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Like many in the action-choreography community, Stahelski feels such recognition has been a long time coming.
It makes you smile.
Youre like,Okay, cool.
Everybodys been trying to impress the world and each other with what we do.
So to have an Academy Award, thats great.
But I think most stunt performers would agree that thats never a priority with us.
Its the stunt performer way, if you will, to live within our community.
Given the bureaucracy and the politics and all the paperwork, its kind of a big thing.
You cant just give the award to one person.
Were a very collaborative department.
Again, if I asked you right now, what do stunt people really do?
How does it start?
And the answer is, its different on every show.
If you ask me who designs the action on my movies, onJohn Wick, I do.
But how do I design it?
Well, I have a team of ten guys that helps me choreograph.
I have three other fight choreographers that are coming from Japan, China, France.
I have two stunt-riggers that design how I do the wild gags.
My idea is the gag.
Their idea is how to do it safely.
Camera guys shoot it.
My editor helps me edit it.
VFX helped me erase the wires.
Thats pretty fucking collaborative.
Its not as simple as a wardrobe supervisor or a costume designer.
Were a lot of different moving parts.
But if youre talking about action design, youre talking about a team within the stunt department.
On a Jackie Chan movie, who would you give that one to?
Do you give it to the fight choreographer?
Do you give it to the guy that made sure the actor was safe?
The guy that saved his life, the underwater team that made sure he was okay?
My next point would be, okay, thank you very much for the award.
Now whos going to decide who should get it?
You need an educated electorate!
You need an educated panel of people that know its a little trickier than you think.
I think thats a very fair way of doing it.
So, thank you so much to the Academy.
I love your efforts.
But were not done yet.
When I started stunts, there was no promise of awards or accolades.
You did your job.
You made sure everybody was safe.
Until the internet came along, how many people knew about us?
Part of the magic of movies is making you think its real.
We were Hollywoods best-kept secret for a very long time.
So the magic that we create, its sleight-of-hand stuff.
Maybe we did too good of a job for the first 50 years.
But now, not only are we well recognized, were part of the mythology of filmmaking.
Its cool to know about how they did the stunts.
Its cool to see the doubles; stunt doubles are accepted.
Digital doubles are accepted.
Wire work is accepted.
I think thats why youve seen the push over the last five years to really get Academy recognition.
Theres always been a very vocal part of our community that thinks we deserve an Academy Award.
That thinks its only fair.
And thats been going on for decades.
Its a cultural thing, but also dont underestimate this the Academy came tous.
WhenJohn Wick 4was still in post, I had some people from the Academy contact me.
Hey, were here, youre doing this.
We love your stuff.
What can we do?
It started very small and then ballooned very fast.
I think the Academy was kind of going, Hey, this could be good marketing.
Everyone I talked to seemed very, very game to learn a lot more.
They wanted to be educated.
And it was kind of like two people talking about the same thing.
They just never talked about it together.
