Chris, 58, spent three decades taking hits for Hollywood, now his final act forced him to prepare for the worst

Exclusive: At 58, most people are contemplating retirement. Veteran Aussie stuntman Chris Mitchell is also thinking about downsizing – but for a very different reason.

For the past two years, Chris has prepared to launch a 150-metre ramp-to-ramp car jump, attempting to break a world record. It’s a career-crowning attempt intended to serve as his final curtain call after decades in the business.

But before taking on a feat where a single miscalculation could be fatal, Chris and his wife took a drastic step in their personal life – they’ve prepped their family home to go straight on the market.

“I was thinking of selling the house to downsize it for something nicer with a flatter yard, just in case something happened to me,” Chris told nine.com.au

“We’ve got it at a stage if something were to happen, my wife would be able to put it on the market and move somewhere where it’s easier for maintenance with a normal level.”

It’s a reality check for a man whose daily routine has involved taking bone-breaking hits for Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters. Chris is no stranger to danger having doubled Richard Roxburgh in Mission: Impossible II and performed stunts across Star Wars: Episode II & III and The Matrix trilogy.

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“I’ve always known I’ve had more guts than talent,” Chris admitted with a laugh.

“I was never a very talented martial artist or acrobat... so I tried to stand out by taking some hard hits, falling over, or driving cars.”

His inspiration traces back to the 1970s, watching Evel Knievel on television as a kid and launching bikes off makeshift wooden ramps in the street.

After completing an aircraft maintenance trade with Qantas as a safety net, Chris officially took the plunge into stunt work in 1993 as a newlywed with no mortgage and no kids.

Over the next 30 years, he navigated the turbulent, unpredictable highs and lows of the stunt world, taking side gigs as a tree company labourer between film sets just to keep the lights on.

Through it all, his defining moment wasn’t on a multi-million-dollar set – it was the day his first son was born in June 1998. An hour after holding his newborn, Chris drove to a set on Water Rats to pull off a three-story-high backwards.

Now, three decades later, Chris is ready to close the chapter on his own terms.

The proposed 150-metre card-to-car jump will carry obvious risks, but Chris remains quietly composed. Protected by a roll cage and a five-point harness, he shrugs off the danger.

“Some of the hardest stunts I’ve ever done are falling over hard on concrete... I’m telling myself it can’t be as hard as landing on concrete doing this jump,” he says.

His wife has given him the green light – though Mitchell jokes she did so “thinking it’ll never happen”.

The only real hurdle left isn’t the jump itself, but securing the roughly $300,000 required to construct the massive ramp.

If they hit their funding target, Chris isn’t even stopping at one jump. He’s already floated a second attempt – this time wearing a blacked-out visor to complete the jump completely blindfolded to raise money for a charity supporting people who are blind or vision-impaired.

In a morbid twist to Chris’ search for a sponsor to back him, an end-of-life platform stepped up to offer him a cheeky, grim-humoured sponsorship deal for the world-record attempt.

While the pitch offered a laugh on paper, it highlights the undeniable life-and-death stakes of taking on a 150-metre card-to-car jump at 58.

The sheer scale of the world-record attempt have also caught the lens of filmmaker James Crawley, who is currently capturing Mitchell’s journey for an upcoming documentary The Jump.

Expecting to meet a risk-obsessed, hyper-macho daredevil, James was instead struck by Chris’ quiet, humble dedication to his craft.

The film offers an intimate character study into why a modest family man would risk it all for 30 seconds of high-octane glory – while giving prospective sponsors permanent global exposure in the process.

For Chris, it’s all about finishing a lifetime of passion on his own terms.

“Every day, every breath in, and every breath out, I just think about this jump,” he said.

“It’s what makes me happy.”