Film
The Taurus World Stunt Awards Honor Film’s Unsung Heroes
How a new ceremony sought to honor the stunt performers who were so often overlooked during awards season.
It’s long been felt in Hollywood that there really ought to be Academy Awards handed out to the courageous stunt performers who, as the saying goes, are the people who consistently make the film world’s leading ladies and men look good.
Red Bull’s founder Dietrich Mateschitz was one of those who felt that these unsung heroes of the film industry really deserved proper recognition for risking life and limb to bring thrills and spills to the silver screen, and so in 2001 instituted the first Taurus World Stunt Awards ceremony to honour them.
The winners of the Taurus World Stunt Awards 2011
© Nadine Froger/Red Bull Content Pool
The Awards were an instant success – Gladiator was one of the inaugural winners for best fight sequence – and for nearly two decades since, they have grown into a magnificent annual celebration, with Hollywood’s biggest names like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp flocking to the gala.
The Taurus World Stunt Awards Foundation was also established, by an endowment from Mateschitz, to provide support for the international stunt community and financial assistance to members of the Taurus World Stunt Awards Academy who suffered a debilitating stunt-related injury.
Still, today, many in the film industry continue to push for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honor stunt performers but until they do, the community of highly-skilled stunt professionals can take incredible pride in winning their own Oscars in the shape of the much-coveted Taurus statuette.