Thelma Schoonmaker wasn't sure if she would win for The Aviator.
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It has been a hectic year for film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, mostly celebrating past achievements. She has been traveling to events honoring the 100th birthday of legendary British director Michael Powell, her late husband, who created the classic The Red Shoes. She has also been making the rounds to promote the 25th-anniversary DVD release of Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, for which she won the Academy Award for film editing in 1980.
It might seem like the 65-year-old New Yorker is doing a victory lap, or at least getting ready to retire, but, oh, did we mention that she just won her second Oscar for editing The Aviator, beating out a quartet of younger men? And that she's already hard at work on Scorsese's next film, The Departed, the story of moles in the Irish mob and FBI that will star Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson?
"This year felt like a solid win," says Schoonmaker, who never dreamed of becoming a film editor. The daughter of an oil company executive, she had aspirations of going into the Foreign Service instead, but she was too outspoken to pass muster with the CIA and FBI. "They told me I would be very unhappy because of my liberal feelings," she says.
photo credit © AAMPAS