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Behind the scenes with the best actor Oscar nominees ahead of the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony
Watch scenes from the performances nominated in the category of best actor at the 96th annual Academy Awards, as well as interviews with the Oscar nominees below. The 2024 Oscars will be presented on Sunday, March 10.
Netflix; Focus Features; Universal Pictures; Orion Pictures
Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”
Bradley Cooper not only starred in this biography of the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein; he also directed, co-produced, and co-wrote the screenplay. He immersed himself in the life of Bernstein, who from the age of 25 was a boldfaced name in American culture — longtime conductor of the New York Philharmonic, TV personality, and creator of symphonies and landmark musicals, including “West Side Story” and “Candide.”
His physical transformation is startling (the makeup and hair is Oscar-nominated as well), but Bernstein’s children said Cooper went far in capturing their father’s mannerisms and behavior:
In this scene Bernstein is being interviewed by CBS News’ Edward R. Murrow about his life as a noted conductor and composer:
“Maestro” explores the decades-long relationship between Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre (played by Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan). Their love story was complicated by the fact that Bernstein also had affairs with men. “That’s the reason why I wanted to make the movie … I believe that they found each other’s soulmates,” Cooper told “CBS Mornings,” adding that he believes their relationship was both “complicated” and “universal.”
In this scene, Bernstein tries to put his daughter Jamie (played by Maya Hawke) at ease over rumors about his extramarital affairs:
As much as “Maestro” is a love story about a marriage, it is also a story about Bernstein’s love of music. Cooper was actually conducting the musicians during filming of Mahler’s Second Symphony at Ely Cathedral in England, recreating Bernstein’s towering 1973 concert there. “It took me six-and-a-half years of working on it for six minutes and 25 seconds of music,” he told “Sunday Morning.” “I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life, and I may never again.”
This is Cooper’s fifth acting Oscar nomination. (He has seven others, for producing and writing.)
“Maestro” is currently streaming on Netflix.
Colman Domingo, “Rustin”
“Angelic troublemakers” is how civil rights advocate and master strategist Bayard Rustin referred to those fighting for social justice through non-violent means. Raised by his Quaker grandmother, Rustin was a pacifist who still got arrested more than 20 times and jailed during the long fight against Jim Crow.
Upon the release of “Rustin,” “Sunday Morning” produced this in-depth profile of Bayard (who died in 1987, and who was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom), which includes an interview with one of the film’s producers, former President Barack Obama. “What I hope ‘Rustin’ achieves is to remind this new, young generation of activists how much they can accomplish,” Obama told “Sunday Morning.”
Working out of a Harlem brownstone called the Utopia Neighborhood Club House, Rustin (played by Colman Domingo) and a small staff would pull together the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in less than two months. “You needed an organizer, but you needed somebody with charisma to make you want to follow him; that was his gift,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, then a Yale Law student who was tasked with finding buses to bring people to the march.
In this scene, Rustin strikes the match that will ignite what will become, at that time, the largest peaceful assembly of protesters in the nation’s history — a quarter of a million people who would witness Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s monumental “I have a dream” speech.
The civil rights movement that would be electrified that day in Washington would also cast Rustin to the side, over concerns that publicity over Rustin’s homosexuality would scuttle the movement’s progress.
To prepare for the role of Bayard Rustin, Domingo told “CBS Mornings” he spent about five months delving into the organizer’s writings, and watching documentary footage to study his mannerisms and vocal patterns. “You take all that in, but then you need to fuel that,” he said. “I was trying to get the spirit of this guy, because he was always very charismatic. It’s important not to mimic someone, but try to get a sense of their whole spirit and how they could inspire young people to create this movement.”
In this Netflix featurette, Domingo gives an in-depth analysis of the scene in which he confronts King (played by Aml Ameen) over the prospect of being forced to leave the NAACP because of Rustin’s “checkered past.” The scene is a powerful expression against disenfranchisement — and a plea for freedom and justice for all.
