Veteran television director David Nutter has been selected to receive the Directors Guild of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award for distinguished achievement in directing. He will receive the honour at the 76th Annual DGA Awards ceremony on Saturday, 10 February 2024.
Nutter is only the sixth director to receive the award, joining James Burrows, Robert Butler, Joe Pytka, Don Mischer and Robert A. Fishman.
“David has had a truly phenomenal directing career on so many of episodic television’s most acclaimed series,” said DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter. “To quote the cover of our own DGA Quarterly, David is truly the ‘King of the Pilots’. His passion, creativity and mastery of the craft throughout his extensive career underscore exactly why David serves as an inspiration to fellow directors everywhere. On behalf of the Guild, I’m thrilled to celebrate David’s talents and contributions to the art of directing.
Glatter noted that Nutter’s credits include pilots for “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Deception,” “Containment,” “The Flash,” “Arrow,” “The Mentalist,” “Supernatural,” “Without a Trace,” “Smallville,” “Millennium” and “Roswell,” among many others. In total, Nutter directed 24 pilots, 21 of which were picked up to series.
In 2015, Nutter won the DGA Award for outstanding directing achievement in a dramatic series for the “Game of Thrones” episode “Mother’s Mercy.” He has received six DGA Award nominations, including for “The Sopranos,” “Entourage,” “The Pacific” and “Game of Thrones.” He has won three Emmys for executive producing “Game of Thrones” in 2019, directing “Game of Thrones” in 2015 and “Band of Brothers” in 2002. He has also received four Emmy nominations for “The X-Files”, “The Sopranos”, “The Pacific” and “Game of Thrones”.
“The DGA has always been my foundation, my shining light, my bulwark against the obstacles that so often arise in this industry,” Nutter said. “This is truly a career highlight for me and validates what I’ve been doing to such an enormous degree. Combined with the tremendous support of my family, friends, crew and creative colleagues, I can’t think of anything more gratifying than receiving this award.
