Casting By
AN HBO DOCUMENTARY FILM
The feature documentary that led to the Casting Oscar!
Casting By puts the spotlight on filmmaking’s unsung heroes – the casting director – and takes us on a fast-paced journey through the last half century of Hollywood history from an entirely new perspective.
Pioneers like Marion Dougherty and Lynn Stalmaster were iconoclasts whose exquisite taste and gut instincts helped to put the final nail in the coffin of the old studio system and usher in the New Hollywood.
The film combines personal narratives from countless actors and directors with extensive archival material to reconstruct the untold tale of Hollywood’s most invisible and unheralded profession.
Featuring interviews with Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Jeff Bridges, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Diane Lane, Jon Voight, Bette Midler, John Travolta, and more.
DIRECTED BY: TOM DONAHUE
PRODUCED BY: ILAN ARBOEDA, KATE LACEY KILEY, TOM DONAHUE, JOANNA COLBERT
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: STEVE EDWARDS, ED DURKIN, JOHN BALIS
PRODUCTION COMPANIES: CREATIVECHAOS VMG, OUR8S
Reviews & Press
Delicious insider tales of the making of some of your favorite films enrich this wonderfully informative and entertaining doc.
One of the pleasures of Casting By is watching performers who have long since gone on to fame and fortune become their younger selves telling stories about being hardup for rent, scrapping for food…and then being blessed by a casting director's wand.
The film features what is arguably the greatest assemblage of talking-head star power in any documentary ever made.
The documentary features amusing and sometimes-emotional interviews with stars who talk about the effect Dougherty had on their lives when no one else believed in them.
This film seeks to highlight the publicly under-appreciated casting directors and to pay tribute to the one woman who evolved the position of the casting director.
Something of an elegy for a lost era, when talent, even at its rawest, stood far above prettiness as the primary reason for getting the part.
A look into one of the most invisible, and crucial, of cinematic disciplines.
A love letter to the casting industry in general, and to the pioneering casting director Marion Dougherty in particular.
Impact
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on February 8, 2023, that there will now be an annual competitive Academy Award for Achievement in Casting. The new Oscar category will arrive alongside the 98th Academy Awards in 2026.
The news comes over a decade after the release of the 2012 premiere of the documentary Casting By, which highlighted the importance of casting directors in the filmmaking process, and suggested their work should be recognized by the Academy.