The Daring Young Man on The Flying Trapeze Just Might Be a Robot

Richard Bradshaw has vaulted through glass windows, crashed into police cars, dueled on horseback in far away lands, and faced down fire-breathing dragons.

He’s not worried about robots doing any of that as convincingly as he does.

“The audience can feel when something isn’t real,” says Bradshaw, a veteran stuntman who recently wrapped up work on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” “Doing stunts is as much a performance as acting is. I don’t believe the robots will ever take that away.”

That’s not stopping the Walt Disney Co. from trying. The entertainment giant is developing new robots to perform high-flying stunts ...