World stunt champion, she performs aerobatic figures worthy of a superhero. Social networks, on which she publishes her exploits, will be her springboard towards Hollywood. In this exclusively male universe, this cool and obsessive hard worker has invented her own way of riding machines, with pleasure as the only driving force.
The asphalt is blackened by dozens of circles of rubber and, with a burning smell, the hoarse growls of the Kawasaki Ninja tear the silence. She wears long brown hair, no makeup, a crop top that reveals a twig body. Astride the roaring rodeo bull, Sarah Lezito smiles for the photo. The reserved air of a “natural” young woman who adapts to the limelight without wanting it. She is an accomplished stuntwoman and the queen of a little-known sport, stunt, which consists of performing as many figures as possible, called “tricks,” in a given time, on the handlebars of a motorcycle. You have to see her master her mount, which weighs four times her weight, on her private track in the Épernay region. She goes through wheelings (rear wheels), stoppies (brutal braking on the front wheel, her specialty). Sarah doesn’t pilot, she dances with the motorcycle, takes the machine on endless slides, stands up on the tank while riding, places her legs on the handlebars and waves with a nonchalant hand. It takes an hour of daily training for years to reach this level. His machine, obviously, is prepared like a stage beast, with grip on the tank and plates to protect it from falls, of which there are many.
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The story of the best stuntwoman in the world begins on the paths that wind between the vines planted on hillsides from which her family, aptly named Vignot, makes champagne. Sarah is 13 years old, she rides a quad with her father, hangs out with the village boys, builds springboards with them, tries her first rear wheelies. In her room, she spends hours on the Internet watching how the champions do it, then tries to copy their actions. At 16, she acquired her first motorcycle, a 125 DTX Supermotard, when her older sisters were not allowed a scooter. Sarah multiplies the experiments and falls, the famous “pizzas”, which leave her with a thousand scars and bruises on her body. She is not particularly gifted: “I struggled a lot at the start, I didn’t have any particular feeling,” the champion humbly laughs today. But little by little, by playing with the clutch, the brake, the accelerator, she manages to control the balance and inertia of her motorcycle. She begins posting videos of her exploits on YouTube. In 2013, one of them, “One out of Billion Girls”, in which she performed the most technical tricks, was viewed more than a million times. This is the turning point. The game will become a profession, the passion, a life.
“The stoppie, my favorite trick! I never get tired of it. It’s always a crazy feeling,” says Sarah Lezito.
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© Eric Hadj
From 2014, the native of Épernay roared her motorcycle on the sets of Hollywood. When we shout “action”, it’s not a joke!
The same year, while she was at her parents’ house, Marvel agents called directly to the house’s landline. They saw the video. It’s Sarah’s mother who picks up. “They said they needed a girl to voice Scarlett Johansson in “Avengers 2.” I asked them if it was a fake,” Sarah recalls. The kid from Épernay with a dirty ass and scratched knees on the paths of the Marne is 20 years old, she speaks poor English and is going to London to check if her figure matches that of the Hollywood star! Sarah passes the test with flying colors and there she is on a flight to Las Vegas. It’s the first time she’s taken a plane. Business class: “I thought it was the normal way to travel, I discovered the reality later,” she smiles. In Nevada, she tries out a Harley-Davidson LiveWire, an electric prototype that is difficult to understand. She passed the exam again and this time flew to South Korea for filming. Chases, slips, she burns the film but, to her great chagrin, does not meet Scarlett Johansson, pregnant at that time. She nevertheless sympathizes with Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Captain America (Chris Evans). “I was stunned by the anthill of the filming, everyone focused on their mission. »
First stunt for the cinema, in April 2014: Sarah Lezito doubles Scarlett Johansson in “Avengers 2”. And also first fee of 30,000 euros.
© DR
At the same time, she skipped her BTS in viticulture and oenology, “I didn’t like wine, I don’t like alcohol”, and began competing while continuing to feed her YouTube channel. She wants to show that she is as strong as the boys. Of which act. She finished eighth at the world championship in 2018. In first place for women. The big guns respect this girl much better than most of them: “They are nice to me, we help each other, we discuss techniques over a barbecue. When you’re the only one, it helps to be a girl,” she says in her garage, in front of her old motorcycle customized by a painter. The filming and stunts continue. We see him in particular in “The Batman”. On the set, near the motorcycles, she meets Robert Pattinson, whom she mistakes for a mechanic: “Oh no, motorcycles aren’t my thing, I don’t even have a license,” laughs the star. She “plays” in “The Walking Dead”, “Inferno” with Omar Sy, “Black Widow”, “Millenium. What Doesn’t Kill Me”, and “Batgirl” (the film was not released in theaters), where she doubles Leslie Grace for the role of Catwoman.
She wants to show that she is as strong as the boys
Over time, the young woman tires of the stunts on set, the trips far from her family and the increasingly extreme wishes of directors. In Sweden, he was asked to jump on a motorbike at 60 km/h into icy water from a 4 meter high springboard. She has to shoot the scene twice. “It was horrible! » In another shoot, stuck behind a truck, under the snow, on the back wheel, she is the target of a flamethrower! This winter, she had a bad fall on set in the middle of Paris (“The Killer”, not released in theaters). Her toe clip got caught in the wheel of a car, Sarah was thrown into a glide. Assessment: head trauma. On his arm, a tattoo: “Enjoy Pain!” » (Enjoy the pain!). “Chocolate,” added his wife, Charlotte, who enjoys cheap puns more than Sarah’s pratfalls.
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Sarah Lezito’s guilty pleasure? Repair and transform your own motorcycles. “I don’t really like it when someone does it for me. »
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© Eric Hadj
That’s good. With 8.7 million fans on Instagram (more than MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez), 8.6 million on Facebook, 4.6 million on YouTube, 4.3 million on TikTok, and 2 billion views, Sarah no longer needs filming to live comfortably from her passion. She is the most followed motorcycle personality in the world. “In Thailand, in the smallest village, she is recognized,” laughs Charlotte. However, we must feed the beast: this is precisely the mission of Charlotte, who publishes videos of thirty seconds to one minute every day. “You have to constantly renew yourself, sometimes you’re afraid of not coming up with an idea, but you always manage! » The young women manage their entire small industry together. In addition to the numerous performances delivered by Sarah during motorcycle Grands Prix or various events, she will soon release a clothing brand in her name. In each video, Sarah shows herself as she is, raw, unaffected, fun and relaxed, and this simplicity pleases the audience – made up of many men, fans of motor sports, but also more and more women. Sarah Lezito is the “girl next door” capable of taming 200 kilos of molten metal. One woman in billions.
