Some people are not meant to have desk jobs. Greg Poljacik ‘05 is definitely one of them.
He would rather be jumping off of buildings, safely bringing flames to films, and manufacturing fake blood by the barrel. You read that correctly. He is a man with little fear and huge dreams.
And his industrious, thrill-seeking, adventurous ways have their roots right here on campus, where he fell in love with theatre and stage combat.
Poljacik never actually expected to pursue theatre. Initially, he came to CNU wanting to study aeronautical engineering.
“CNU was the closest and best choice,” he said.
Then he had a conversation with the head of the theatre department, and his trajectory shifted dramatically.
“I threw all those plans out the window! I ended up majoring in performance theatre and never looked back,” he said.
The Captain for Life has taken the passion and ambition he developed at CNU and turned it into three companies - all revolving around action-packed theatre. One trains stunt performers, a second crafts non-toxic blood for the stage, and a third trains actors to safely integrate flame on characters, known as burns, into on-screen plot lines.
Poljacik graduated with a degree in performance theatre and has not stopped performing since. He realized quickly his calling was living life on the edge, being the person who makes productions exciting and daring.
His journey started when he moved to Chicago after graduation, with $1,000 in his pocket and not much more than high hopes. He quickly got a job making swords, and in his spare time, he auditioned for everything he could.
“After eight years of doing live theatre and fight choreography for stage, I decided I would rather be doing the fighting instead of the dialogue and choreography,” he said.
That realization led him to the International Stunt School in Seattle, where he honed his on-camera skills. As a foundation, he leaned heavily on his years at CNU when he learned stage combat from professor Gregg Lloyd, a stage fighting guru with a national reputation.
“He was amazing enough to let this young kid pester him about every weapon I could find and work with him in class and on as many shows as possible. I absolutely love telling stories through physicality,” he said.
The stunt world turned out to be the perfect fit, and his career began scaling new heights.
“It hit me that, ‘Of course that’s a job people do in film!’ The thought of just being able to continuously learn, be physically active, and tell stories was deeply appealing,” he said. “I kept grinding, hustling and training.”
He became an in-demand stuntman, performing in movies and TV. His handiwork can be seen in many shows and films, including “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” when he appears to get stabbed in the eye during a prison fight. He also doubled Hugh Dillon on season five of Netflix’s "Mayor of Kingstown.”
For Poljacik, a day's work can include a variety of risky moves, anything from jumping off fire escapes to walking past safes that explode. In most cases, he only gets one shot at getting it right.
“Those stunts are expensive and dynamic, so EVERYONE is watching. The times it has to be perfect with little or no rehearsal are the wildest feelings while in it and a great release when done,” he said. “To be successful in stunts, you have to be consistent and love the training/process. There are no shortcuts and there is no finish line. I am thankful to have been doing this for a long time, and to make my living doing wild things on screens for movies and television, but I still have to train and hustle to keep work coming in. Ultimately, I think that is what makes me good at stunts. I continue to train, learn, and perfect.”
Being a stuntman was the first of many endeavors for Poljacik. He opened his own stunt school, One and Done Stunts, but wanted to take it further.
He looked into different aspects of performance that were lacking and realized where he wanted to put his efforts. He opted to focus on the niche markets of blood and fire.
“I worked diligently to figure out how to make my own protective gear and my own process to keep performers safe. This one took about eight years of research and practice before I was comfortable doing stunts involving fire on anyone other than myself,” he said.
He started a company doing workshops across the country teaching people how to safely ignite fire on screen. So far, he has helped 1,300 actors safely be part of storylines involving flames and has held 42 workshops.
Fire still wasn’t enough. He needed more.
“The blood business came out of a miserable failure when I was doing fight choreography for a stage show. I told the production that I could make a blood that would look good, be non-toxic, and would wash out of white costumes,” he said. “The blood I made did none of those things! It was extremely humbling and embarrassing. After a literal year of trial and error, and a lot of mad scientist-looking chemistry notes, I finally figured out an entirely new recipe to make blood that does those things. We now sell blood worldwide!”
Besides his three businesses, Poljacik somehow found time to earn his master’s in neuropsychology and be a consultant at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., bridging science and the arts.
All of the different facets of Poljacik’s career have come together to help complete his vision of generating risky, and sometimes dangerous story elements on the stage and screen. But, he will be the first to say that it has not been easy.
“I truly think I’m an average guy that consistently works hard. I have never been the most creative, definitely not the most daring, and I know folks who are more industrious. If there is anything I excel at, it’s pushing through self-doubt and anxiety. Maybe that’s grit?” he said. “I guess I’m just a reliable, hard-working, average person doing the best I can.”
As for Captains who would like to pursue a similar career, Poljacik has clear advice.
“Don’t give up,” he said. “Identify what you need to do and keep driving.”