Domingo describes himself as a “journeyman” actor – he’d starred in such films as “The Butler,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “North Star,” “The Birth of a Nation,” and “Candyman”; won an Emmy for the TV series “Euphoria”; and earned two Tony Award nominations (for acting in the musical “The Scottsboro Boys” and producing the play “Fat Ham”). “Rustin” marks Domingo’s first Oscar nomination.
“Rustin” is currently streaming on Netflix.
Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”
Paul Giamatti, who’d starred in “Sideways,” teamed up with director Alexander Payne once more in “The Holdovers,” playing classics professor Paul Hunham, who teaches at a prep school in 1970. It might be an era of change, roiled by long hair and the war in Vietnam, but the cloistered halls of Barton Academy are a safe haven for Hunham, who tries to inflict timeless lessons upon his students, while keeping himself safe from the outside world.
In this scene, Hunham, passing out exam results for Ancient Civilizations, is understandably appalled by his charges’ lack of academic achievement:
As Christmas break approaches, Hunham finds himself responsible for babysitting a student who is not returning home for the holidays. In this scene, Hunham has (grudgingly, of course) taken Angus (played by Dominic Sessa) to Boston, where he learns about Angus’ very complicated family history, which is torturing the boy. He offers the young man a lesson in self-awareness:
“I often think that, really, I just play kind of complicated people, people with a complicated relationship to the world,” Giamatti told “Sunday Morning.”
The film has been called a “Scrooge-like Christmas story,” with Giamatti’s Hunham filling in for Scrooge. Giamatti said he thinks the description is apt. “It has a ‘Christmas Carol’ thing,” he said. “I think all [of the characters] are Scrooge a little bit. They all need to kind of move out of a place that they’re stuck in.
“Most of it was pretty familiar to me,” Giamatti said of “The Holdovers.” “I had teachers like this guy. I think those schools are different now, but I had teachers that were the sort of strict disciplinarians like this.”
Giamatti was previously nominated for best supporting actor for “Cinderella Man.” This is his first Oscar nomination for best actor. His performance in “The Holdovers” has so far won him the Critics Choice Award and the Golden Globe (musical or comedy).
“The Holdovers” is streaming on Peacock, and is available via VOD.
Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
Christopher Nolan’s biography of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who conceived and constructed the first atomic bomb, and who later was persecuted for daring to speak out against nuclear weapons, is an epic story that is both grand in its visual sweep and painfully intimate in its dissection of Oppenheimer’s private life (which his political enemies use against him).
The film’s arc traces Oppenheimer (played by nominee Cillian Murphy) from his early studies in quantum physics – seeing in his mind’s eye the power that could be unleashed on a molecular level – to martialing the army of scientists and engineers required to build the bomb test site at Los Alamos and to construct a weapon that, according to one theory at least, had the potential to destroy all life on Earth.
Murphy is the emotional center of a drama that encompasses the historic – the Americans’ race against time, with Nazi scientists researching a similar weapon – and the personal (the romantic triangle involving Oppenheimer, his wife, played by Emily Blunt, and his obsession over his former lover, played by Florence Pugh).
In this scene, Oppenheimer discusses with Gen. Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) the theories behind the impending nuclear test, which could — could? — destroy the planet:
In this scene, following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ended the war, Oppenheimer speaks to the staff at Los Alamos about their achievement. In the midst of a seeming warping of space, in his mind’s eye he sees the horror unleashed by nuclear weapons: radiation, fallout, an evaporation of human beings – the consequences of their creation.
A veteran of stage for nearly three decades, Murphy starred for six seasons in “Peaky Blinders” as a crime boss in post-WWI England. In films he’s appeared in “28 Days Later,” “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” “Sunshine,” Nolan’s Batman trilogy (as the Scarecrow), and “Inception.”
Then, the call came, to play the man whom Nolan called “the most important person who ever lived.” “I remember reading at the beginning about him, that he was more riddle than answer,” Murphy told “60 Minutes.”
In this clip Murphy tells “60 Minutes” about his response to reading Nolan’s script which, for security’s sake, was printed on red paper:
Murphy studied and listened to recordings of Oppenheimer’s lectures, and spending months acting out the role while taking walks on the beach. He learned to speak Dutch so he could mirror Oppenheimer’s facility at lecturing in Dutch. He also lost 28 pounds to capture the physicist’s physique.
