Dozens of crew members and artists who worked on thrilling films such as “Dune: Part Two,” “Wicked” and “The Substance” were honored with nominations at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards in March.
But the stunt performers who brought many of those thrills to life? Not so much.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has, over the years, appeared somewhat reluctant to add a category specifically for stunt coordinators or performers, even while other high-profile awards ceremonies — the Emmys, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards — have embraced such categories in recent decades.
“It really feels, at this point, that the Academy is the outlier for awarding stunts,” Jeff Wolfe, the president of the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures, told Nexstar.
But Wolfe — who has worked on films in the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Fast and Furious” and “Terminator” franchises, and directed his first feature film “Outbreak” in 2024 — isn’t bitter about the exclusion. Rather, he’s encouraged about the direction that the industry is heading.
“It’s kind of come up every year,” said Wolfe, who won an Emmy as a stunt coordinator for the TV series “Revolution” in 2013. “Ryan Gosling, last year [has said it], with ‘The Fall Guy.’ Brad Pitt has put it out there, I think. The Rock, Vin Diesel. A lot of the action stars, who, years ago, would tout how little they use stunt doubles, are now the guys who say, ‘Hey, these guys make the movie.’”
Even actors that perform their own stunts need a stunt coordination team to plan, practice and rig the stunts, Jayson Dumenigo, another longtime member of the Stuntmen’s Association, told Nexstar. Stunt coordinators are also increasingly responsible for creating the previsualization work for those stunt sequences, taking on a creative role to storyboard/animate the entire sequence in a visual medium for the director to approve. In many cases, Wolfe and Dumenigo said the director’s vision for those scenes is often directly influenced by the stunt coordinator’s previsualization work.
“Stunts are an art form,” Dumenigo said. “And there’s many different disciplines in that art form.”
The Academy isn’t entirely blind to stunt performers, either. They’ve honored Yakima Canutt and Hal Needham with Honorary Academy Awards (in 1966 and 2012, respectively) for their work, but also for working to establish new safety standards. Dumenigo, whose credits include “Deadpool 2,” “Avengers: Endgame” and “Blade Runner 2049,” took home a Scientific and Engineering Award (a plaque) at a ceremony in January of this year, for his work to develop a gel that better protects performers during fiery stunts.
The Academy, however, still has no dedicated category to honor the quality or choreography of the stunts themselves.
The reason for a lack of stunt-performance categories, Wolfe and Dumenigo theorize, has to do with the lingering influence of the old Hollywood studio system and their historic efforts to promote — and protect the reputation of — their headlining stars.
“In the past … they didn’t want to give up the idea that a stunt was the work of a stuntman,” Wolfe said. “But today, everybody is smart enough to know it’s not [the star doing the stunt]. There’s no longer a reason to stay in the shadows.”
Dumenigo pointed out that the Academy’s first president, Douglas Fairbanks, was himself a movie star whose image may have benefitted from audiences associating him with the swashbuckling roles he played in his films.
The first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, "Wings," was also an action-heavy movie requiring hundreds of stunt performers and pilots to film the complicated aerial battles. Obviously, there was no stunt category to speak of, but “Wings” won an additional award for Best Engineering Effects (now Best Visual Effects) likely thanks to its impressive practical stunts.
“The Academy has had a long history with stunts,” Dumenigo said. “But historically, stunts have always been in the shadows — something to enhance the brand.”
Legendary stunt coordinator Jack Gill, another vocal proponent of stunt-specific categories at the Oscars, has previously dismissed another common claim as to why the Academy might be balking: They’re afraid that by honoring the stunt performers, they’ll encourage a trend of one-upmanship in an already dangerous profession.
“Special-effects people stage explosions, and you don’t see them blowing up real people to win awards,” he told Vulture in 2019.
Wolfe and Dumenigo agree. Besides, they said, the stunt industry is constantly evolving in terms of complexity and safety, with or without the extra incentive. The stunt coordinators behind every “Mission Impossible” film, for instance, are always looking to go bigger and better.
“It’s already happening regardless of the statuette," Dumenigo said.
The process of adding a new category to the Academy Awards, meanwhile, is a bureaucratic one. Members of the Academy (a group that includes stunt professionals) must submit a proposal that must be approved by the Production and Technology Branch Executive Committee, the Academy’s Awards Committee, and the Academy’s Board of Governors.
One such proposal is currently being drawn up. But until the right proposal is approved and a stunt category is added, Wolfe said he feels good about the recognition that Hollywood’s stunt crews are currently earning, either at their own dedicated Taurus World Stunt Awards or in their Emmy and SAG categories.
“We’re excited,” Wolfe told Nexstar. “There’s been such a change there. It feels like a new day is dawning.”