Banned from the ballot box

They get the best booths at the Grill, they make the deals happen and they represent the highest-wattage of A-list clients: Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon.

So, what do guys like Patrick Whitesell and Kevin Huvane have to do to cast an Oscar ballot in this town?

Voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences include actors, writers and directors, of course. Then there's the casting directors and makeup, design and other technical teams.

Oh, yes, and the publicists. (Publicists? "Well, we don't take personal publicists anymore," points out academy chief Bruce Davis).

But not the talent agents.

And that's a fact that has been rankling the 10%-ers for years. As they prepare to argue their case yet another time, agents note that their role has changed from the days when they simply got actors to sign on the dotted line.

And they don't all live up to the abrasive Ari Gold character on HBO's "Entourage."

Their true function is often misunderstood, says Martha Luttrell, an ICM agent and the chairwoman of the academy's agents group. "Generally, people have an image of agents and don't like agents and don't know what we do," Luttrell says. Newer academy members, she says, understand better how an agent's role in moviemaking has evolved, but she's growing weary of fighting for academy recognition.

"Membership is extended to people who make the art," Davis says of the group's stance, "not people who provide services, however valuable, to the people who make the art."

Some of the nearly 70 agents who have been admitted as nonvoting academy members — called associate members — say that argument doesn't hold up. Remember, publicists have the vote. It's an uphill battle that doesn't promise to get any easier soon.

As one top agent recalls, former academy President Gregory Peck once vowed that agents would become full members "over my dead body." Peck died in 2003, but the agents' chances haven't improved since.

Among those currently listed as associate members are some of the most prominent deal-makers in town. The tally includes CAA's Huvane and Rick Nicita; William Morris' Jim Wiatt and Mike Simpson; ICM's Jeff Berg and Robert Newman; and Endeavor's Adam Venit and Whitesell.

As associate members, these agents are invited to academy screenings and receptions, and may even receive a smattering of for-your-consideration DVDs. But for the academy's most important duty — casting ballots for the Oscars — they are shut out.

"All of us have been trying for so long," Luttrell says. "And we are frustrated."

The agents argue that their role in film production has changed dramatically over the decades, while the academy's rules have not. Once limited to negotiating contracts for their clients, today's agents are involved in everything from raising off-balance sheet financing to assembling a writer, director and star into a ready-made package.

"Today, agents do a lot more than what the antiquated rules had for becoming a member," says Fred Westheimer, a 35-year veteran of the William Morris Agency, an associate member who is now an independent producer. "They are often the motor on the train — the thing that makes a movie go. It's a great deal more than just representing a client."

As discouraged as ICM's Luttrell may be over so many snubs, she says that like any good agent, she won't quit until the deal is closed.

"We haven't given up," she says.