But besides the preparation, Murphy relied on instinct: “I think instinct is your most powerful tool that you have as an actor,” he said. “Nothing must be predetermined. So therefore, you mustn’t have a plan about how you’re gonna play stuff. And I love that. It’s like being buffeted by the wind and being buffeted by emotion.”
Watch Cillian Murphy: The “60 Minutes” interview:
“Oppenheimer,” photographed and released in Imax and 70mm, became a success beyond anyone’s expectations, even from the director of such blockbusters as the “Batman” trilogy, “Interstellar” and “Dunkirk.” Grossing nearly $1 billion worldwide at the box office, “Oppenheimer” has earned 13 Academy Award nominations.
To Murphy, who played the epic film’s steady, steely center, it boils down to the story. “When a movie can connect with someone, and they feel seen or feel heard, or a novel can change somebody’s life, or a piece of music, an album, can change someone’s life – and I’ve had all that happen to me – that’s the power of good art, I think.”
Murphy won the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe (drama) for his performance in “Oppenheimer.” This is his first Academy Award nomination.
“Oppenheimer” is streaming on Peacock and is available via VOD.
More on the making of “Oppenheimer”:
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
Based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, writer-director Cord Jefferson’s satire “American Fiction” is the story of Black author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a struggling author frustrated with White perceptions of Black life. His books aren’t just lacking success; they’ve also been, he feels, mis-categorized:
And so, in a fit of pique, Monk writes the pseudo-life story of Stagg R. Leigh, an ex-con and fugitive from justice, whose book (“Ma Pafology”) is a super-stereotypical rendition of the Black experience, from profanity-laden dialogue and dysfunctional families to drugs and violence. He believes it’s what publishers want. As he protests to his agent, “It’s got deadbeat dads, rappers, crack — and he’s killed by the cops in the end. I mean, that’s Black, right? … Look at what they publish. Look at what they expect us to write. I’m sick of it. And this is an expression of how sick I am.”
What’s meant as a protest, however, becomes a cause-célèbre. The manuscript of “Ma Pafology” is scooped up by a publishing house anticipating a bestseller (just in time for Juneteenth!). And, of course, it’s a hit.
In this scene, Monk asks fellow writer Sintara (played by Issa Rae) about the popular book that he has secretly written (whose title has been changed to consist of an Anglo-Saxon term that must be blurred during television appearances). Her opinion matters: she wrote “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto,” a bestseller:
Part of what drives Monk’s interest in fashioning a false persona creating a false narrative, and the sacrifices he makes to himself and his conscience in doing so, is the pressure placed on him by his family, from an aging mother struggling with early-stage Alzheimer’s, to his terse relationships with his sister and brother. And the film matched up with where Wright was emotionally in his life – his mother has passed away shortly before he received the script. As Wright told Variety, “The social commentary and the satire is wrapping for the gift that is this story of this man who all of a sudden is left with his thumbs in the dike of this family that is coming apart. That was what drew me and what I understood emotionally and personally. Because we reach that age where all of a sudden everybody’s looking at you to be the adult in the room.”
“I think in some ways that it’s the most subversive aspect of the film, because it runs counter to the tropes and stereotypes that we’re kind of having a laugh at,” Wright told Vanity Fair last year. “It’s those stories that we don’t see. It’s those lives, those narratives, that we very often don’t have access to. In fact, in my career, I don’t recall another film that I’ve done with such a complex, nuanced portrait of a family. I’ve never been asked to play that. As we were doing it, I said, ‘Wow, I’ve never gotten to play these notes before.'”
Wright, who starred in the 1996 biography “Basquiat,” previously appeared in the films “Ali,” “Syriana,” “Casino Royale,” “W.,” “Cadillac Records,” “The Ides of March,” “Only Lovers Left Alive,” “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts I & II,” “Broken Flowers,” “The French Dispatch,” “O.G.,” “The Batman,” and “Asteroid City,” and on TV in “Westworld,” and “Boardwalk Empire.” He won both a Tony Award and an Emmy for his performances in “Angels in America.”
