In an interview for his upcoming film Homefront, Jason Statham voiced his support for an Oscar category for stunt performers, saying they rarely get any credit in Hollywood.
“I think it is an overlooked category,” Statham told Vanity Fair, “[Stunt performers] are the unsung heroes. They really are. Nobody is giving them any credibility. They’re risking their necks. And then you’ve got poncy actors pretending like they’re doing [the stunts].”
The quote comes in the midst of a long-brewing campaign by many industry stunt performers to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize their work with a new Oscars category. Most recently legendary stuntman Jack Gill, who has performed stunts in varying capacities on over 150 projects, argued that a stunts-specific Oscars category has both “artistic and scientific merit.”
Interestingly, the Screen Actors Guild Awards does recognize the work stuntmen and women do with a Best Stunt Ensemble category, but the recognition is clearly not has great as it would be at the Oscars. The last time the Academy added an Oscars category was in 2001 for Best Animated Feature – before that, you’d have to go all the way back to 1981 and the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category. Basically, the Academy seems reluctant to change.
Regardless of whether this campaign by the likes of Statham and Gill comes to fruition, it seems important to at least recognize the amount of raw talent and skill these stunt performers and choreographers possess. Without them, our action movies would be seriously depleted, because let’s face it: there is only one Jackie Chan to go around.