--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Oscars are so last month, and yet they're still making news. This week, a new rule: members gotta watch the movies before they vote. Big yikes.
--:-- Noel King: But earlier this month, a new category. Best Stunt Design. It's almost like an issue of justice. Kind of like justice for stunts. Like for the work that they do, and the fact that they don't really get credited the way that a lot of other people in the film industry do with Oscars and industry awards and things like that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But for me, as a film critic and a cinephile and also someone who's studied film history, the stunt people were here before the movie stars were. Like, stunts built Hollywood. And the idea that over the years, they never quite got their due just seemed to be such a miscarriage of justice.
--:-- Noel King: Justice for stunting on Today Explained. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into, don't you know? That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Didn't know that. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data, workflows, and AI, connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most.
--:-- Noel King: I've never met an AI agent. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at servicenow.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this show comes from strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place?
--:-- Noel King: Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying. But are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bilga Abiri says an Oscar for stunt design is justice for all those stunt people who never got their due. We asked him who the first stunt people in Hollywood were.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: I mean, in many ways, we don't even know, really. Very often, the people that appeared in, you know, some of the early silents, they were anonymous in so many cases.
--:-- Noel King: But, you know, if you look at somebody like Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd, I mean, these people were stars, but they were renowned for their stunts, for the incredible Pratt Falls.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: And this is before we had terms like stunt coordinator or stunt designer or action designer. These guys did all that stuff. And they starred in and often wrote the films.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Charlie Chaplin would also count. You know, Charlie Chaplin, I mean, obviously was a comedian and a great actor. But so much of his slapstick comedy is predicated on stunt work.
--:-- Noel King: And, you know, when you talk about Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, you're talking about some of the biggest names in early cinema. Oh, yeah.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: But I think most people probably think of them as actors and visionaries before they think of them as stuntmen or stunt people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When does that start to change? Where does the road split and actors and visionaries are in one group and people who do stunts and fun action sequences are in a very different group?
--:-- Bilga Abiri: I mean, once any industry gets big enough and begins to think of itself as an art form, it, you know, almost organically and automatically divides into artists and then the people who are an artist who are there to serve the artist's vision.
--:-- Noel King: And that, of course, gets hyper-accelerated when the Oscars come into the picture. And in the Oscar, I mean, there's a whole history of why the Oscars came about.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: But part of it was for the film industry to really make a case for itself as an art form because censorship was starting to come in. And they wanted to make the case, well, we're actually doing great art.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And here we're going to show that by giving awards to ourselves for the best picture and the best director and best actor and that sort of thing.
--:-- Noel King: And when they came up with a list of who would get an Oscar, was there a reason that they bypassed stunt people?
--:-- Bilga Abiri: The only reason was that they didn't think of stunt people as being all that important. I mean, this is back when stunt people were barely getting paid. They had zero industry protections.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There would be reports of how many stunt people had died in that given year. I mean, people were dying making these movies.
--:-- Noel King: You know, they had to sign these things that, you know, colloquially called blood sheets, which were these contracts saying that they weren't going to sue if they were maimed or killed on shoots and things like that.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: And this I mean, this is what I mean. Also, when I say they were largely anonymous, too, they were not generally seen as. In most cases, people didn't even know who they're what their names were.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, you know, why even bother to give them awards?
--:-- Noel King: When does it start to feel strange or unjust to people that there is no category for stunt work?
--:-- Bilga Abiri: The real movement for it begins in 1991. A legendary stunt coordinator named Jack Gill is working with the director Sidney Lumet on the film A Stranger Among Us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's Sidney Lumet who actually says to him, why isn't there an Oscar for stunts?
--:-- Bilga Abiri: So Jack Gill enters the Academy and, you know, he begins to advocate for a stunt Oscar. We feel like we're being left out. We feel like there's a big hole in the Academy and we should be included in it.
--:-- Noel King: It should be a no-brainer decision that happens overnight.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: And the thing he always said was, you know, at first they seemed really open to the idea, but over the years, you know, he found more and more doors just shut in his face.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And towards the end he said they won't even meet with me anymore. This was in 2019.
--:-- Noel King: How come he didn't know like he did not know why they had stopped meeting with him over the years.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: He'd been given all sorts of different excuses for why there couldn't be a stunt Oscar for a while.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: People would say, well, you know, we don't want another category at the Oscars. The show is already too long.
--:-- Noel King: Who wants another category?
--:-- Bilga Abiri: And then not only do we not want this category, but like, this category is a technical category.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, the Oscars for years were trying as hard as they could to sideline the technical categories.