“I’ve found a type of strength, I think, in flexibility, which has served me,” he told Vanity Fair. “Also – I like to work. I don’t like to play the same type of character in the same type of story continually. I admired actors like Dustin Hoffman and Peter Sellers, who would kind of shape-shift, and enjoyed that aspect of what we do.”
This is Wright’s first Oscar nomination.
“American Fiction” is available to stream via VOD.
See also:
The 62nd New York Film Festival opened at Lincoln Center on Friday, the return of what may be the best curated international film festival, featuring new works by such esteemed directors as Pedro Almodóvar, Mike Leigh, David Cronenberg, Paul Schrader, Steve McQueen, and Luca Guadagnino.
The festival, which runs through Oct. 14 at venues across New York City, showcases more than 100 films from 41 countries, including prize winners from the Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, Toronto and Locarno film festivals. Among the stars featured are Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones (“The Brutalist”), Daniel Craig (“Queer”), Richard Gere and Uma Thurman (“Oh, Canada”), Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore (“The Room Next Door”), Saoirse Ronan (“Blitz”), Cate Blanchett (“Rumours”), and Naomi Watts and Bill Murray (“The Friend”).
Angelina Jolie stars as opera diva Maria Callas in the biopic “Maria,” directed by Pablo Larrain (“Jackie,” “Spencer”). “Emilia Perez,” a crime thriller/musical, won the best actress award at Cannes for its four lead performers: Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Karla Sofía Gascón and Adriana Paz. “A Traveller’s Needs” stars the great Isabelle Huppert as a French teacher in South Korea whose unconventional teaching methods involve speaking hardly any French words.
Gala screenings
Friday’s opening night presentation, “Nickel Boys,” is an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a young Black student unjustly sent to a reform school in Florida, where he witnesses the cruel hypocrisies of the Jim Crow era. Directed by RaMell Ross (the Oscar-nominated documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening”), the film takes a subjective view of the characters’ journey into adulthood. It stars Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, and Deveed Diggs.
To watch a trailer for “Nickel Boys” click on the video player below:
Other gala screenings include the festival’s centerpiece, “The Room Next Door.” Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, which won best film at the Venice Film Festival, stars Tilda Swinton and Julienne Moore as two old friends who reconnect over one’s desire to end her own life.
The festival’s closing night screening is Steve McQueen’s “Blitz,” starring Saoirse Ronan as a single mother separated from her child during the Germans’ bombing of London in World War II.
Other notable entries in the festival lineup include “Queer,” based on William S. Burroughs’ book and directed by Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me By Your Name”). It stars Daniel Craig as a gay American expatriate in 1940s Mexico City who begins a love affair with a preppy newcomer (Drew Starkey).
“All We Imagine As Light” (a grand prize-winner at Cannes) tells the story of the emotional bonds of a trio of nurses in Mumbai. Iranian emigree filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” explores the political divisions within the family of an Iranian judge. “Transamazonia” is centered on a woman who survived a plane crash in the Amazon jungle as a child and grows into a faith healer.
Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” (which won a screenwriting award at Sundance) stars Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as cousins reconnecting during a trip to the Polish hometown of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. In “The Friend,” Naomi Watts gains an unexpected inheritance from her deceased neighbor Bill Murray: a giant Great Dane.
Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths” stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste (an Oscar nominee for “Secrets & Lies”) as a working-class woman struggling with physical and mental health problems. Guy Maddin, whose past films have been phantasmagorical flights of fantasy, returns to the festival with “Rumours,” in which world leaders at the G-7 Summit face an unusual brand of apocalypse.
Also playing: “The Damned,” a Civil War drama of Union soldiers in the Northwest frontier; “Jimmy,” which reimagines the life of writer-activist James Baldwin when he moves from the United States to Paris in 1948; from Japan, the dystopian drama “Happyend,” which examines the surveillance of citizens in a Tokyo high school; and Miguel Gomes, behind the 2015 triptych “Arabian Nights,” directs “Grand Tour,” an immersive, time-shifting trip across Southeast Asia.
