Isabel Salazar / Story
How a drama student found her voice in stunts and parkour
Isabel Salazar didn't set out to be a stunt performer. In 2021, fresh from her MFA in Professional Acting at LAMDA, she was training in stage combat and picking up film roles. But somewhere between learning falls at stunt school and chasing voiceover work through indie games, she discovered that her real language wasn't dialogue. It was movement. Today, over five years into professional parkour, she moves between London and Stockholm as a licensed stunt performer, aerial dancer, and one of the most technically diverse action athletes in the UK. See Isabel's full profile to enquire about booking her.
Her path reveals something crucial about modern movement work: it doesn't require one identity. Isabel holds at least four distinct careers at once, and they feed each other.
What does a multi-disciplinary performer actually do?
The easiest answer is to list credits. Lead in Adidas Y-3 (2023). Lead in the OYSHO campaign (2025). Stunt work on Star Wars: Sanctuary Moon (2023). Voice acting on over 500 projects, from EA's Battlefield 6 to indie game studios like ZA/UM. But the list misses the point. What matters is that each skill tier is professional-grade.
Isabel trained stage combat at LAMDA during her drama degree. Then came the specialist schools. CUC International Stunt School gave her screen combat, unarmed stunts, falls, and high falls. Dark Roc trained her in Close Quarters Combat and firearms. ID Fight taught wire work and aerial performance. Target 3D and the Mocap Vaults brought motion and performance capture. Take 3 Action Academy and Fight Zone added more layers. By the end, she held credentials most stunt performers spend a decade assembling.
But credentials aren't movement. What they built was a performer who could switch between contexts without losing precision. She can parkour across a rooftop in one take, then spend the afternoon in motion capture gear playing a character's body for a game nobody has heard of yet, then fly home on a wire as an aerial dancer in a music video. The physical vocabulary stays consistent because it's rooted in real training, not movie magic.
Her heritage shapes this. Raised in Stockholm, she's Anglo-Swedish-Peruvian, with a father from the Peruvian Amazon. She speaks English, Swedish, and Latin American Spanish. That cultural flexibility, that ease moving between worlds, shows up in her work. She's equally at home in commercial shoots for Volvo and Vinted as she is in short film roles, or taking on the harder, less visible work that pays steadier: voice acting in games.
How does voiceover work fit into a stunt performer's career?
People often treat voiceover as a separate career. For Isabel, it's evidence of something deeper. She books over 500 voice jobs. That's not a hobby. That's volume work built on genuinely unusual vocal qualities. Her voice is warm, yet dry. Authentic, with a trace of vulnerability. Clients describe her as quick, communicative, clear.
She fell into voice acting through love of video games. That love hasn't faded. It's turned into a real income stream, but more importantly, it keeps her connected to a global network of game studios, composers, and narrative designers. When she's on a film set doing stunt work, she's already plugged into dozens of other projects.
The parallel matters because stunt work alone is not stable income. Some of that is the nature of film. But it's also that a skilled stunt performer is valuable precisely when someone else's vision needs a body to execute. The performer is support. If you're interested in understanding how stunt performers integrate into film production, read more about parkour in film and stunt work. Voiceover is the opposite. It's you as the final product. She's built a portfolio where the commercial uncertainty of action work is balanced by the steadier work of voice, and both are anchored in the live work: parkour demos, commercial shoots, aerial performance.
Why did Isabel establish FemGaps?
Isabel founded FemGaps, a London-based collective of female parkour athletes. It's a one-sentence detail on most CVs. In practice, it's proof of where her head is. Parkour in the UK is male-dominated at every level. Competition, sponsorship, film work, social media clout, it all tilts masculine. A woman who can execute high falls and screen combat at professional standard is rare. Five of them in one city, operating as a collective, is rarer still.
FemGaps isn't a gym or a school. It's a network. The kind of structure that exists because a performer got tired of being the only woman in the room and decided to change it. That says something about Isabel's stakes in the discipline. She's not just working within parkour. She's trying to reshape who gets access to it.
What does five-plus years of professional parkour actually look like?
Her credits anchor it: principal roles in Tour de Force (2021), Filmstaden (2018), and Ta Din Soul (2018). Leads in Grow (2022). Commercial work for Adidas and fashion brands like OYSHO. But the real measure is how she moves.
Her movement is defined by versatility and precision. She blends agility with strength. Her transitions are fluid. She can execute technical stunt work and dynamic action sequences without losing elegance. That's not hyperbole in a casting sense. Shoot days are expensive. A performer who requires fewer takes because she's precise is cheaper. A performer who can nail a sequence consistently is insurance against re-shoots. Isabel's trainers and colleagues consistently note that she trains hard and delivers on time.
The Adidas Y-3 lead is a good case study. These aren't traditional film roles. They're 30 to 60-second brand films where movement is the narrative. An athlete has to move like the brand's idea of itself. For Y-3, that's minimalist, controlled, with an edge of urgency. She delivered that because she'd spent years learning to read a brief and translate it into a body.
Why does the order of stunt training matter?
Most parkour athletes in film start by proving parkour skills, then gradually add stage combat and stunt certifications. Isabel flipped it. LAMDA acting degree first, stunt school next, then the deeper parkour specialisation. That ordering matters. This dual-track approach is what distinguishes professional parkour stunt performers from athletes working in other disciplines.
Stage combat training teaches you how to fall safely. Stunt school teaches you how to land consistently. Parkour teaches you why the landing matters. Alone, any of those is incomplete. Together, they make an athlete who understands the full physics of a movement.
That's why she can move between disciplines without reinvention. A high fall on film uses the same body awareness as a precision jump in parkour. Wire work teaches you how your weight distributes when you're suspended. Motion capture teaches you how to scale movement for different body types and physics engines. None of it is wasted.
Frequently Asked Questions
What training do you need to do professional stunt work?
Most performers complete stunt school certifications in screen combat, unarmed stunts, falls, and high falls. Isabel added wire work, firearms, motion capture, and martial arts. You need either a drama background or a movement background, ideally both. LAMDA and similar drama schools teach stage combat. Specialist stunt schools like CUC International and Dark Roc teach the rest. There's no single path, but most working stunt performers have completed at least three years of formal training.
Can you combine voiceover work with physical performance?
Yes, and it's increasingly common. Voiceover provides steadier income and keeps you connected to game studios and streaming platforms. Physical work is seasonal and project-dependent. Having both creates stability. Isabel has built a large voiceover portfolio, which means she can be selective about stunt work and pick roles that interest her, not just ones that pay bills.
How did you get into parkour specifically?
For Isabel, it came after drama training and stunt school. She started doing commercial and film work that required parkour skills, then deepened the discipline. Some athletes come the opposite way: parkour first, then stunt training. Both paths work. The key is that parkour as a professional skill requires screen combat and stunt certifications, not just athletic ability.
What makes someone a good stunt performer?
Precision, repeatability, and communication. You need to execute the same movement take after take, reliably. You need to understand what the director and cinematographer want and deliver it without wasting their time. You need to be honest about your limits and safe on set. Isabel's clients note that she communicates clearly, delivers on time, and goes above and beyond. Those three things matter more than raw athleticism.
How does the film and commercial industry find performers like you?
Through agents, rosters, and reputation. Movement Management works with specialists who keep performers across multiple disciplines on file. Stunt coordinators and directors reach out directly when a role fits. Some of the steadiest work comes from repeat clients who know you and trust you. Isabel's roster includes major brands and studios because she's built a reputation for delivering.
Book Isabel Salazar for Your Next Production
Get in touch with Movement Management to check availability and discuss your project with our team.