Ang Lee, Fox Searchlight’s Nancy Utley, Costume Designer Ann Roth to Receive 2018 DGA Honors

Director Ang Lee, Fox Searchlight chairman Nancy Utley and costume designer Ann Roth are among those who have been selected to receive the Directors Guild of America’s 2018 DGA Honors. This year’s recipients also include Sen. Amy Klobucher (D-MN) and SAG-AFTRA senior adviser John McGuire. The honors will be handed out Oct. 18 at the DGA Theater in New York City.

The awards recognize individuals and institutions that have made distinguished contributions to American culture through the world of film and television, and recognizes the diversity of achievement — in business, government, and labor — required to produce the best entertainment in the world.  

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“There is nowhere more fitting to celebrate the confluence of entertainment, labor and politics than New York, our cultural epicenter,” DGA president Thomas Schlamme said Wednesday in announcing the honorees. “It’s where a legendary director like Ang Lee, as a budding Taiwanese filmmaker, came to get started – and costume designing great Ann Roth made her mark in film and on Broadway. The success of creators is made possible by collaborative business leaders who support and elevate their creative visions like Fox Searchlight chair Nancy Utley, labor leaders who fight for their rights like SAG-AFTRA senior adviser John McGuire, and lawmakers like Senator Amy Klobuchar who advocate for them and safeguard their work. Our culture is enriched by such a critical support system, resulting in the best film and television in the world.”

Lee won the DGA Award for outstanding directorial achievement and the best director Oscar in 2005 for Brokeback Mountain. Additionally, he earned a DGA Award nomination and won a second Oscar for Life of Pi, a DGA Award for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a DGA Award nomination for Sense and Sensibility. His upcoming film Gemini Man is set to be released in October 2019. 

Utley, serving as chairman of specialty film company Fox Searchlight alongside her fellow chairman Stephen Gilula, has had a hand in such recent best picture Oscar winners as The Shape of Water, 12 Years a Slave, Birdman and Slumdog Millionaire. Upcoming Searchlight releases include The Old Man & the Gun and The Favourite.

Roth, a veteran costume designer, was awarded an Oscar for The English Patient and also received nominations for The Hours, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Places in the Heart. 

Klobuchar, the first woman elected to represent the state of Minnesota in the U.S. Senate, is being recognize for “her long-standing commitment to fighting for creators’ rights and safeguarding the content created by DGA members and the entertainment industry,” the DGA said.

McGuire, currently a senior adviser for SAG-AFTRA, has spent nearly five decades in New York working on behalf of performers and their rights.