Documentaries
Among the non-fiction films on tap are “Dahomey,” which traces the repatriation to Africa of cultural treasures that had been plundered by French colonial troops; “Suburban Fury,” which looks at the radicalization of Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old California woman and former FBI informant who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford; and the U.S. premiere of “Elton John: Never Too Late,” which explores the life and career of the pop-rock icon.
In “My Undesirable Friends,” Soviet Union-born filmmaker Julia Loktev returned to Moscow to make a documentary on independent journalism under Putin, just in time for the launch of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s “Union” documents the formation of the Amazon Labor Union, following an historic vote at the company’s Staten Island warehouse.
Revivals and restorations
The festival will screen 4K restorations of the Clive Barker horror film “Hellraiser,” featuring Pinhead; Robert Bresson’s “Four Nights of a Dreamer”; Marguerite Duras’ film debut, the 1966 “La Musica”; John Hanson and Rob Nilsson’s 1978 indie film “Northern Lights,” about the rise of a populist movement in North Dakota in the early 20th century; and Frederick Wiseman’s 1981 documentary “Model,” which, at two hours, is short compared to Wiseman’s recent films.
Also being screened, from 1977, is Marva Nabili’s “The Sealed Soil,” the earliest surviving film directed by an Iranian woman.
Free talks
The festival will host free discussions with filmmakers. Among those scheduled are “Nickel Boys” director RaMell Ross and Barry Jenkins (Sept. 29); Alex Ross Perry and Andrei Ujică, director of the documentary “TWST/Things We Said Today” (Oct. 3); Sigrid Nunez, author of the source novels “The Friend” and “The Room Next Door” (Oct. 5); director Zeinabu Irene Davis and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, of “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” (Oct. 6); “Grand Tour” director Miguel Gomes and Payal Kapadia (Oct. 9); and Julia Loktev and Roberto Minervini (Oct. 9).
The festival runs through Oct. 16 at Lincoln Center, with additional screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on Staten Island, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Bronx Museum, and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.
Early highlights
Of festival entries screened at press time, a few highlights are reviewed below. [More reviews will be published as the festival continues.]
A24
“The Brutalist” (U.S. premiere)
Director and co-writer Brady Corbet’s taut post-war drama of a Hungarian architect trying to reinvent himself in America is a tale of refugees adrift in a so-called land of opportunity, where antisemitism lurks behind every welcome. Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”) plays László Tóth, whose arrival in Pennsylvania, and a chance commission through his assimilated cousin’s furniture business, sets him on a new path, one that plays like a dark, psychological character study from the 1970s. Tóth’s modern, brutalist style (which meets with much criticism), and his dogmatic beliefs in his own independence, both inflate and undermine his abilities to see the gargantuan project through to completion.
The 3.5-hour film (with intermission) is epic in its emotional weight, as Tóth sacrifices his family and personal ties in the service of his static, monumental vision. Matching Brody in the strength of performance is Felicity Jones (“The Theory of Everything”), excellent as Tóth’s wife, Erzsébet, whose physical infirmity only reinforces her steely temperament; and Guy Pearce (“Memento,” “The Hurt Locker”), magnetic as Harrison Lee Van Buren, a wealthy businessman and patron who views a Tóth commission as a worthy monument to his ideals and, ultimately, his corruption. It’s a film of big ideas and oversized egos, and of a society ready to crush both.
Shot in VistaVision, the picture screens Oct. 12 in 70mm, and Sept. 28 and Oct. 11 in 35mm. 215 mins., including 15-minute intermission. In English, Hungarian, Hebrew, Yiddish and Italian and English subtitles. An A24 release. Opens in theaters Dec. 20.
