After a roller coaster of an awards season, the Oscars are off to a heartwarming and historical start. Cassandra Kulukundis won the first ever Academy Award for casting Once Battle After Another after an incredibly sweet tribute to the nominees and the job itself!
Instead of having one person present the award, members from each of the nominated films took to the stage to give a personal tribute to their respective casting director. This was a smart move for the broadcast. Granted, I’m still not sure everyone watching the Oscars knows what “sound mixing” means, but this is a brand new category! Tell the people what casting is all about. They should take a moment to introduce us to these amazing people and the work they do to make the films we love. All of the nominees were absolutely glowing and clearly so happy to finally be recognized.
Chase Infiniti spoke for Kulukundis, who gave her her first feature film role. Paul Mescal spoke for Hamnet‘s Nina Gold. Delroy Lindo was the representative for Sinners and casting director Francine Maisler. Wagner Moura talked about The Secret Agent‘s Gabriel Domingues. Finally, Gwyneth Paltrow was the representative for Marty Supreme nominee Jennifer Venditti and had the honor of opening the envelope.
“I dedicate it to the casting directors who never had the chance to come up here, or to see their name in the film,” Kulukundis said. Casting directors lobbied and petitioned for this category for a very long time. Kulukundis also noted that in her speech. She then thanked the various departments who have to put up with her, in her words, being in everyone’s business. (“Locations,” she said for example, “who really hates me.”) She also ribbed One Battle After Another director and writer Paul Thomas Anderson, because she technically won an Oscar before he did, since her category came earlier in the broadcast. “We’ve been working together for 30 years,” she said of their collaboration. “We grew up together.”
It’s true! Kulukundis was PTA’s intern on his debut feature film, Hard Eight, which was released in 1993. For Once Battle After Another, she assembled not only Infiniti, Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, and Teyana Taylor but also Regina Hall, Wood Harris, Tony Goldwyn, and Junglepussy among others. .
In addition to casting ten of his films including Inherent Vice, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, Phantom Thread, and Licorice Pizza, Kulukundis was also a casting director for the first two seasons of Gossip Girl and films like The Brutalist, Shattered Glass, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, and Ghost World. Just think about all of the iconic jobs she created for incredible! It’s kind of dizzying.
Next year, we get to do this all over again in two ways. We’ll have the second ever Best Casting winner, as well as the first ever Academy Award for Best Stunts. It’s good when the movie awards actually enjoy celebrating movies, right?
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
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