In the early 1990s, filmmaker Sydney Lumet put an idea in stuntman Jack Gill’s head: stunt people ought to have an Oscars category.
Gill met with the then-Academy leadership as the opening salvo in what would become a decades long odyssey. “They said, ‘OK great. It will probably take three to five years. Are you ready to put that much effort into it?’” recalls Gill. Heck, yeah, he was. “Now here we are, 34 years later.”
Today, Gill and the stunt community are celebrating Thursday’s news that, finally, stunts will be recognized in 2028 with a stunt design Oscar.
Gill, as well as countless others, pushed the boulder up the hill, but the effort was supercharged in recent years thanks to stuntpeople such as The Fall Guy filmmaker David Leitch gaining more clout in Hollywood as he became an A-list director. Leitch and his Fall Guy stunt designer Chris O’Hara led the charge for the stunt Oscar, with both presenting to the Academy’s board of governors and lobbying members. They found a sympathetic ear in Academy CEO Bill Kramer, as well as president Janet Yang.
“A lot of it is educating branches that aren’t in physical production that may not have the context of how essential stunt design really is to all movies, not just an action movie, but a comedy, a drama, an arthouse movie,” Leitch tells The Hollywood Reporter of those efforts.
Leitch and O’Hara studied from the playbook of casting directors, who won their own Oscar category last year. It all required a politician’s tact and ability to build coalitions. It also helped that around 100 stuntpeople are now part of the production and technology branch, with governor Wendy Aylsworth showing support for the stunt Oscar.
Their efforts all dovetailed with the release of The Fall Guy, which Ryan Gosling only half-jokingly called “just a giant campaign to get stunts an Oscar” when he introduced he stunt-infused movie at its Los Angeles premiere last April.
The well-liked movie had an energetic marketing and PR campaign that put the work of stunts front and center, and became an example “educating through entertainment,” notes Leitch, who in addition to directing is a prolific producer via he and Kelly McCormick’s 87North Productions.
Now, Leitch, O’Hara and other stakeholders are looking at next steps. First and foremost, how will these nominees be chosen? Branches such as visual effects hold a bake-off, where short-listed films present their work, and it’s possible something like that would happen for stunts.
O’Hara emphasizes that, like production design, the stunt Oscar should judge the contributions to a movie holistically — not just a specific sequence. And he will be intrigued to see the work that is put forward for the 2027 films that will be eligible.
“I think now you’re going to see guys really honing their craft and really designing, looking at the big picture of what the Academy Awards is, and how they can be better filmmakers as stunt designers, and really create memorable moments, seamless moments driven by the story,” says O’Hara.
All the stunt people THR spoke to emphasized that it’s just not blockbusters or action movies this category should apply to.
In 2014, stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski teamed with Leitch to direct John Wick, a movie credited with igniting the public’s interest in stunts.
Stahelski, who helmed three additional Wick movies to date, notes that the Oscar will be a recognition of the unique place the stunt team holds on a production: one that works both behind the camera and in front of it, across multiple departments.
Historically, there was a feeling that stunt performers needed to remain in the shadows, with some actors not wanting to break the illusion that they are doing all their own work in a role.
“We’re supposed to be the quiet ones, the covert operators, the ninja. We don’t need the accolades. We’re supposed to try to build up the magic of Hollywood,” says Stahelski. “But in the last couple of years due to internet, behind the scenes videos, it’s come very acceptable to acknowledge stunts and people are OK with it.”
Indeed, before the stunt Oscar announcement, a number of stuntpeople worried that the actors branch would never support it.
Jeff Wolfe, president of the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures, notes that when he doubled for late actor Ray Stevenson in 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, it was unusual how vocal Stevenson was in giving him credit for his work, telling him, “I am the voice, you are the body.” Now, it’s more and more common for actors to do so.
“It doesn’t seem as hidden. Few and far between now are the actor that says, ‘I do all my own stunts,’” says Wolfe.
For Gill, a legend in the stunt community whose credits range from First Blood and Beverly Hills Cop to Fast Five and Fast X, there have been multiple times before this week he believed he was close to getting a stunt Oscar.
In the early ‘90s, he got big names like Dustin Hoffman and Martin Scorsese to sign a petition on his behalf. It went nowhere. Decades later, when he oversaw stunts for Fast Five (2011), he and his colleagues were convinced there would not only be a stunt category, but they would win it. No luck. In 2016, Gill and dozens of his colleagues assembled for a protest outside film Academy headquarters in Beverly Hills to present its leadership with a petition featuring 50,000 signatures into support. Nobody ever came down to meet them, let alone accept the petition.
So Thursday was an emotional day for him.
Now looking ahead, Gill can’t help but think of the movie that could’ve won in the past: “Raiders of Lost Ark. True Lies. Mad Max: Fury Road and the original Mad Max. Fantastic.”
