Warner Bros. Head of Casting Lora Kennedy – the woman who cast Henry Cavill for Man of Steel and Gal Gadot for Wonder Woman – has elected to depart the company to take on new creative projects.
As Head of Casting in a career spanning two decades, Lora had been involved in some of DC’s other ensemble projects such as Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, The Dark Knight Trilogy and Suicide Squad.
Courtenay Valenti, WB President of Productions, released this official memo:
Dear All:
I wanted to let you know that Lora Kennedy, who has headed up our casting team for almost 20 years and been an integral part of the Warner Bros. Pictures family, will be leaving her post in the coming weeks. As she segues into new creative ventures, we look forward to continuing to work with her.
Lora has worked on so many of our iconic films, her work reads like a catalog of Warner Bros.’ greatest hits. She personally handled the casting for Syriana, The Town, Argo (for which she won an Artios Award and a SAG Award for best ensemble cast), Cloud Atlas, Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman, and Justice League.
As the head of our casting department, she also oversaw the casting of such films as the Harry Potter films, the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, the Sherlock Holmes movies, The Hangover trilogy, Gravity, The Departed, Mad Max: Fury Road, Suicide Squad, the first two Fantastic Beasts films and Ready Player One as well as the upcoming Ocean’s 8, Aquaman and Goldfinch. And those are just the highlights.
Her groundbreaking work in casting has been widely recognized by her peers—Lora received the Artios Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012—and by the industry at large for her key role in forming the casting branch of the Academy, for which she now serves as a Governor.
On a personal note, Lora and I have worked together for more than 20 years, and I’ve admired her talent and valued her partnership on so many films. Our films are all the better because of Lora’s work on them.
While I will miss her in our daily staff meetings, I look forward to benefitting from her amazing taste on the movies on which we will work together going forward.
Please join me in wishing Lora all the best as she starts her next chapter.
Best regards,
Courtenay
Kennedy’s replacement has yet to be announced.