--:-- Noel King: They thought to get more viewers and to sort of be a better, you know, awards show experience, what they really needed was more glitz, more glamour, you know, ways to get more famous people, give out bigger awards.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: In their eyes, a stunt Oscar was not going to be that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is there also an issue with the very work being rewarded here? The fact that it's dangerous to do these stunts could be a deterrent, right?
--:-- Noel King: You start giving people awards for doing dangerous stuff. Maybe they start doing more and more dangerous stuff.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: Yes. And that was another thing that Jack Gill heard and that I've heard as well over the years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There were certain folks in the Academy who felt that if you gave an Oscar for stunts, then stunt people would start hurting themselves and maybe even killing themselves trying to create more and more elaborate stunts because they were trying to win an Oscar.
--:-- Noel King: Being intelligent is much more important to stunt people nowadays than just toughness.
--:-- Bilga Abiri: I would like to think that we will use the awards to push ourselves creatively. And use every tool in the book to push it and make it look.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My name is Chad Stahelski. I'm the director of the John Wick series, show with one, two, three, and four.
--:-- Chad Stahelski: You know, we're stunt people for a reason. You know, like there's a certain ego involved. There's a certain mentality involved when you want to be an A-list or tier one stunt performer.
--:-- Noel King: I think now rather than pushing risk, we push creativity. To do greater things.
--:-- Chad Stahelski: And, you know, I think we're going to push the envelope of what audience sees. But let's hope we don't push it past the point of safety.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's hope we push past what's the norm and push the envelopes of how we make it safe so we can be a lot more creative in how to put our tools together.
--:-- Noel King: My name is Zoe Bell. I feel like sort of once a stunt person, always a stunt person.
--:-- Zoe Bell: So I would still refer to myself as a stunt person. Any coordinator that is really good and intuitive knows that safety is key.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So yes, the risk might go higher, but hopefully the technology to sort of divert from as much of that risk as possible kind of comes hand in hand with that.
--:-- Noel King: And I think, look, it's just inherent. As we evolve inherently, the risk goes up across the board because we're always pushing and always breaking boundaries.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And so that I think is kind of built in. If anything, stunts have gotten safer and safer over the years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There isn't a single stunt person out there that wouldn't prefer to land on a two-inch ethaphone mat than concrete.
--:-- Noel King: We're not out there to win an award for who's toughest. We're out there to win an award to who wows the audience.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And if I can do that safely by putting rigs on cars and wires and pads, great.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Look at the historical trajectory of stunts. Back when they weren't getting any awards and nobody knew who the heck they were and Nobody was rushing to sort of talk about how amazing the stunts were in movies.
--:-- Noel King: That's when people were dying, right?
--:-- Zoe Bell: The more that we've actually focused on stunts and the more aware we've become of stunts, they've gotten, if anything, safer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's my job to say, I don't think I can do that safely or beautifully enough, whatever the situation is.
--:-- Noel King: It's also my job to go, I've never done it to that extent, but I know I can. Let's fucking go.
--:-- Zoe Bell: But as a stunt coordinator, they have to be able to read that when I'm saying to them, I trust that I can do that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They have to be able to read me well enough to know whether I'm full of horse or not.
--:-- Noel King: The other thing is I always found that that argument was sort of rooted in a certain Hollywood elitism.
--:-- Zoe Bell: I think a lot of them thought of these guys as, you know, these are people whose job it is to, you know, get run over by a car.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, do we really want them to be in on our fancy little awards show where we're, you know, eating hors d'oeuvres and drinking champagne and talking about what great artists we are?
--:-- Noel King: You know, so there are all sorts of weird classism comes into it.
--:-- Zoe Bell: So what changed the Academy's mind?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's a very good question. I mean, I don't know if there was any one thing that set it off.
--:-- Noel King: What I will say is, I mean, more and more people have been advocating for this for the past few years.
--:-- Zoe Bell: I think it's time we give a little love to our stunt coordinators and our stunt crews.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A lot of other filmmakers have been vocal about it. People like George Miller, people like Quentin Tarantino, and actors have been very vocal about it.
--:-- Noel King: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves, Ryan Gosling, Tom Cruise. Obviously, all these people have at various points talked about the need for a stunt Oscar.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And last year, you know, the fall guy ended with a song about how there still is no stunt Oscar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. I mean, this is actually it was like a plot point almost in the film.
--:-- Noel King: I don't know if you heard, but my stunt brothers and sisters don't get no gold.
--:-- Zoe Bell: So here's to the unsung heroes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So who gets the Oscar for a stunt? Is it the stunt coordinator, the stunt people, the director, all of the above?
--:-- Noel King: Well, that's one of the big questions.
