In 1988, when he was 8 years old and living in Val Verde, Jayson Dumenigo and some of his friends wandered onto the former Indian Dunes movie ranch behind Magic Mountain in Valencia to watch the filming of the TV show “The A-Team.”
All his friends were excited to meet Mr. T from the show. Dumenigo couldn’t believe what he’d just seen before that, and that’s all he was excited about.
“We were able to just kind of walk onto set and watch them film,” Dumenigo said during a recent telephone interview. “That day, the stunt team turned over a car … Mr. T just happened to be there, and he walks over, says hello to the kids, and I kind of ignored him because I was just so enamored with what had gone on in front of me with the stunt guys. And he (Mr. T) goes, ‘Oh, you want to be a stuntman.’ I had never heard that before, and that stuck with me.”
It truly was the singular moment in his life that changed his trajectory. Santa Clarita resident Dumenigo, 46, went on to become a stunt performer, stunt coordinator and action designer, and he founded and is CEO of Action Factory LLC, in Canyon Country, a one-stop action resource company providing “action design” equipment and services to the entertainment industry.
In April, Dumenigo took home the 2025 Science of Engineering Plaque from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the development of his company’s hydrogels, which is a burn gel used in film and television to safely set actors on fire without causing injury.
“This gel has been in use for about 16 years, and when we first developed it, we had the (word) out, and we had gained the Guinness World Record (March 27, 2001) for lighting myself on fire for five minutes and 25 seconds. That was kind of proof that our gels were different and better. But our industry is a tough nut to crack. There’s a lot of people who believe that their way is the only way, and that it’s been working for the last 20 years for them, so why change it?”
It took a decade and a half, but Dumenigo’s hydrogels are now transforming industry standards. Most previous gels, he said, are only effective for a short period of time compared to his. Dumenigo is especially proud not only that the industry has adopted his products, but also that his gels earned an official endorsement from the Academy.
Last week, he made history when he learned that, in October, he’ll also be receiving an Emmy Award for his achievements, becoming what he said will be the first stunt coordinator to win both an Academy Plaque and an Emmy Award in the same year.
Much of the recognition he’s receiving is due to how his hydrogels have improved safety standards and enabled faster setup times on set, among other benefits.
Dumenigo has worked almost 30 years as a union stunt performer. Of his 200-plus movie and TV credits on IMDb, which include work as a stunt performer and stunt coordinator, he’s taken part on 2025’s “Ballerina,” 2024’s “NCIS: Origins,” 2022’s “Hocus Pocus 2,” 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” 2016’s “The Conjuring 2” and several of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.
When he was just 16 years old, Dumenigo got work at Magic Mountain in one of the stunts shows there. At 17, he was asked to jump off the Santa Monica Pier for a Blockbuster Video commercial, which helped him get into the stunt union. With a laugh, he added that he’s probably one of the few people who has jumped off the pier without getting arrested.
Dumenigo is proud about how far he’s come since that day on the set of “The A Team” when he saw stunt performers turn a car over. He sees his Academy and Emmy accomplishments as significant milestones for stunt performers, saying it’s a testament to the fact that “hearts and minds are being won over, and we (stunt people) are out of the shadows and in the spotlight.”
He also mentioned a deeper personal motivation: He hopes his awards and accomplishments will help inspire young people to pursue their dreams as he did.
“You can find a way,” he said. “You just don’t give up.”
