Juliet Sewell Taylor was born in New York City in 1945 and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her father was a lawyer who had performed in productions during college, and from an early age she was interested in theater and acting. She attended Miss Porter’s School, then Smith College where she majored in theater. However, she was anxious about her own acting skills and the auditioning process. Her senior year, Taylor saw the original production of CABARET and afterward attended a discussion with Fred Ebb and John Kander, set designer Boris Aronson, and Shirley Rich, a Smith alum and the show’s casting director. Hearing Rich talk, Taylor realized that going into casting would be a way for her to stay close to the acting profession without having to perform for herself.

Following her graduation from Smith in 1967, Taylor moved to New York City and worked as an usher in a couple of theaters before finding work as a secretary in the offices of David Merrick. Within a year, she left to work at Marion Dougherty Associates (MDA). Dougherty had established herself casting for such television series as ROUTE 66 and NAKED CITY and was expanding her company to include film. Though Taylor began as a secretary at MDA, she soon worked her way up to casting assistant. One of her first assignments was casting the stage production of HAIR in 1968, and she used many of the same actors, such as Larry Marshall and Angie Ortega, when working on THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971), the first film she cast extensively on her own. That same year she worked as a casting assistant on BANANAS (1971), the first of what would be dozens of collaborations with the film’s director, Woody Allen, over the next five decades. During this time, Taylor became an avid theatergoer, and saw going to plays as the best way to expose herself to new actors. Though she rejects the idea that casting directors “discover” actors, she has cast several notable actors in their first major film roles after seeing them on stage, including Raul Julia in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK, Meryl Streep in JULIA (1977) and MANHATTAN (1979), and Mary Beth Hurt in INTERIORS (1978).

In 1973, Dougherty left her company to become a producer, and Taylor took over the business. During her time as head of the company, she cast several of the most seminal films of the decade, including THE EXORCIST (1973), NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE (1976), TAXI DRIVER (1976), NETWORK (1976), BETWEEN THE LINES (1976), ANNIE HALL (1977), JULIA (1977), and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977). In 1976 she married theatrical producer James Walsh and the two started a family. The following year she was hired by Paramount Pictures, first as head of casting in New York, then as a casting consultant. She then briefly worked for Warner Bros. Inc., United Artists, and NBC before becoming an independent casting director in 1978. Over the next two decades Taylor cast such films as ARTHUR (1981), TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983), BIG (1988), SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993), and INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE (1994), among many others. She also established ongoing relationships with numerous filmmakers, reuniting with Paul Mazursky for AN UNMARRIED WOMAN (1978), WILLIE AND PHIL (1980) and TEMPEST (1982), and with Steven Spielberg for SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993). She worked on FAME (1980), SHOOT THE MOON (1982), MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988), and ANGELA’S ASHES (1999) for Alan Parker, and cast DANGEROUS LIASONS (1988) and THE GRIFTERS (1990) for Stephen Frears. Beginning with HEARTBURN (1986), she cast numerous projects for Mike Nichols, including WORKING GIRL (1988), POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (1990), and THE BIRDCAGE (1996), as well as his television projects WIT (2001) and ANGELS IN AMERICA (2003). She continued to work with Woody Allen, ultimately casting over 40 of his films, from SLEEPER (1973) through CAFÉ SOCIETY (2016).

Taylor has been recognized for her work numerous times by the Casting Society of America, earning awards for HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986), MISSISSIPPI BURNING, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, and BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994), as well as the Hoyt Bowers Award in 1997 and the Golden Apple Award in 2006. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special with Ellen Lewis and Leo Davis for WIT and won the same award for ANGELS IN AMERICA. Beginning in 2006, Taylor cast exclusively for Woody Allen and retired following their work on CAFÉ SOCIETY.