Cassandra Kulukundis won the first Academy Award for Casting for One Battle After Another on March 15, 2026, then joked that she had an Oscar before her longtime collaborator, director Paul Thomas Anderson. The remark was playful, not a sign of a feud—and Anderson went on to win both Directing and Best Picture that night.
What did Cassandra Kulukundis say?
After accepting the inaugural Casting Oscar, Kulukundis said, “This is freaking insane, and I have one before you, which is also crazy,” according to The Atlantic’s March 15, 2026, account. The magazine described the line as tongue-in-cheek. The wording should be understood as a quotation reported by The Atlantic, not as text from an official transcript.
The Associated Press reported that Kulukundis also dedicated the award “to the casting directors who never got the chance to get up here.” That dedication put the new category’s significance in view: the award recognized casting directors, whose work had not previously had its own Oscar category.
Why was the joke aimed at Paul Thomas Anderson?
Kulukundis and Anderson have worked together since his first feature, Hard Eight. The Associated Press reported that she began on that film as an intern and had worked on all ten of Anderson’s feature films. Her quip drew its humor from that long creative partnership: the behind-the-scenes collaborator had won an Oscar before the celebrated director.
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How did the night end for Anderson and the film?
The 98th Academy Awards took place at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on March 15, 2026, honoring films released in 2025. The Academy’s results list Kulukundis as the Casting winner for One Battle After Another, Anderson as the Directing winner, and the film as Best Picture. So the joke’s timing supplied a brief reversal, but the film and its director also had a major night.
Quick Recap
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- Introduction: An Overview
- Part 1: The Director's Artistic Identity
- Part 2: Story Development
- Part 3: The Director and the Script
- Part 4: Authorship and Aesthetics
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