--:-- Zoe Bell: You know, for years, when Jack Gill was, you know, stumping for a best stunts Oscar category, his contention was, listen, it would go to the stunt coordinator.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there's a stunt coordinator on any film that has stunts.
--:-- Noel King: But, you know, on any given film, the exact combination of who is responsible for the stunts is different, right?
--:-- Zoe Bell: Like a good, a really good director, some of the top directors out there, they're part of everything. It's their vision, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like I design a lot of the action in John Wick because of my background.
--:-- Noel King: I get to help design that. But not every director comes from 30 years of stunts.
--:-- Zoe Bell: So they need help, but they have this vision.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I want character beats.
--:-- Noel King: So like what I'm saying is filmmaking in general at a high level is always collaborative.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And there's, it would be impossible to separate the lines, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. So the stunt department and the stunt people involved in the design and execution, I think, should be involved.
--:-- Noel King: Now, every movie is different. You know that.
--:-- Zoe Bell: You can look at a John Wick. There's 400 stunt people from five different countries.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's four choreographers. There's three stunt coordinators. There's a rigger, a driving coordinator.
--:-- Noel King: So who gets it? So, you know, it'll be a case where on any given film, they're going to have to determine who is the person to get it.
--:-- Zoe Bell: I don't know if this is the thing that would go to one person or if it'd be, you know, the way best picture goes to three producers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, you know, with with with the stunt Oscar, they'll figure out.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, it'll go to some combination of the credited stunt coordinator, sometimes maybe the filmmaker.
--:-- Zoe Bell: You know, I don't think necessarily it means Tom Cruise is going to get up there for, you know, and pick up an Oscar for a Mission Impossible movie.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But who knows? Maybe maybe he will.
--:-- Noel King: Are the stunt people happy with how this has all been set up?
--:-- Zoe Bell: I would imagine that they're elated.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I tend to sort of minimize stuff kind of immediately.
--:-- Noel King: But when I think about my comrades and all my workmates that have in the past...
--:-- Zoe Bell: When I think of the Jeannie Epper's of the world, I'm so sad that Jeannie Epper didn't get a chance to see this happen.
--:-- Noel King: Epper grew up in a family of stunt performers, setting out early on a legendary 70-year career, highlighted by her work as the stunt double to Linda Carter's Wonder Woman.
--:-- Zoe Bell: I know my neighbors think I'm nuts. They say, what are you going to do today, Jeannie? And what do you tell them?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Whatever's coming up. We hit by a car or whatever.
--:-- Noel King: And then they wait to see what condition I'm going to come home in, of course.
--:-- Zoe Bell: I just feel like a really deep sense of validation for her entire career and her entire life and her entire family and the generations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So that for me really resonated with thinking about my people and my industry as a whole.
--:-- Noel King: I felt really long deserved recognition. Super grateful.
--:-- Zoe Bell: It's kind of cool. Of course, it's always been great to be recognized.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just always tricky to say most stunt performers.
--:-- Noel King: And I'm sure if you interview a lot of us, especially from the older generations, the stunt performers were always meant to be like the little hidden secret, the trick behind the curtain, if you will.
--:-- Zoe Bell: But still, that doesn't mean, you know, you don't want to be recognized by your peers and all that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Look, I think it's very cool. The Academy is doing it.
--:-- Noel King: I think it's at a really good time.
--:-- Zoe Bell: So to be recognized in that. Yeah, I think it's a cool, at least both performing and technical achievement.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think it's pretty cool.
--:-- Noel King: Okay, so who's going to get the first Oscar for stunt design?
--:-- Zoe Bell: Do we just assume it's Tom Cruise?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because there's a Mission Impossible movie coming out this year?
--:-- Noel King: Well, he has a Mission Impossible movie coming out this year.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And everyone seems to accept that it's going to be his last one.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he won't be eligible for that movie because the first awards are going to be given to films released in 2027.
--:-- Zoe Bell: What if we don't make it to 2027?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well then we got bigger problems.
--:-- Noel King: Then maybe the stunt people can help us in other ways like teaching us how to survive in a post-wasteland.
--:-- Zoe Bell: But yeah, 2027.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you know unless Tom comes up with another mission...
--:-- Noel King: I mean he is planning on doing i think he still planning on doing that movie where he goes to space so maybe they get it for that one.
--:-- Zoe Bell: He's gonna have to come back to Mission Impossible just to win this Oscar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And is it even in 2027 or is it in 2028 the award will be in 2028 it's for the movies that's even longer it's even longer tom cruise is going to be like 85 years old or something.
--:-- Noel King: Um i've always thought that Tom Cruise should be the first person to present the best of stunts Oscar.
--:-- Zoe Bell: There you go.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But, you know, who knows? Who knows how it'll work out?
