Australian stuntman and actor Ben Smith-Petersen has contributed to several high-profile movies, including “The Great Gatsby” (2012), “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” (2014), “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), and “Suicide Squad” (2016). Though Riley Keough, an actress, model, and producer, is the granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley and the daughter of musician Danny Keough and singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, he is more known as her husband. He performed stunts and played the Chanting War Boy, Red Flare Warrior, in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” where the duo collaborated. Prior to that, he appeared in the 2014 short film “Brawl” and the action-drama movie “Agent Provocateur” from 2012. He has also coordinated stunts for the short film “Come Swim” and has worked in the stunt division of movies including “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” (2013) and “Dixieland” (2015). He most recently worked as a stunt double on the 2018 animated feature Peter Rabbit and the 2019 American action-crime drama Triple Frontier. He is also quite interested in music, and in 2013 he sung and participated in the music video for the song “Sandpaper.”
Become a Star
Ben Smith-Petersen originally began doing flying trapeze when he was 14 years old, thanks to one of his mother’s friends. He was utterly fixated on it and vowed to perfect the flying trapeze technique, which he learnt at Circus Arts Australia from owner and director Belinda Hultgren. Over time, he was able to comprehend it thoroughly enough to construct a trapeze. As his confidence in his stunt abilities grew, he started instructing children in flying trapeze.
After working with a stunt coordinator who offered him work in movies, he became familiar with stunt work through his job in the circus. He stopped performing in the circus after landing a stunt job, but many people still refer to him as the “circus guy.” The Great Gatsby, an American romantic drama film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel of the same name, was his first project as a stuntman. He has since worked on numerous notable films both domestically and abroad and has even tried his hand at acting and music.
Individual Life of Ben Smith-Petersen
Ben Smith-Petersen was born and reared in New South Wales’s sleepy beach community of Byron Bay. In addition to trapeze, he enjoys skateboarding and surfing.
Connection to Riley Keough
The first time Ben Smith-Petersen met Riley Keough was in 2012, during the six months of desert filming for the fourth “Mad Max” film, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Ben was both an actor and a stunt performer in the film, playing the supporting character of Capable, one of Immortan Joe’s wives. Their initial encounter, though, was brief. As the crew was smaller, they were able to get to know one another better when they reshot the movie in Australia. They started dating right away, and Riley claims that after two weeks, she was certain she had found the love of her life. Even during those early stages of dating, she insisted, she never felt strange around him.
On August 14, 2014, the couple decided to take things a step further and got engaged. He publicized the news on social media by posting a picture of Riley wearing her engagement ring. It’s interesting to note that Riley had previously been engaged to her ‘Magic Mike’ co-star Alex Pettyfer in 2012, but the two eventually called off their engagement. Ben and Riley finally got married on February 4, 2015, in Napa, California, after dating for almost a year. Riley’s friends Kristen Stewart, Zoe Kravitz, Dakota Johnson, and Cara Delevingne, as well as her ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ co-stars Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton and her ex-boyfriend, Canadian musician Tobias Jesso Jr., with whom she briefly dated, all attended the wedding. Riley defended being married at the age of 25 in an interview with “The Guardian,” noting that both her mother and grandmother had children by the time they were 21.
He continued, “The world is in a funny state, so I’m kind of unsure whether to bring a child into our home or to adopt. such as morally. The couple owns a French bulldog named Grubs, who snores “like a chainsaw” despite having undergone surgery for it. They used to joke about having a dog “baby” together. In the US, Ben has obtained Permanent Resident Status.
Net Worth of Ben Smith-Petersen
The estimated net worth of Ben Smith-Petersen is around $1 million.