Wyatt Smith

Biography

Wyatt Smith (born November 12, 1974) is an American editor. Born in New York City, Smith's early career began in the music world. In the early 1990s, he began working at Sony Music Studios in New York. Coming from a musical background — his father was a roadie — he gained early exposure to entertainment production. Over time, he built a reputation cutting live concerts, music videos, and music‑related documentaries for high‑profile artists. In 2006, he edited the television special Tony Bennett: An American Classic — directed by Rob Marshall — for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Special (Single or Multi‑Camera). That collaboration with Marshall would prove pivotal for Smith's transition into feature films. Smith's first major feature‑film credit came in 2009 with the musical film Nine, co‑edited with Claire Simpson. That same film earned him a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Editing. Over the following years, Smith became known for editing a broad range of high-profile films. His credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), and Doctor Strange (2016). In 2014, he edited the musical-fantasy film Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall. For his work on that film, he was nominated for the ACE Eddie Awards (Best Edited Feature Film – Comedy or Musical) by the American Cinema Editors. He also edited Harriet (2019), a biographical drama about Harriet Tubman. Throughout his career, Smith has spoken about how his background in music and his work on concerts and music videos helped shape his editing style — especially when working on musicals. He has described how, on a project like Into the Woods, he needed to balance song, dialogue, character, and pacing in a way that felt natural and emotionally honest.