--:-- Noel King: All right, Bilga. Well, you know, since our listeners, after listening to us yammer on about stunts and the Oscars for 20 minutes here, they won't even get to see this stunt-inclusive Oscars for years.
--:-- Zoe Bell: I wonder if we can leave them with something.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know the Oscars love a montage, perhaps we can do our own little montage right now of all the great stunts over a century of Hollywood that never got love from the Oscars.
--:-- Noel King: What should be in the montage that will happen in 2028, but we're going to do one right now?
--:-- Zoe Bell: Well, first, we got to start with movies that were even before the Oscars started, because you've got to include stuff like Buster Keaton's The General and films like that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill Jr.
--:-- Noel King: You have to think about some of the great Western stunts, you know, like in Stagecoach.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And then you have to think about films like the great, you know, Sword and Sandal epics like Ben-Hur and, you know, El Cid.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the great epics of the 1950s and 60s where there were a lot of elaborate stunt work and a lot of writing.
--:-- Noel King: I think Lawrence of Arabia has got some of the greatest battle sequences ever.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And you've got to start thinking about the great car movies, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You've got to think about Bullet, the car chase in Bullet.
--:-- Noel King: You've got to think about the car-slash-subway chase in The French Connection.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And then, you know, this is also when we get Star Wars right star wars comes out in the late 70s i mean it completely redefines the idea of the blockbuster
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You start thinking about raiders of the lost ark under the truck what terry leonard did was fucking amazing right he climbs across the horses and he goes under the horse and under the cart
--:-- Noel King: There's nothing like look at the fight scenes the the the big german guy they fought by the plane and then swinging on like there's a lot of action in raiders of the lost ark but it all moved the character for nothing was gratuitous it wasn't just car crashes like it was awesome
--:-- Zoe Bell: So then we start going through the 80s you know you got to look at movies like die hard romancing the stone the big mudslide that i was like that's a girl doing that and that's genie epa
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You got to look at terminator movies i'll be back back in the day if jackie chan came out with you know, Police Story 2, Firework Factory.
--:-- Noel King: You'd be like, fuck, I'm all over. It's a great gang.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And then we get stuff like Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Titanic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm the king of the world!
--:-- Noel King: Think of a film like The Mask of Zorro, right? Which is a great, great, you know, action movie full of amazing writing and amazing, you know, swashbuckling stunts.
--:-- Zoe Bell: Think about the James Bond movies all across this huge swath of time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I didn't think I'm ever going to fly with anyone else.
--:-- Noel King: You're so right, Mr. Bond.
--:-- Zoe Bell: This is where we leave you, Mr. Bond.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Moonraker, which is not one of the great James Bond movies, but has that incredible sequence at the start with people jumping out of airplanes without parachutes and stuff like that.
--:-- Noel King: And those are real stunts. And that was the first time anybody did that.
--:-- Zoe Bell: And that was also stunt camera work. You know, you had camera people with, like, helmet cams and things like that, like, flying through the air recording this stuff.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, yeah, so the James Bond movies all throughout this period.
--:-- Noel King: And then you have sequences, like Bad Boys 2, the car chase.
--:-- Zoe Bell: You know, fucking with Michael Bay. Awesome.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I find it hard to not bring up the death proof sequence because I mean just because honestly it's the only work of mine that to this day it doesn't matter how many times I've seen it when I watch it I still get a sort of visceral response as an audience member like I find myself going even though I know for a fact my feet are not where they're not in any danger
--:-- Noel King: But I still sort of flinch and cringe as if it's not me watching me.
--:-- Zoe Bell: Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, flipping the semi. Great game.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Mad Max Fury Road is an incredible, incredible film full of incredible riding stunts and all sorts of other stunts as well.
--:-- Noel King: That film is full of just incredible, incredible action. A lot of which was done for real and we're very careful to make sure everything felt real.
--:-- Zoe Bell: Oh what a day! What a lovely day!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bilga Abiri writes for Vulture over at New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com.
--:-- Noel King: Chad Stahelski and Zoe Bell make movies and they have made some really good ones.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Heidi Mawagdi made this show Jolie Myers, Amina Alsadi, Laura Bullard Andrea Kisten's daughter and Patrick Boyd would share the Oscar with them The rest of the team at Today Explained includes Amanda Llewellyn, Avishai Artsy Miles Bryan, Carla Javier Victoria Chamberlain, Peter Balanon-Rosen Devin Schwartz, Gabrielle Burbay Our executive producer Miranda Kennedy and our executive host Noelle King We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder Today Explained is distributed by WNYC The show is a part of Vox You can support us by going to vox.com slash members. And you can check out our Sunday show, Explain It To Me. It'll be here Sunday.
