Onward and Forward

This is a busy week for me. My office still looks like a bomb went off in it because I have not had time to put everything in it’s place and cast 3 films with no assistant.

I guess I am bit of a control freak, I like doing the entire job myself, but also if you have a great assistant it does free you up to do more. I wish productions would understand that asking for an assistant (not an intern), but someone paid and good at what they do, can make a great deal of difference to the production.

So, I am working 24/7 trying to accomplish what everyone is asking of me. Ummm…it’s sort of working out.

This week I got to teach a workshop at Lesly Kahn’s studio. It was great. The actors were so good and energetic and lovely to work with. I really appreciated their attention to detail and knowledge about the craft of acting. I like going to acting studios and sitting in on classes, especially in LA where so many actors train all of the time, it is important to understand where they are coming from and what their teacher is saying to them, because it make me a better communicator with the actors. It also gives actors a chance to get to know me and who I am so that there is less of a mystery to their process.

I had some disappointment this week as well, a director whom I worked with and pretty much gave him a stellar cast for his multi-award winning feature, basically dumped me for a higher profile casting director for his next feature and he didn’t have the balls to call me and say he was going to do it. He let his producer do it and considering that I was helping him with ideas on this film and he didn’t even call me makes me think one of two things: 1) He never really liked me in the first place or (2) He is a jerk. The nice part about this story is that a fellow colleague whose work I respect, called me up and said that she interviewed with him because one of the producers asked him to and when she went in she said, “You should use Matt on this film.” She called me to say how horrible she felt that I didn’t get the job and knew that the director didn’t feel loyal to me and how that must have hurt. Well it did hurt me. This is the truth. I thought we had a relationship where he could talk to me about anything. I have been in this situation before with other directors, but never has a director not called me personally to tell me he wasn’t going to use me after asking me to help him in the first place. It’s just bad manners.

But onward and forward. That is not where I am today. Today is about the films I am on and the work I am doing. Today is all about auditioning 9 to 12 year olds…God Help Me…