These stunt performers want a shot at the Oscars. The Fall Guy wants to help
CBC
Explosions. Death-defying falls. Swords, guns, car crashes and balls of fire.
For some, those are terrifying possibilities of a day gone very wrong. But for the new film The Fall Guy, and the stunt performers it seeks to celebrate, it's just another day at the office.
The new film, starring Ryan Gosling and helmed by stuntman-turned-director David Leitch, ostensibly tells the story of stuntman-turned-investigator Colt Seavers. But at its heart, The Fall Guy is actually about showcasing the indispensable contribution of Hollywood's stunt performers, and — as Gosling recently said at an L.A. red carpet event for the film: "This movie is just a giant campaign to get stunts an Oscar."
While there's been a long-running campaign to do just that, getting the contributions of those workers acknowledged at film's biggest night has been an uphill battle with seemingly no end in sight.
CBC News talked to three stunt performers from around the country about why it matters to have their work recognized and what it means that The Fall Guy is trying so hard to accomplish it.
As the first Black female stunt co-ordinator in Canada, Toronto's Angelica Lisk-Hann has seen firsthand how much the industry has changed.
"It's funny. I remember when I first started performing stunts, the term was 'Meat Puppet,' " she said, of what stunt performers were often called. " 'Yeah, here's some money for the rental of your body for the day,' type of situation."
Things have improved since the early days of her career, and that's partly because of Lisk-Hann herself. After learning that the Canadian Screen Awards did not have a stunt category, she started a campaign to include one.
After seeing the category added to the 2020 ceremony, Lisk-Hann took home the very first stunt trophy for her work on the Canadian drama series Mary Kills People. Now, she says, the goal is to get the same recognition for stunt performers at the Academy Awards.
Other awarding bodies have made moves to celebrate stunts, including the Screen Actors Guild, the Taurus World Stunt Awards and the Vulture Stunt Awards. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organizing body for the Oscars, has been hesitant to do the same, and Lisk-Hann finds that confusing.
"It is 'Arts and Sciences,' right?" she said, noting that in The Fall Guy, there's a classic stunt known as a cannon roll that features a performer doing eight and a half revolutions in a car crash. "The old record was seven. Do you think that took some science?"
Lisk-Hann believes some of that hesitancy is because there's a resistance to acknowledging that A-list actors onscreen aren't always performing the astounding feats that audiences witness.
But the reality, she explains, is that nearly every iconic character is built equally by their primary actor and their stunt performer. She points to Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar for best actor in The Revenant — and the well-known scene in which his character, played by a stunt performer, is attacked by a bear.
Each of those performances was equally important to building the character, Lisk-Hann says, but only one took home a trophy.
