Ben Smith-Petersen

Ben Smith-Petersen was born and raised in the small beach town of Byron Bay in New South Wales. Apart from trapeze, he is also interested in skateboarding and surfing.

At the age of 14, Ben Smith-Petersen first started doing flying trapeze after being introduced to it by one of his mother's friends. He was very much obsessed with it and was determined to master the art of flying trapeze, which he learned at Circus Arts Australia, under its owner and director Belinda Hultgren. With time, he was able to understand it well enough to be able to put a trapeze together. As he became confident with his stunt skills, he also began teaching flying trapeze to kids. He was exposed to stunt work through his work in the circus after he worked with a stunt coordinator who offered him work in films. While he stopped working in the circus after getting stunt work, he is still remembered by many as the 'circus guy'. The first film he worked in as a stuntman was the American romantic drama film 'The Great Gatsby', based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel of the same name. Since then, he has worked on several prestigious films, both in Australia and overseas, and has also tried his luck in acting and in music.

Ben Smith-Petersen first met actress Riley Keough in 2012, during the six-month long shooting in the desert for 'Mad Max: Fury Road', the fourth installment of the 'Mad Max' series. Riley played the supporting role of one of Immortan Joe's wives, Capable, while Ben was a stunt performer as well as an actor on the movie. However, their first meeting was brief. They again met during the re-shoots of the film in Australia, and this time they got to know each other better as the crew was smaller. They soon began dating, and according to Riley, two weeks into the relationship, she was confident that she had met her future life partner. She claimed that she never felt weird around him even in those early days of dating.

The couple decided to take things one step further and got engaged on August 14, 2014, which he announced to the world via a social media post featuring Riley with her ring. Interestingly, this was the second engagement in two years for Riley, who was previously engaged to her 'Magic Mike' co-star Alex Pettyfer in 2012 before breaking off the engagement later that year. After about one year of dating, Ben and Riley finally tied the knot on February 4, 2015 in Napa, California. The wedding was attended by a number of renowned celebrities including Riley's friends Kristen Stewart, Zoe Kravitz, Dakota Johnson, and Cara Delevingne; her 'Mad Max: Fury Road' co-stars Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton; and her ex-boyfriend, Canadian musician Tobias Jesso Jr., with whom she was involved for a while. In an interview with 'The Guardian, Riley defended getting married at 25 by saying that both her mother and grandmother had kids by the time they were 21. However, she also added that "the world is in a weird place, so I’m kind of torn on whether to bring a child in, or to adopt. Like morally." The couple, who often joked about having a dog 'baby' together, shares a French bulldog named Grubs, which snores "like a chainsaw" even after going through a surgery for it. Ben has secured Permanent Resident Status in the United States.