It would be fair to say that Kiwi star Zoe Bell has been on a roller coaster for the past 18 months. There was the day she stood on set in Los Angeles, living the dream of many aspiring actresses by going head-to-head with Brad Pitt in her director pal Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in which she also ran a whole stunt team, co-ordinating action sequences for stars like Leonardo DiCaprio.
Then there was the moment her walls crumbled down as long-time love, 36-year-old director Jacob Horn, suffered horrendous physical and brain injuries in an accident, forcing her to drop everything to sit by his bed, waiting for him to awake from a coma. Jacob pulled through in time for Zoe’s 40th birthday last November and the couple then celebrated Christmas, likely hoping to end the year on a much-needed high. However Zoe’s mother, Tish, passed away in Los Angeles two days later. Not surprisingly, the driven filmmaker, actress and stuntwoman is “still spinning” as she reflects on perhaps her best and worst year, during an exclusive interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
“Last year was a lot of big good things, big hard things and big sad things… but it’s all part of life I guess. I’m still reeling from all of it. I’m aware there are lessons floating around that will settle in at some point, but I’m not quite there yet! I think it just shows that anything can happen at any point in time.”
Today, a year on from Jacob’s life-changing accident, Zoe is back on the sunnier side of life, with the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, her biggest film project in 16 years. She’s also working on her own movie script, having nabbed Tarantino as a producer for it – somewhat of a bargaining tool after the legendary film-maker convinced Zoe to be the stunt co-ordinator on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
This story is from the September 2019 edition of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
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This story is from the September 2019 edition of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
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