2024 Governors Awards profile: Casting director Juliet Taylor to receive Honorary Oscar
Earlier this year, the film academy announced their establishment of a competitive Oscar category for casting. Although the first such prize will not be bestowed until 2026, the invaluable casting profession will be celebrated much earlier when Juliet Taylor accepts a 2024 honorary Oscar for her five decades of work spent crafting some of the greatest acting ensembles of all time.
Along with Richard Curtis, Quincy Jones, Michael G. Wilson, and Barbara Broccoli, Taylor is set to be feted at the 15th annual Governors Awards. This tribute comes in recognition of her “iconic and beloved” body of work which constitutes an “indelible contribution to [the cinema] art form.” She will be the first female casting director to ever be conferred an Oscar, with the only such male honoree having been Lynn Stalmaster in 2016.
Taylor began her career by working with director William Friedkin on 1973’s “The Exorcist,” which ended up bringing acting Oscar nominations to Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, and Jason Miller. She has since added more than 100 movies to her resume, 41 of which were written and directed by Woody Allen. Some of the other filmmakers with whom she has repeatedly collaborated are Nora Ephron, Mike Nichols, Alan Parker, and Steven Spielberg.
In addition to building the casts of such films as “The Mission” (1986), “Interview with the Vampire” (1994), and “The Birdcage” (1996), Taylor has become associated with a whopping 61 Oscar-nominated performances spanning four decades and 29 motion pictures. Included among the 15 winners who emerged from that group are Diane Keaton (“Annie Hall”), Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson (“Terms of Endearment”), Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”), and two-time Best Supporting Actress victor Dianne Wiest (“Hannah and Her Sisters”; “Bullets Over Broadway”).
In 2004, Taylor was awarded an Emmy for casting the HBO miniseries “Angels in America,” which remains the only non-continuing program to ever win four acting Emmys (for Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jeffrey Wright). She has also amassed 21 Casting Society of America Award nominations throughout her career, winning for “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1987), “Mississippi Burning” (1989), “Sleepless in Seattle” (1994), and “Bullets Over Broadway” (1995) and even meriting the organization’s special Hoyt Bowers and Golden Apple prizes in 1997 and 2006.
An honorary Oscar is given “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences of any discipline, or for outstanding service to the academy.” At least one of these awards has been conferred during or prior to all but 10 of the 96 Oscars ceremonies. Since 2009, they have been presented at a separate ceremony that takes place several months before the same year’s Oscars. Taylor and her fellow honorees will collect their trophies on Sunday, November 17.
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