IN PRAISE OF STUNT WORK
Associations argue dangerous duties deserve the industry’s full respect
When the 91st Academy Awards ceremony takes place in Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Feb. 24, awards will be given for everything from best picture to best visual effects.
But there won’t be any categories honouring the work done by stunt actors and co-ordinators.
From the moment French inventor Louis Le Prince captured consecutive moving action in 1888’s Roundhay Garden Scene to the epic fight sequences seen in such Oscar-nominated works as Black Panther, moviemaking has involved stunts and stunt performers.
So why is it there are no merit categories at the Academy Awards honouring them?
It’s a question the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures has petitioned the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to rectify at this year’s event by including the categories of stunt co-ordinator and stunt performance to the Oscars.
The letter from the stunt association makes the following argument, among others:
“We respectfully request that you, the academy consider the essential part of “arts and science” that is relative to the design, direction, casting and physical determination and risk of stunts … Consider the films up for best picture in past years: Dunkirk, Mad Max: Fury Road, Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, The Revenant, The Martian, The Big Short, Room and Brooklyn.
“Not only could these films not be made without the expertise and talent of a stunt co-ordinator and stunt performance, the presentation of the films would have fallen incalculably below the entertainment level expected of such films. In view of this fact, should not the performers of such valuable contribution be acknowledged?”
At present, the Academy of Television Arts and Science (the Emmys), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards and the Taurus World Stunt Awards all recognize these and other categories. At the ACTRA National Stunt Community Liaison/Advocate office in Toronto, Postmedia was informed that “this issue is a hot topic for stunt performers all over. In fact, Canadian stunt performers are currently engaged in a push to include stunts in the Canadian academy, too” for the Canadian Screen Awards.
Hollywood North veteran Peter Kent stood in for Arnold Schwarzenegger on the first two Terminator films. He doesn’t mince words when asked to comment on the issue.
Plainly put, he finds it “outrageous” that there are no stunt awards at the Academy Awards. The lack of recognition when you are putting your life on the line for a film is one of the harder lessons he has to impart to aspiring stunt performers and planners trained at Peter Kent’s School of Hard Knocks.
It’s one echoed by stunt actors all over, too.
“It’s been a push for a long time and there have been four of five different groups over the years that have tried to get movement on this issue, with this latest being spearheaded by the Stuntmen’s Association,” Kent said.
“It’s mind-blowing that there is this resistance on the part of the academy to acquiesce to that because of the magnitude of some of the work behind some of these movies that literally couldn’t be made without the stunts behind them.
“If you were to haul the stunts out of a lot of these — case in point, my own work on the two Terminator films — in many cases there wouldn’t be a lot left to them.”
In terms of how they are contracted, stunt players are paid the same rate as other actors according to the union rate and scale. Canadian Stuntmen’s Association’s Ryan Ennis says a perceived bias puts stunt people below other categories involved in the production of a motion picture.
Coming from a family of stunt people — his brother Glenn played the bear in The Revenant — he also doesn’t think it’s fair.
“There is a hypothesis that stunt people are there to be invisible and, if you are doubling for an actor, they are most likely going to appear on television later claiming that they did all their own stunts. So the guess is that some influential actors have fought so hard for so many years to keep us out for that reason, maybe.”
Ennis says that while no one doubts that Tom Cruise could have been “an amazing stunt person,” many others who claim they were there shooting their own stunt scenes just weren’t.
Kent echoes the argument that high-profile actors use the “I do my own stunts” mantra as part of their branding, but that’s all it is.
“I can tell you for a fact how it works: You have a $100-million film and you’re paying the lead $20 million of that and, if anything happens to them, then it goes to completion bonding and the insurance company has to back it up to complete the film, or pay out the remainder to all the vendors, producers and everyone else standing in line,” he said.
“Of course nobody is going to put a $20-million actor in harm’s way with that kind of risk involved. They are going to find a stunt double who, if they get broken, can be replaced without halting production.”
It happens all the time and almost anyone in the industry will talk about injuries, if not exactly the where or when. Film sets are known for their safety controls, but nothing is 100-per-cent risk-free. Because film sets are also known for high levels of discretion, the public generally knows nothing of this.
Only in the worst-case scenarios, such as the 2017 death of motorcycle driver Joi (S.J.) Harris during the filming of Deadpool 2 do accidents get reported.
Ennis says it’s this very situation of the people out there putting their lives in harm’s way to this degree that merits them getting honoured for the work.
From Hollywood to Hollywood North, stunt people largely agree that getting the recognition their work deserves has been an ongoing fight.
A 2017 article in Variety reported that SAG-AFTRA presidential candidate and veteran stuntman Peter Antico issued a statement blasting union leadership for failure to provide adequate protection for the stunt community.
Antico clarified that the collective bargaining agreement doesn’t cover set safety. Cort Hessler, stunt co-ordinator on the TV show The Blacklist and head of the national stunt and safety committee at SAG-ACTRA, recently passed a motion for 2020 that there will be a master list of stunt people who have worked at least 500 days on set to be recommended for stunt co-ordination positions.
“That you could have a stunt going on and no mandatory ambulance on site is, to me, unconscionable, but it’s pretty standard practice,” Antico said.
“It’s not mandatory that a producer hire someone with 500 days over someone off the street, because there are no qualifications necessary to be a stunt co-ordinator.
“The good news is we hope that this motion can set a precedent in terms of who we recommend as people who are safe to work with.”
Stunt performers and co-ordinators will be publicly boycotting the Academy Awards this year in support of Stunt’s Unlimited member Jack Gill’s drive to see the inclusion of the category of stunt co-ordinator and more at the Oscars.