Tonight, as the red carpet unfurls in Hollywood, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—the body that has handed out Oscars for nearly a century—will do something it has resisted for about fifty years: award an Oscar for casting. The new category, Achievement in Casting, finally honors the people whose work most audiences never see, but always feel.

I know both the entertainment industry and the automotive world from the inside. At different points in my life, I have pursued a BBA in business with a minor in industrial psychology, alongside a BFA in performing arts with a concentration in dance. Those degree paths are still open chapters for me; my academic journey has evolved over time rather than ending with a single piece of paper. What has remained constant is the work itself—on stages, in studios, and now in my shop—and that work continues to shape how I see everything today. I’ve been a thespian, done musical theater and runway shows, and stood in the background on film sets, watching how performances and ensembles come together.

Today, I own an automotive restyling and restoration shop. I don’t just fix dents; I take sometimes raw, rough metal and interiors and transform it inside and out, creating something that often didn’t exist in anyone’s imagination until I brought it into the world. Sometimes it’s adding tech in the form of touchscreen entertainment and Blind Spot cameras to a 7 year old Porsche or antique truck where the placement of the new was not a reality when created.

The formal training I completed in collision repair and refinishing gave me the science, but it’s my fine arts and performing arts background that still drives my hand and my eye every single day. I see vehicles the way I once saw a script or a stage: as raw material waiting to be cast, shaped, and brought to life.

That’s why the new casting Oscar matters to me. Casting is the invisible architecture of a film. When it’s bad, everyone notices. When it’s great, it disappears into the story, and you simply cannot imagine anyone else in those roles. Think of ’The Godfather‘, ‘Grosse Pointe Blank‘, ‘Great Expectations’—films where every role feels inevitable, where the actors and characters are fused so tightly that the idea of recasting them feels almost absurd. That isn’t luck. That’s casting. Sometimes great acting transcends less than optimal conditions like a dynamic athlete compensates for the lack of talent on a team

But casting, like refinishing and restoration, is about seeing what others miss. The Academy’s own struggle to recognize this work has dragged on for decades, even though casting directors have been department heads, credited in main titles, and integral to filmmaking. Roughly three-quarters of casting directors are women, making casting one of the most female‑dominated crafts in film. For years, they were the only department heads whose contribution didn’t have a golden statue attached to it. That omission says a lot about what the entertainment industry—and our culture at large—takes for granted.

I’ve seen a similar pattern on the shop floor. In my collision and refinishing training, my instructors—men with decades of experience—told me plainly: when a woman was in the class, nine times out of ten, she was at or near the top. The reason wasn’t mysterious. It was her eye. Her attention to detail. Her ability to notice subtle waves in a body line, minute distortions in a reflection, the barely visible imperfection in a substrate that would show up later in the finished paint. That same eye shows up in casting offices, where women make up the majority of professionals carefully building ensembles role by role.

We talk a lot about diversity in this era, sometimes as if it’s something you can bolt on after the fact without impacting the finished result. But real diversity (of the alchemist variety)—on screen, on a team, in a locker room—works best when it’s organic, not manufactured. Casting directors, like great talent evaluators in any field, are responsible for finding the people who fit the story, the concept, and the culture. They aren’t just choosing who looks right; they’re choosing who feels right, who can carry the emotional load, who won’t throw the whole ensemble off‑balance.

That’s not unlike building a roster in professional sports, where a general manager and scouting department study talent, character, and chemistry to pick the people who will bring the playbook to life - or maximize it.

In my world, I may start with a wrecked panel or a tired, torn interior instead of a casting sheet, but the principle is the same. I’m imagining what could be, not just what is. I’m balancing what the owner wants, what the vehicle’s lines suggest, and what my skill set can deliver and budgetary flexibility.

I’m reconciling structure and surface, function and aesthetics. If I get it wrong, you see it immediately—a mismatch in style, a line that doesn’t flow, a color that feels off. Gloss or Matte? Suede or Leather? Paint or Vinyl wrap? Analog or digital? When I get it right, the work disappears into the whole. People just say, “That car looks incredible,” the same way they walk out of a theater saying, “That movie was amazing,” without naming the person who made the cast feel inevitable.

I’ve lived in both worlds—studying business, industrial psychology, and performing arts, and now practicing automotive restyling and restoration—so when I talk about “the industry,” I mean the entertainment industry and, just as seriously, the visual craft of the automotive world. In both spaces, women are often the ones doing the invisible work that defines what the rest of us experience as “right” or “perfect.” In film, about three-quarters of casting directors are women, yet until now, there was no Academy Award with their craft’s name on it. In automotive, women are still the exception in many shops, but when they show up, they routinely bring an eye and focus that raise the standard for everyone. None of this is about flattery or tokenism for me; it’s lived experience. I love working with women because I’ve seen, over and over, how they elevate the work in both arenas.

So as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first Oscar for Achievement in Casting, I see more than just a new statue. I see a long‑overdue acknowledgment of a predominantly female craft that shapes how we think, feel, and remember movies. I see a parallel to the restyling bay, where a quiet, meticulous eye can transform the ordinary into the unforgettable. Whether it’s a perfectly cast ensemble or a perfectly restored car, the magic begins with someone who can truly see—someone who understands that what’s “good” is what feels so right, you forget there was ever another option.