Neon
At first, Sean Baker’s sly and at times uproarious comic-drama of a Brooklyn sex worker who enters into a Cinderella romance and marriage with the flighty son of Russian oligarchs seems a slight choice for top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. (Recent Palme d’Or winners have included the comparatively heavy “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “Parasite.”) But Baker, whose previous films include “The Florida Project” and “Tangerine,” consistently upends our expectations. In part this is due to the performance of Mikey Madison, who plays Anora (preferred name Ani) as a woman older than her 25 years, but still young enough to believe in the sanctity of elopement. Baker also twists what we’d expect of movie Russian oligarchs; here, the brute Brighton Beach muscle they bring are little match against a street-smart girl who has a romantic core but isn’t averse to using hardball tactics. With Mark Eydelshteyn as Ani’s love, Ivan; Karren Karagulian as Ivan’s intemperate godfather; and Vache Tovmasyan as an Armenian enforcer who is not terribly effective at his job, aided by the standoffish and brooding Igor (Yura Borisov).
Screens Sept. 28, 29, Oct. 8. 138 mins. In English and Russian with English subtitles. A Neon release. Opens in theaters Oct. 18.
Rachel Szor
For years, Basel Adra, a videographer and son of Palestinian activists, has documented the ongoing efforts of Israeli military and settlers to drive Palestinian residents out of the West Bank villages of Masafer Yatta. His camera records bulldozers brought in to knock down houses and schools, forcing those who refuse to leave to erect homes in caves. Meanwhile, visiting journalist Yuval Abraham writes articles on the displacement at Masafer Yatta that, he hopes, people will actually read. But witnessing the destruction prompts depression, and a reassessment of the patience needed to overcome systemic injustice, and the limits of journalism. “No Other Land” was shot before Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, so it plays like a prelude to further horror. But just before a recent screening, Basel posted on social media that his father had been kidnapped and detained by the Israeli military. The distressing story never really ends. Directed by Adra, Abraham, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, the film won the Documentary Award at the Berlin Film Festival.
Screens Sept. 29, Oct. 1, 5, 6. 95 mins. Arabic, English, and Hebrew with English subtitles. No distributor or release date has been announced.
Directed by Petra Costa (“The Edge of Democracy,” “Elena”), this engrossing documentary traces the growing influence of the Dominionist evangelical movement in Brazil, which in recent years has grown to 30% of the population — a voting block that has proved impossible for Brazilian politicians to ignore. Front-and-center of the film is televangelist Silas Malafaia, a charismatic pastor (with a thriving publishing business on the side) who has the ear of Jair Bolsonaro, a hard-right politician riding his faithful fans to the presidency. But the Brazilian government’s failures during the COVID pandemic — characterized by Bolsonaro dismissing his country’s high mortality rate by saying, “We will all die one day” — weakens the evangelicals’ hold on the nation’s top office. Costa dissects how the theology of apocalypse aimed at bringing forth the end times suits the agenda of some — hence the disturbingly familiar scenes of insurrection as rioters overtake Brazil’s Congress and Supreme Court after Bolsanaro loses his 2022 reelection bid.
Screens Sept. 29, 30. 110 mins. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Distributor and release date to be announced.
Watch a trailer for the 62nd New York Film Festival:
Americans in all of the states and the District of Columbia still have time to register to vote in the 2024 elections this November. But those who haven’t registered yet should sign up soon — the deadlines are coming as soon as early October in some states.
In most states, those who wish to vote have more than one option that makes it easier and more convenient to register or update their registration than in past years.
“The good news is that it’s easier to register than ever across the United States,” CBS News election law contributor David Becker told “CBS Mornings” in September.
All voters can check their registration status by going to vote.gov.
Voter registration options in each state
In addition to the traditional method of registering in person, many states now have online registration, same-day voter registration and automatic voter registration. Same-day voter registration enables people to vote on the same day that they register during early voting periods and in many states, even on Election Day.
About half the states offer automatic voter registration. This means individuals are automatically registered to vote when they go to specific government agencies, like the department of motor vehicles, and obtain a driver’s license or ID. Those who wish to opt out of automatic registration may do so.
