t have great expectations of what Tom Cruise and company would pull off in “Top Gun: Maverick”?

A movie like “Glass Onion” might be a great mystery, but audiences aren’t clamoring to see it because of the amazing stunt work. But maybe they should. (Spoilers ahead.