Sherlock's fall guy loves being home in the Yorkshire Dales

ROB JARMAN fell out of a hay barn onto a concrete floor when he was 12, fracturing his skull. It was, says the daredevil movie stuntman who has appeared in everything from War Horse to Robin Hood, Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises, the start of things to come.

He grew up on a North Yorkshire farm and his parents, Prue and Peter, grew used to him coming home broken and injured after his many escapades on horses and motorbikes in the fields and hills around his home. At the age of 18, he became a professional mountain bike rider on the National and World Cup Downhill biking circuit, establishing himself as one of the top riders in the UK, renowned for taking on extreme challenges.

Working as an intrepid stunt rider for a specialist biking magazine, he once rode his pedal bike down the Lillehammer Olympic bobsleigh circuit in 62 seconds, reaching speeds of 90kph. He also set the British Land Speed record on a mountain bike by travelling at a staggering 153kph on snow.

As if that weren’t enough excitement for one lifetime, thrill seeker Rob went on to gain his black belt in karate, qualified as a scuba dive master, got his British motor racing licence, trained as an expert mountaineer and became a coach for the British mountain biking team.

So it came as little surprise to anyone who knew him that he would go on to make a full-time career dicing with death.

Today, leaping off buildings, being set on fire, being run over by cars and crashing into the sea on a motorbike is all in a day’s work for the 35-year-old who, in between filming, enjoys spending time back home in the Yorkshire Dales.

He has been employed by some of the world’s top directors, including one of his heroes, Steven Spielberg, when he played a soldier dodging exploding mortars and bullets for War Horse. “It was an epic experience,” he says. “Spielberg is a lovely man. He knew exactly what he wanted and never got frustrated. He was pretty calm.

“The Somme re-enactment took weeks and when we were running across No Man’s Land, it felt one hundred per cent real.”

Rob is also on first-name terms with many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including hardman actor Tom Hardy, who he got on well with on the set of The Dark Knight Rises. “The bigger the star, the nicer they are. They don’t have to prove themselves. We were a team and he wanted to know all about the stunts.”

Grappling with Hardy in the guise of Batman villain Bane turned out to be a challenge, though: “He was huge, built like a bag of wet cement. In the fight scene, I got to take on Bane himself and got chinned. That was me well and truly out of the equation.”

One of Rob’s most celebrated stunts was as Benedict Cumberbatch’s double in the BBC TV drama Sherlock, when he appeared to leap to his death from a six-storey hospital building for the much-talked-about series two finale. “I didn’t even know who Benedict Cumberbatch was, it was just another day at work. But it turned out to be a really big series, and he was a great guy, chilled out and normal.”

He has also worked with Anthony Hopkins, Michael Fassbender and Julie Walters, among others. More recently, he has been in Iceland doubling for Dennis Quaid in the Arctic Sky TV thriller Fortitude. “When you are doubling the head actor on a million-dollar-a-day movie, there’s a lot of pressure, but my racing experience has really helped me keep my cool,” he says.

Rob first got into stunt work after taking a break from biking following a particularly bad accident. He was considering joining the Royal Marines when he was approached to do photoshoots and write about extreme challenges for a cycling magazine. Having also starred in adverts for outdoor adventure clothing and bike companies, after a friend suggested stunt work he trained hard to get the qualifications he needed in everything from horse riding to rock climbing, and worked as an extra on Emmerdale for 60 days to get his equity card.

“I was offered quite a bit of work early on,” he says. “The first was a car crash for Casualty. I was in a flatbed truck and had to fly off the road and crash head-on into a skip. When I started out, I wanted to jump off the biggest buildings, get hit by every car and get blown up over and over, but a stunt veteran took me to one side and told me I couldn’t carry on like that if I still wanted to be doing it in 30 years’ time.”

Although all his film exploits are staged and rehearsed, they still carry risk. “Getting hit by a car hurts, there’s not much of a technique,” says Rob. “It’s not about avoiding injury, it’s about being good at pretending it doesn’t hurt. You just try and put on as many pads as you can get away with, wait for your action and jump and roll. It’s scary.”

Some of the injuries Rob has suffered on set doing his job as a stuntman

He has suffered serious traumas, including multiple breaks to his upper body, detached retinas, brain and lung injuries and been badly burnt. One of the worst was when he drove 60ft off Brighton Pier into the sea, breaking his shoulder and knocking himself out. “I technically drowned and had to be revived by the rescue divers who pulled me out of the water,” he says. “I spent four days in hospital with a suspected broken back.”

In nine years of stunt work, he has been knocked out cold five times and has suffered about 30 concussions. Doctors advised him to stop five years ago as he’s had recurring issues with his head, “which I’ve been whacking since I was a kid”.

Currently back at home in Pateley Bridge, taking a break from stunt work, Rob is giving his body a rest. Used to having to disappear for weeks on end at a moment’s notice, he is enjoying spending time with his wife and family. “I’ve been living out of a bag, constantly on call,” he says. “Although the job is great, it takes away from my wife and the area I love.” He even curtailed his honeymoon to work on Harry Hill’s Professor Brainstorm: “We had to come home two days early. I’ve had to give up massive things in life for work.”

Rob accepts the stress of his career can’t have been easy for his wife and parents. “I am so grateful to my parents for supporting me throughout my racing and stunt career, and to Bex for fixing me up every time I come home broken,” he says.

Looking out on Guisecliff Wood, above Pateley Bridge, he says he is never happier than when back in this landscape, where he also enjoys running. “This has been my training ground all my life. It beats everywhere I have ever been. I could be offered the best job in the world, but right now, I would much rather be at home with my wife and cats.”