Michael Muñoz

Real world article
(written from a Production point of view)

Michael Muñoz (born 28 August 1957; age 66) is a stuntman, actor, and stunt coordinator who appeared in several Star Trek productions. He worked as stunt actor, background actor, and stand-in on at least three series and one film. His brothers Mario Muñoz and Mark Muñoz, his mother Nancy Muñoz, and his wife Marisa Muñoz also worked on various Trek projects. Muñoz has been married since 1983. The couple has two children.

For the Star Trek: Voyager fifth season episode "The Fight", Muñoz filmed his scenes on Thursday 22 October 1998 with a makeup call at 5:30 am on Paramount Stage 16 and is listed as "Alien Corner Man" on the call sheet.

Muñoz grew up in Santa Monica, California and joined his brothers for several sport activities on the beach as well as dancing. In the '70s, he started to portray Disney characters in parades and stage plays, such as Mowgli, Mickey Mouse, and Pinocchio. Continuing his skills in different sport activities, including skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing, and motorcycle riding, Muñoz also started to study stunts and acting.

Today, he is one of the stuntmen who work as stunt double for child actors and has also doubled Danny Woodburn, Danny DeVito, and Leslie Jordan.

Muñoz career started in the late '70s with an appearance in The Gong Show (1978) as a tap dancing gorilla, a creature suit performance. In the following years he had guest roles and stunt acting parts in television series such as America's Most Wanted (1992), The Nanny (1995, starring Daniel Davis), Baywatch, Home Improvement (1996), Charmed, and Angel. He also portrayed the PACMAN in several photo shootings, print-ads, and talk shows such as Fox and Friends (1999), Donny and Marie (2000), and Today (2000).

Film credits include the action drama Dante's Peak (1997), John Putch's The Boy Who Saved Christmas (1998), the television movie Like Father, Like Santa (1998, with Megan Gallagher and Stanley Kamel), Paul W.S. Anderson's science fiction film Soldier (1998, with James Black, Mark DeAlessandro, Elizabeth Dennehy, Max Daniels, and Paul Sklar), the comedy Beach Movie (1998, with stunts by Jeffrey Eith), the comedy My American Vacation (1999), as stunt motion capture performer in PC and the Web (2001, with Amanda McBroom and stunt coordinator Lauro Chartrand), the fantasy thriller Dragonfly (2002, with Susanna Thompson, Casey Biggs, Leslie Hope, and Heidi Swedberg), and Sam Raimi's superhero movie Spider-Man (2002, starring Kirsten Dunst).

Further work includes appearances in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1999 and 2006) and stunt work in The Jersey (2000-2002, with Scott Alan Smith), the science fiction horror film Inhabited (2003, with Megan Gallagher, Malcolm McDowell, Rosalind Chao, and James Otis), the action film A Man Apart (2003), the family comedy Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), Stephen Sommers' fantasy film Van Helsing (2004, with stunts by Sandy Berumen-Justus, Mike Gunther, Mike Justus, Rob Mars, Heidi Moneymaker, and his two brothers), and the television series Over There (2005, starring Brigid Brannagh) and Brannon Braga's Threshold (2005, starring Brent Spiner).

Between 2006 and 2007, Muñoz and his wife Marisa worked as producers for the talk show Good Morning Hawai'i, hosted by Branscombe Richmond. He doubled Danny DeVito in the comedies The Oh in Ohio (2006) and Deck the Halls (2006, under stunt coordination of Charlie Croughwell), and performed stunts in the television series Saving Grace (2007, with Leon Rippy and Mark L. Taylor), American Body Shop (2007, with Richard Riehle), and Nip/Tuck.

More recently, he doubled again for Danny DeVito in the television series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2008, alongside Mark Wagner) and the comedy House Broken (2008, with Michael Bofshever and stunt coordinator Bobby C. King), portrayed Tango in the fantasy comedy Elf Academy (2008, with Diane Salinger), and performed stunts in the family movie Opposite Day (2009, along his brothers under stunt coordinator Cole McKay).

In 2010 he doubled again the stunts for actor Danny DeVito in the comedy When in Rome. Kimberly Shannon Murphy and Peter Epstein also performed stunts in this film.