Oscars recognize casting for the first time, offering a spotlight on a key job in the movie industry

NEW YORK — Behind the Wizard of Oz in the two-part “Wicked” movies were people actually pulling the strings. They set the table for the hit double-punch movies long before the cameras ever rolled out: The casting directors, helped pick who made it to Oz.

“Our job is to know the actors that are out there or know how to find the actors that we don’t know,” says Bernard Telsey, one of the heavy hitters in the world of casting, who, with Tiffany Little Canfield, populated both “Wicked” movies.

Casting will get some Oscar love next year. A new prize for achievement in casting was added to the Academy Awards in March, a step casting directors believe is long overdue. The 98th Academy Awards will air live on ABC on March 15, 2026.

“It’s really hard for people to understand what it is that we do because it’s so private,” says Telsey. “It’s only going to make the profession that much stronger and people that much more aware of what we do.”

‘Feels invisible’

The Emmys have three categories for casting, and the Critics Choice Awards just added a casting trophy this year. The casting industry has its own prize, the Artios Awards, first held in 1985. But the Golden Globes and Tony Awards don't recognize the profession.

“When casting is great, it sometimes feels invisible. Because it’s so well done, you don’t see the fingerprints,” says Destiny Lilly, president of the 1,200-strong Casting Society who also works with Telsey.

“I think that it’s taken time just to get recognition for that art because a lot of the work that casting directors do happens before a lot of the rest of the production team is brought on board.”

Telsey, along with his team at The Telsey Office, casts in every medium, from the films “Mary Poppins Returns” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” to TV shows like “The Gilded Age” and “Only Murders in the Building.” He came up through theater, casting such Tony Award-winners as “Maybe Happy Ending,” “Kinky Boots” and “Hairspray.”

“Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good” represented one of his team's biggest challenges, filling hundreds of roles and dance parts over more than a year of filming and across continents.

Even though it may have seemed inevitable that Cynthia Erivo was a natural Elphaba and Ariana Grande was a shoo-in for Glinda, that's hindsight. Like all casting decisions, it was a bit of a gamble.

“Not until they got in the room were you like, ‘Oh, this is magic. This has to be. There is nobody else to play the part but the two of them,’” he says. “You don’t really know until you get to see it.”

To keep tabs on as many actors as possible, Telsey goes to the theater four or five nights a week and spends weekends trying to catch up on TV and movies. Twice a week, he and his staff meet to trade tips about who they're seeing and make recommendations.

“Every day you feel like you’re behind and there’s another hundred actors I don’t know and how am I going to meet them and how am I going to see them? So it’s a constant race,” he says.

A casting coup

Casting directors first talk with the directors, writers and producers to get a sense of what their vision is for the project and then get the right actors to audition. Telsey likens it to how a costume designer must know all the potential different fabrics and colors out there.

Lilly recently scored a coup by suggesting comedian Bill Burr join the latest Broadway revival of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” alongside Kieran Culkin and Bob Odenkirk. It was Burr's stage debut, but Mamet's explosive dialogue seemed to fit perfectly.

“I think that there’s so many people who haven’t done theater who can really shine. They just need to be given the right opportunity and the right project and have the right director working with them,” she says.

Over the years, Telsey has seen the walls between film, TV and theater work fall away as actors change mediums freely. He doesn't subscribe to the belief that stage skills are so very dissimilar from screen skills.

“It’s a myth that they’re different. They’re technically different, but they’re the same. Good acting is good acting,” he says. “Glenn Close can do a musical, a play, a television show and a movie and be nominated in every … category. Those things have changed over the last 20 years.”

Telsey, whose first big breakout casting was the show “Rent” — “just a little musical that nobody wanted to do,” he jokes — has also seen technology change the job, especially as auditions move online, streaming TV explodes and the movie and film business get more global.

“I think we’re always educating our teams with the need for casting to be bigger and to be covering more ground,” he says. “Most projects you have only a short amount of time to find a cast. Time is not on our side. It’s only going to get tighter as budgets get smaller for the future.”