My nine to five: Steve Truglia

The stunt performer and co-ordinator on 4.30am starts, leaping off buildings and wondering if he will make it home in one piece
Stuntman Steve Truglia
Steve Truglia has been performing stunts since 1996. Photograph: Richard Cave/Rockhoppermedia

If I'm not performing a stunt I'm usually up at 7am. If I am, I'm up very early. I was working on a movie recently and I was up at 4.30am because I had to be at Pinewood at 7am. I make sure I've had my breakfast and allowed for problems on the M25. You cannot be late in my business.

I work in film, TV, commercials and do live PR stunts for companies. A lot of my time is spent reading scripts and looking at designing sequences, speaking to directors and producers about how they want the sequences to look, how they will work and budgeting those stunts.

Stunt performing is a highly structured career path – you have to gain qualifications in six different sports to a high standard. It takes four or five years and costs at least £20,000; a black belt in a martial art from scratch costs a fortune. You also have to have some acting experience. You then join the stunt register and work your way up the business; it's very slow career route – which it should be.

My days are spent in meetings and checking out locations with all the crew attending. It's my job to make sure the space is safe for us to do the stunts and look at what peculiar things in that area could cause us problems: if we have a car skidding round the corner that flips over on to its roof, where could it end, where is it safe to put cameras? I write a health and safety risk assessment. It covers keeping everybody safe and that is run past the company's insurers; once they're happy, it's safe to go ahead.

Then it's stunt day. There aren't many jobs that involve you thinking as you close your front door, "I wonder if I'll come home tonight? If so, will I be in one piece?"

It's not a glamorous job. If you're standing on a building 50 metres above the pavement, ready to jump off and you've to land on an airbag you can hardly see and which you could easily miss from that height, you may even be set on fire before you go, it's probably three o'clock in the morning, it's probably raining, you're cold, hungry and tired – you would need to be insane not to feel scared.

A TV working day is 10 hours long and often it involves working through the night, but we are very well looked after. There's always catering and trailers to relax in but it can be quite intense because ultimately we're doing something dangerous. As a stunt co-ordinator I'm never really relaxed until the stunt scheme is done and I know that everybody is safe. The UK has the best safety record in the world.

I've been doing this since 1996 and for me it's the best job in the world. My whole life I've actually been training to be a stunt man without realising it. I've always loved extreme sports and I now I get paid for it.

There are six-figure incomes to be earned but it's like any job that involves freelancers – 80% of people earn 20% of the money, and the other 20% earn the 80%.

If I've got a big stunt I'm in bed really early the night before. When you're diving out of a window on to a mattress that looks the size of a postage stamp, you need to be as alert as possible.

Steve Truglia is supporting Connected to British Film and TV, a campaign that celebrates our connection to Britain's world-class film and TV industry.

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