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Actress JOY BRYANT took to the waves, slopes and skate parks to embrace her inner daredevil. She even married a stuntman
Cloudbreak, Fiji
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he first time I went snowboarding, I lied. I told everyone I knew what I was doing, but soon enough it was clear that wasn’t the case. I ended up with a concussion that I swear I can still feel, but there was something about the sport that did it for me. I knew snowboarding was going to be my thing. Growing up in the Bronx, the only sports I’d been exposed to were track and basketball. When I started boarding school in Connecticut, the variety of sports offered surprised me—soccer, squash, even ice hockey. I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder, being the poor black girl from the Bronx at an all-white school, so as a way to challenge myself, I joined up. I’ve always picked the most random things furthest from my comfort zone and jumped right in. For example, I’m not a swimmer. I learned how as a kid, but between the ages of 9 and 22, sheer terror kept me out of the water. On a trip to Mexico, I was dating this hot surfer type and he really wanted to teach me to stand up on a board, and I was like, Okay then! So I got the basics down. Years later I went to Cloudbreak in Fiji, a world-famous surfing spot, and I just had to try and catch a wave. Although I kept thinking I would fall and, because I couldn’t swim, I would die, I refused to let fear stop me. Someone pushed me into a break and I caught it. The feeling of accomplishment was huge, but the next time I attempted to paddle out, everything went wrong. The day’s biggest waves crashed right on top of me. I was really shook up and, thanks to inappropriate surf gear, topless. Snowboarding required more training. After my first season on the slopes, I hadn’t perfected it. I decided to
Lincoln Park Skate Park, Los Angeles
follow the snow to Chile, where I’d practice for three weeks until I got it right. An instructor there advised me to get a skateboard to keep me conditioned in the off-season, so I did. The next summer, while I was filming a movie in Louisiana, I would skate back and forth across the soundstage. That’s where I met Dave. Now he’s my husband, but then he was working on the film’s stunts and offered to coach me—lessons that ended up in a series of “private sessions.” The thing about stunt people is that the risks they take are calculated. Everything is accounted for, down to the angle of the camera. You need to know as much as possible about everything that’s going on and be as knowledgeable as possible about the risks involved. It’s not just jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best. I’ve
learned a lot from watching him figure out a problem. This past season, snowboarding on Powder Mountain, a group of us rode a backcountry trail. I got lost. One minute I was following a guy from our group, the next minute I was alone—and caught in a tree well, a deep funnel that forms around a tree where snow has collected. Trust me, you want to avoid this. The day before, finding ourselves caught in deep powder, Dave had explained how to escape this sort of situation. I could hear his words in my head and sure enough, I figured my way out. Sure, I was still lost and I had no reception on my phone, I was hungry, but I realized that I was the only person I could rely on. So I trusted the path, followed it and was eventually reunited with the group. The thing about snowboarding with Dave is that while my skill
Bryant is gearing up for her action sports YouTube show, “Across the Board.”