Here’s a map that shows the registration options in each state:
Deadlines to register in person, by mail or online in each state
The deadlines for advance voter registration (as opposed to same-day registration) are coming up in some states in early October, with some as late as Election Day. In the map below, you can see the deadlines to register in person, by mail or online in your state:
States that have same-day registration
Nearly half the states, plus the District of Columbia, allow same-day registration on Election Day. Among the other variations on this kind of registration, there are also several states that have same-day registration periods that end before Election Day, but also offer same-day registration on Election Day.
Here are the states allowing same-day voter registration and their dates for the 2024 election:
- California: Oct. 22 to Nov. 5
- Colorado: Oct. 21 to Nov. 5
- Connecticut: Oct. 21 to Nov. 3, and Nov. 5
- District of Columbia: Oct. 28 to Nov. 3, and Nov. 5
- Hawaii: Oct. 22 to Nov. 5
- Idaho: Oct. 21 to Nov. 1, and Nov. 5
- Illinois Oct. 9 to Nov. 5
- Iowa: Oct. 22 to Nov. 5
- Maine: Oct. 7 to Oct. 31, and Nov. 5
- Maryland: Oct. 24 to Oct. 31, and Nov. 5
- Michigan: Oct. 22 to Nov. 5
- Minnesota: Sept. 20 to Nov. 5
- Montana: Oct. 8 to Nov. 5
- Nevada: Oct. 19 to Nov. 1, and Nov. 5
- New Hampshire: Nov. 5
- New Mexico: Oct. 8 to Nov. 2, and Nov. 5
- New York: Oct. 26
- North Carolina: Oct. 17 to Nov. 2
- North Dakota: Sep. 26 to Nov. 5
- Utah: Oct. 22 to Nov. 1, and Nov. 5
- Vermont: Sept. 23 to Nov. 5
- Virginia: Oct. 16 to Nov. 2, and Nov. 5
- Washington: Oct. 18 to Nov. 5
- Wisconsin: Oct. 22 to Nov. 1, and Nov. 5
- Wyoming: Oct. 22 to Nov. 5
A couple in Arkansas was arrested after they allegedly attempted to sell their 2-month-old baby for a six-pack of beer and a $1,000 cashier’s check, court documents say.
Darien Urban, 21, and Shalene Ehlers, 20, the baby’s parents, were arrested on Sept. 21 after the manager of a campground in Benton County contacted the local sheriff’s department to report an incident involving the couple, CBS affiliate WREG reported.
The person said the couple had written a letter granting custody of their baby to Cody Martin in exchange for money. The letter, signed by Urban and Ehlers, included a disclaimer saying, “There will be no changing y’all two’s minds and to never contact again,” WREG reported, citing an affidavit.
Responding troopers found the baby needed medical attention and called emergency medical services, who took the infant to a local hospital for evaluation. The child is now in the care of the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
According to the affidavit, multiple witnesses corroborated the attempted adoption. A deputy also reportedly obtained a cellphone video of Urban and Ehlers signing the contract with the man trying to purchase the baby.
Witnesses reported that a resident of the campground, identified in the affidavit as Ricky Crawford, had earlier in the day visited Urban and Ehlers and offered to take the baby for the night in exchange for several cans of beer, WREG reported.
Crawford, who appeared heavily intoxicated, confirmed that he had taken the baby from the couple and brought the infant to Martin.
Another witness told authorities they smelled a strong ammonia and fecal odor coming from the baby, who had a dirty diaper. She told the deputies that after changing the baby, she saw a severe diaper rash, blisters and swelling, which she documented with photographs.
According to the affidavit, also obtained by Law & Crime, Martin told detectives that he spoke to Ehlers about the reason for the potential adoption, and she said “it was not working having three dogs and a baby.”
Court documents say Martin told detectives he drafted the agreement for Urban and Ehlers to sign but clarified that no money was exchanged at that time. He said he would arrange for a cashier’s check for $1,000. The couple never received this payment.
The couple was arrested and face felony charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to negotiate the relinquishment of a minor for adoption.
Urban was released on a $5,000 bond on Sept. 24, while Ehlers remains in custody on a $30,000 bail.