Don't Look Down - Interview with David Ginola

10 October 2023

Why did you sign up for Don’t Look Down?
When I heard about Stand Up to Cancer, because I’ve been encountering this problem with my friends, I thought it’s important to be involved. Also, the challenge, to do something you’ve probably never done in your life.

Wait, you’ve never done highwire walking before?!
[Laughs] Trust it or not, no, I never did it.

And how are you with heights? Scared of them?
I’m not easy with them. It’s not fun. It’s complicated. To deal with that is an interesting process because you never get used to it. I never found fun in that. Some people, they can be at 100 metres and go, “Oh, it’s fantastic, I’m going to jump in the deep, right from the first day.” When we had to jump from the bridge, 100 metres high, you jump, and you see your life passing in front of your eyes.

Were you happy with what you saw?
Happy is not the word! You’re never happy to do something crazy… all the challenges we have done so far, it’s pushing ourselves beyond expectation.

What’s the toughest thing you’ve had to do?
We moved from the wire on the ground to one metre to 10 metres high and, remember, you must walk with the balance pole. The challenges themselves have been tough – I couldn’t cope with the fact that I would be standing, say, 100 metres high, walking up a dam. Another time, Grace and I, we had two wires, and we had to be steady, holding each other and walking together, 30 metres high… the fear of heights, it’s there all the time.

So, has training gone smoothly? Or have there been a few bumps along the way?
Everyone has embraced everything with motivation because we needed to get things in our minds pretty quickly. It takes years for people to be able to walk on the wire properly, so we have been working hard, understanding the meaning of getting your balance right on the wire and being able to walk a fair distance high in the sky. The whole thing, it’s really challenging.

What preparation did you do, in terms of your fitness and diet, ahead of taking part in the show?
If I’m completely honest with you, I didn’t do any. But it’s very demanding in terms of your core, you need to be able to walk really centred and focused, without moving too much side to side, so every day I’m working on that - abs, stuff like that.

Do you feel confident you’ll be able to complete the final challenge across a famous London landmark?
At least you can try [laughs]. I’m not a professional of highwire walking. I’m just embracing the idea and trying my best every day to learn how to do it with more facility and being more capable of doing it without the stress and the tension in your arms and legs… it’s getting there.

Did your natural sporting abilities help you at all?
No!

Really?
Ballet dancer? Yes. Footballer? No [laughs]. We are too stiff. We are very stiff. When we put our foot somewhere, we need to feel the ground, and when you walk on the wire, you need to – it’s just sliding without any tension, because otherwise the wire will be wobbling, and this is not what we want, especially when you are up in the sky. It’s not an easy process. Some people have more capacity or understanding of that.

Who have you bonded with most in the group?
Everyone. The girls have been absolutely amazing, the way they’re progressing. The boys, they are great. I didn’t know Anton before but heard about him because he was a football player, obviously. As for the others, Charley, I didn’t know much about, but I’ve been able to watch his series with Ewan McGregor, and the things he’s done before. Chris, I’ve never watched Love Island, so I didn’t know.

It’s a nice group of people. We all do the same thing, we all think it’s really difficult, so we all need each other. We’re pushing one another. When you see someone making progress, you want to catch up with them. It’s always helping each other in many ways. We’ve been staying 2,000, 3,000 metres high in the mountains with nothing else around.

I mean, there’s a lot of cows running about.
Well, our friends were the cows for the last two weeks [laughs].

What’s it been like filming in Austria?
This place is absolutely amazing, 180-degree views on the mountains. It’s such a beautiful location. It’s fresh – you can feel there’s no pollution there. And the places we’ve been for the challenges also have been brilliant.

You might be terrified, but at least the views are alright.
The views are alright [laughs]. The scenery is beautiful… everything is pure. You can feel that it’s very healthy compared to other places. I guess you come to Austria, to the mountains for a reason, because it’s breath-taking, everywhere you look is like, “Wow!”

Did it make you want to sing Sound of Music songs?
Or just listen to the silence [laughs]. You don’t have noise from cars. Sometimes we hear planes because we are close to them now. We had a massive storm two days ago, thunder everywhere, it was brilliant, Mother Nature in its purest sense. I loved it, the mountains, I’m glad to be there, but I will also be glad to go back to sea level. It’s very difficult to fall asleep easily because you need to adapt yourself to the altitude.

Circling back to something you said at the beginning. In what ways has your life been impacted by cancer?
Friends, girls and boys, have been affected by that, and obviously it touches you as well, because it’s your friends, and when you hear the news, it’s never good news. The whole process to recover, sometimes it takes a long time, and it involves so much hard stuff to cope with. I’ve also been involved with the British Heart Foundation with other things as well, and in France. I encountered my own problems with my heart [David suffered a heart attack in 2016 and later underwent quadruple bypass surgery], so I think it’s important to be involved with charitable causes when you have been lucky in your life, somehow.

It must have made you reflect on your own mortality.
I think so. It’s very important at the end of the day to raise money for Stand Up to Cancer… everything we do every day is for that. The final goal will be to raise as much money as possible.