Jay Hawkins

Jay Hawkins was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 19, 1988. During his early childhood, he became the leading male figure in his family's household: mother Sonya , aunt Marge and sister Lisa. Upon the start of his high school career, Hawkins began practicing Ai-Mute Shotokan Karate at Mejishi Martial Arts where he later attained the rank of "Shodan" or 1st degree black belt. Immediately after high school graduation, he attended the International Academy of Design and Technology - Detroit where originally majored in Graphic Design but later switched to Motion Graphics & Film. Encouraged by his family, friends and love for martial arts films, Jay began training in film and stage combat with Peter Malota and later auditioned & landed a position on the Wesley Snipes film Game of Death (2010). The connection made on this film led to his induction into the Screen Actors Guild via Taft Hartley for his performance in Benny Boom's S.W.A.T. Firefight (2011). With the film business growing substantially in Detroit, Hawkins went on to work on more films: Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), Mike Gunther's Setup (2011), Jon Avnet's Have a Little Faith (2011), and Shia LeBeouf's Maniac (2011). Within this time frame, television series had began to film in Detroit as well and he was inducted into the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for his recurring performance on ABC's Detroit 1-8-7 (2011). With the production of television and film beginning to diminish, Jay decided to uproot everything that he knew and moved to Los Angeles, California in order to pursue stunts more seriously. Six months after his arrival, Hawkins was given the opportunity to work for stunt coordinator and director Hiro Koda on the second season of Nickelodeon's Supah Ninjas (2013) stunt doubling actor Carlos Knight. Upon his return to Los Angeles, Jay continued his efforts to be more well known in the stunt community. These efforts led him to work on several projects: CBS's Vegas (2012) stunt doubling actor Aaron Jennings, Samsung's Usher vs Usher Smart TV Commercial (2013) stunt doubling Usher Raymond, utility stunts as a dauntless soldier in Divergent (2014), BET's Real Husbands of Hollywood (2014) stunt doubling actor Wayne Brady, several episodes spanning seasons six & seven of HBO's True Blood (2014), landing his first speaking role as a stunt actor on FOX's New Girl (2013), stunt doubling actor Keith Stanfield on Don Cheadle's Miles Ahead (filming) and most recently stunt doubling actor Arlen Escarpeta for NBC's Grimm (2014).