Sarah Halley Finn

Sarah Halley Finn is an American casting director and producer. With well over 100 feature films and multiple awards to her credit, she is best known for casting the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe – the most successful film franchise of all time. She also cast and co-produced Oscar winning Best Picture Everything Everywhere All at Once, the most awarded film in movie history. It won three out of four acting categories at the 95th Academy Awards: Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress – a feat only achieved twice before, and not since 1976. Other works include Oscar-winning films Black Panther; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and Crash; all of which earned Finn the Casting Society of America’s highest honor, the Artios Award for Outstanding Achievement in Casting. Those films also won the prestigious SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. In 2023 Finn was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Casting and won the Artios Zeitgeist award for her work on Everything Everywhere All At Once. In 2022, she received two Primetime Emmy nominations for her work casting WandaVision and The Mandalorian.

Career
Finn's collaboration with Marvel Studios includes 36 films and 16 shows to date. In 2006, she was hired to cast the first Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film, Iron Man, and cast Robert Downey Jr. in the titular role. President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, said "For all of our success in all of the films, it comes down to characters... The reason you care about those characters is because of the actors who portray them, and the reason those actors portray them is because at some point, Sarah Finn brought them to our attention.” Jac Schaeffer, who Finn collaborated with on Emmy nominated WandaVision, said, "[Sarah] has such incredible instincts... [She] is really great at internalizing the writer's intention and then finding a new flavor for that: something that's unexpected for the audience and will feel special or unique." Finn fought for Chris Pratt to land the role of Peter Quill, pushed for Chris Hemsworth as Thor after his initial audition was rejected by higher-ups, and, after observing his powerful and king-like presence during a prior audition for Drax the Destroyer, knew to highlight Chadwick Boseman for the role of T'Challa in Black Panther.

Finn is also accustomed to finding completely unknown actors to fill roles in the MCU. After a lengthy, nationwide search and several rounds of auditions to find a Pakistani-Muslim teenager to play Ms. Marvel, then high school senior Iman Vellani won the role. When asked about her experience being cast Vellani said, "[Finn] looked out for me in a way that I didn't think was normal for most casting directors... She would literally call me and run lines with me and give me notes [before auditions]... Even after I got the part, I was dealing with so much imposter syndrome, and her advice is what grounded me and allowed me to trust my instincts.” Similarly, Dominique Thorne (MCU's Ironheart) described Finn as an "advocate of mine, supporting me and what I was doing."

Beyond Marvel, Finn cast and is consulting producer on the Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, created by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. She also cast The Book of Boba Fett and is prepping other projects with LucasFilm for Disney+ including Ahsoka and more.

Other upcoming projects include AGBO films Extraction 2 and The Electric State. Finn also cast and produced the upcoming independent film One True Loves, based on the novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Recently released projects include Everything, Everywhere All at Once from The Daniels – which earned Finn a BAFTA nomination – The Gray Man from the Russo brothers, and the Lionsgate/Showtime series The First Lady, directed by Susanne Bier and for which Finn was also a co-producer.

Some of Finn's past credits include: Jon Favreau's comedy, Chef; Oliver Stone's drama, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths and Shane Black’s The Nice Guys; sports films Miracle, Coach Carter, She's the Man, and Blue Crush; animated films The Little Prince, The Jungle Book (2016), and The Lion King (2019); and action films such as Fast & Furious and Kick-Ass.

A graduate of theater and history at Yale University and member of AMPAS (Executive Committee, Casting Branch), Sarah has served on the Executive Board of Women in Film (WIF) and is on the Board of Advisors for the Master Class educational series. She is also a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Awards and nominations
Finn garnered a 2023 BAFTA nomination for Best Casting in recognition of her work on Everything Everywhere All at Once. In 2021, Finn was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards: Outstanding Casting for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (WandaVision) and Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series (The Mandalorian). She has also been nominated numerous times by the Casting Society of America, winning for The Lion King, Crash, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Black Panther, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Since the addition of The Zeitgeist category at the Artios Awards in 2019, Finn has won 3 out of 4 times.

Other awards include the Hollywood Critics Association Award for Best Casting (Everything Everywhere All At Once), and the Action Icon Special Achievement Award.