On March 1, the 2026 Actor Awards (that’s still so weird to type) will include two of the few major honors for stuntwork. The Award for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture, and the same for a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Show. That got the IndieWire Craft team thinking about some of the trickiness and nuance behind stunt performances and their excellence — what are we really talking about there?
Is it about honoring the team capable of the most extreme physical feats captured on film? Or is it more about the level of beauty, intricacy, and artistry in a given stunt, like a cinematography conversation but with even more harnesses and carabiners? Or is it even more of a question of direction and how integrally a stunt sequence contributes to the film or show its in? Or something else?
None of these are the wrong answers,…
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.imdb.com ’
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