Date of birth: 15 September, 1973
Full name: Jonathan Raymond Eusebio
Nickname: Jojo
Alternate names: Jonathan Eusabia, Johnathan Eusabio, Jonathan Eusabio, Johnny Eusebio, Jonathan Jojo Eusebio, Jonathan R. Eusebio, Jonathon Eusebio, Jon Eusebio, John Eusibio
Occupation: Stunt coordinator, fight choreographer, stunt performer, second unit director
Style: Filipino martial arts, taekwondo, judo, wrestling, kickboxing.
Biography: Jonathan Eusebio is a fight choreographer, stunt coordinator and second unit director, and one of the original members of the Hollywood stunt collective, 87eleven Action Design. He started studying the martial arts from the age of eight, training in taekwondo and later judo and wrestling at school. He majored in biological sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and once graduated, he worked in a laboratory, while also pursuing his passion for martial arts. He was a huge fan of Hong Kong action cinema growing up, particularly enjoying the films of John Woo and Jackie Chan, and would create his own homemade fight scenes as a teenager.
At the age of 18, he enrolled at the Inosanto Academy in Marina Del Rey, California, which is where he first met the future filmmakers and 87eleven Action Design founders, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, who were teaching at the school. Jonathan would also start teaching kickboxing classes at the Inosanto Academy in the absence of Chad and David, as they continued to work as stunt performers. Jonathan’s introduction to stunt performing was on the low-budget 1997 actioner, True Vengeance, starring Daniel Bernhardt, at the behest of Chad Stahelski, the film’s stunt coordinator, who asked Jonathan and his friends to take roles as extras.
Jonathan continued to pursue a career in the stunt industry. His first large-scale production was the 2002 kung fu movie spoof, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. The same year, he helped to develop the on-screen fighting style of the character, Jason Bourne (played by Matt Damon), for The Bourne Identity, based on a mixture of Filipino kali and knife fighting. Jonathan would continue to work on many of the Bourne films, including training Matt Damon and working as a fight coordinator.
Jonathan continued to work with Chad and David and became an integral part of 87eleven (named after the address of their headquarters in Inglewood, 8711 Aviation Boulevard). In 2006, he worked on 300, an important film in the development of 87eleven which saw them take greater control of the action, from training the actors to overseeing choreography. In 2009, Jonathan was the co-fight choreographer on Ninja Assassin, which saw 87eleven build on the success of 300 and take even more creative control, from building initial conceptual designs to overseeing the editing.
In 2010, Jonathan helped to create the fighting style for the Black Widow character in Iron Man 2, played by Scarlett Johansson. The style was based on a mixture of ‘lucha libre’ (Mexican wrestling), kali, Muay Thai and aikido. His work as fight coordinator on Iron Man 2 led to his involvement in many more Marvel films, including acting as fight coordinator on The Avengers (2012), Doctor Strange (2016) and Black Panther (2018).
In 2014, Jonathan worked as the fight coordinator on John Wick, the directorial debut of Chad Stahelski and David Leitch. The film’s action paid homage to Asian action cinema – especially the ‘gun fu’ of John Woo – and featured a mixture of jiu jitsu and judo which required the film’s star, Keanu Reeves, to undergo intensive training. The pre-visualisations created by Jonathan and his team were initially created for the 2012 Jason Statham film, Safe, but later adapted for Reeves. Jonathan returned to the franchise as a fight coordinator to work on the reshoots for John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), and as stunt coordinator for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019). The latter film was designed to include a range of fighting style – from kung fu to Indonesian silat – as well as stunts involving dogs, horses, bikes and swords.
Since 2017, Jonathan has increasingly worked as a second unit director on many 87eleven productions, including Deadpool 2 (2018), Birds of Prey (2020), and Kate (2021). In 2022, he worked as the second unit director and stunt coordinator on all six episodes of the Star Wars series, Obi-Wan Kenobi. In 2021, Jonathan was stunt coordinator on the fourth Matrix film, The Matrix Resurrections, and was involved in shaping the fighting styles of the characters and training the actors.
Jonathan has won many awards for his work, including Best Stunt Coordination for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum by the Online Film & Television Association in 2020. In 2019, his work on Black Panther picked up an award at the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture. He picked up the same award in 2008 for The Bourne Ultimatum. He has also won World Stunt Awards in the category of Best Fight, winning in 2008 for his work on 300, and in 2015 for his work on John Wick.
Speech! “I didn’t open a school… so every time I do a movie, that’s my way of passing on the Filipino martial arts.” In conversation with Kung Fu Movie Guide. 2022.
Click here to listen to KFMG Podcast S07 Episode 80 with Jonathan Eusebio.
Filmography (as stunts): 1997 True Vengeance; 1998 Charmed (TV); 1999 Angel (TV); 2001 Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles; Rain; 2002 Kung Pow: Enter the Fist; We Were Soldiers; Blade II; Windtalkers; Austin Powers in Goldmember; Fastlane (TV); American Dreams (TV); Birds of Prey (TV) (assistant stunt coordinator); 2003 Daredevil; Kingpin (TV); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; The Cat in the Hat; 2004 Duel (short) (fight coordinator); Phil of the Future (TV); The Bourne Supremacy; Collateral; Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon (fight choreographer); Fearless (assistant stunt coordinator); 2005 Confessions of an Action Star; Fat Actress (TV); Serenity; Threshold (TV); Feast; Memoirs of a Geisha; 2006 Idiocracy; 300; 2007 Epic Movie; Fetch (short); Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End; The Bourne Ultimatum (assistant fight coordinator); Balls of Fury; The Gene Generation; 2008 Never Back Down (fight choreographer); The Midnight Meat Train (stunt coordinator); 2009 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (co-fight choreographer); Dragonball Evolution (stunt coordinator); X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Ninja Assassin (co-fight choreographer); 2010 Iron Man 2 (fight coordinator); The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (fight coordinator); The Expendables (co-fight choreographer); The King of Fighters; Nikita (TV) (stunt coordinator); 2011 Colombiana (stunt coordinator); Conan the Barbarian (fight coordinator); Haywire (fight choreographer); 2012 21 Jump Street (utility stunts); The Avengers (fight coordinator); The Bourne Legacy (fight coordinator); 2013 After Earth (utility stunts); The Wolverine (fight coordinator); Escape Plan (fight choreographer); Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (fight coordinator); Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (fight coordinator); 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (fight coordinator); John Wick (fight coordinator); 2015 Hitman: Agent 47 (stunt coordinator); The Last Witch Hunter (stunt coordinator); 2016 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (stunt coordinator); Doctor Strange (fight coordinator); 2017 John Wick: Chapter 2 (fight coordinator); Power Rangers (stunt coordinator); The Fate of the Furious (fight coordinator, action unit director); The Saint; 2018 Black Panther (stunt coordinator); Deadpool 2 (stunt coordinator, second unit director); Punch Me (short) (stunt coordinator); 2019 John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (stunt coordinator/fight choreographer); 2020 Birds of Prey (stunt coordinator, second unit director); 2021 Kate (stunt coordinator, second unit director); The Matrix Resurrections (martial arts stunt coordinator); 2022 Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV) (stunt coordinator, second unit director); Violent Night (stunt coordinator, second unit director).
