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Stuntmen Stump for Oscar Love
Hollywood's top stunt-performing organizations have banded together to pull off their trickiest maneuver yet--getting the famously stodgy Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to create an Academy Award category for fall guys.
It's already too late for the daring to even dream of getting Oscar props this year (the 2005 gala ceremony is set for Feb. 27), and the last major new Oscar category, Best Animated Feature, took a decade of petitioning to make the ballot. But that didn't stop the four major stunt groups--Stunts Unlimited, Brand X, the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures and the International Stunt Association--from launching their campaign Wednesday, saying they're as deserving of a statuette as a film's hair and makeup or visual effects team.
"When was the last time you heard someone say, 'Wow what a great makeup job on that film'?" asks Conrad Palmisano, president of the Stuntman's Association of Motion Picture.
"I don't want to take an Oscar away from anyone; however, we've been doing this a very long time and our guys have been doing this a long time," he tells E! Online.
"What we do is an art form and it's also a science."
In a joint statement, the four groups say, "Stunt performers are the only faction of the movie industry that must literally risk their lives for the sake of their art. The talent and expertise that is required of a stunt coordinator to be both creative and safe is enormous and highly deserving of Academy recognition."
The stunt groups say the Oscars need look no further than the Emmy Awards, which give out a trophy for Outstanding Stunt Coordination. The stunt folk also say they have a petition signed by A-listers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Bruckheimer, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger that says stunt coordinators merit an Oscar category.
Palmisano & Co. are turning up the heat via their public campaign after getting turned down by Academy, which is reluctant to add any new categories.
"They have proposed it in past years but the board has rejected it," says Academy spokesman Jon Pavlik.
The last category added to the Awards fete was Best Animated Feature, which was approved in 2000 for the 2002 Oscars. Prior to that, the last time the 42-member board created a category was in 1981 for Best Makeup.
But Pavlik does not rule out a stunt category in the future. However, he says, "Nothing is going to happen until May at the earliest," when the board meets to review Oscar rules.
In the meantime, Palmisano and his peers aren't giving up. "Back in the old days, the stuntman was supposed to be seen not heard," says Palmisano. "These days, audiences are so sophisticated and are very aware of stunt people and the work they do."
Palmisano cited recent films like The Bourne Supremacy as proof audiences hunger for stunts performed by real people, not computer-generated trickery.
"We make sure actors can perform their own stunts via our choreography," he says. "Action movies make a lot of money in Hollywood--and we help when we tell stories through our action. We believe it's noteworthy...certainly as noteworthy as other categories currently on Academy ballots."
Hollywood trivia buffs know that just one stuntman received Oscar accolades for his dangerous work on film: Yakima Canutt was given an honorary Oscar in 1967 for a ground-breaking career that included work on the seminal chariot race in Ben-Hur.
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