Thanksgiving Casting

It’s Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving. I get the following text at 7pm from my casting assistant in New York, “Urgent! Casting Emergency! Call me!”
Let’s see, what am I doing at 7pm in L.A the day before the day before Thanksgiving? Oh that’s right, my entire family is staying at my home and I have to cook dinner for them, clean the house, go shopping for food, make sure everyone is happy, what possible “casting emergency” could be happening on a film that is supposed to take a break from Thursday to Monday, after all, there is only one more day of shooting before the break and everyone I cast has been confirmed.

The problem: On Wednesday, the shoot requires several old ladies to play ghosts and since they are non-speaking, the roles were going to be cast by the background/extras casting director. Well finding 75-90 year old ladies to work on a night shoot the night before Thanksgiving proved harder then thought. Why did they schedule that scene that evening in the first place? Anyway, they were short a couple of actresses and I was asked to see if any of the old ladies I auditioned for speaking roles that the director liked would come in and do non-speaking roles (but be paid at SAG day rate not at the extra rate) and come in on short notice.

I said I would try, and called my assistant in New York who was totally on top of the situation and to our surprise, many of the actors we phoned on Wednesday morning were more then happy to show up to set that evening and work to 3AM.

So, while it may have felt like a casting emergency, the real emergency in my life at the time was making sure my niece had enough diapers for the week.

I GUESS I’M NOT GOING TO SUNDANCE THIS YEAR

This entry is going to have little to do with casting and a lot to do with being a decent human being. I try not to be political, but gosh-darnnit, those in the state of California who are opposed to equal rights for all are just forcing me into this.

I think that the “Yes” vote on Proposition 8 affected me more then I thought it would. There has been so much interweb traffic and posts and posts to posts and posts to links to posts on all of this and the support and outpouring from those who voted “No” and supported the rights of gay couples to get married has been beautiful, and truly, I thank people for their support.

It boggles me though, that in this day and age, as a society, we have not come to a point where we can be tolerant on issues of personal freedom and equality. Granted in the big scheme of things, “LIFE” is not an equal opportunity experience (all you need to do is turn on the television and ask, “why did they cast that actor?” – See I snuck some casting in :0) ) Life is tough enough, waking up everyday, working hard, struggling for my dream of success in love and life. Road bumps are all around us, but to not be allowed and stripped of a right fought and earned and deserved and, oh yeah, supposed to be inalienable, well taking that right away is, in a word: mean.

What can I do? I can give money to help the cause, march in protest rallies, but I am also going to go one step further and say, this year, I have to make a personal decision a decision not to travel to a State that has as part of their population that hates me so much that they would like to deny me my freedom to love and marry whomever I choose (and Steve, if your reading this, don’t worry, it would be you)…so, I will not be attending Sundance this year. I don’t want my dollars spent to benefit a state that has a majority of a population that donated to strip away my ability to marry. According to Wikipedia: “Utah is known for being one of the most religiously homogeneous states in the Union, with approximately 58 percent of its adult inhabitants claiming membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church or the LDS Church), which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life.”
So, in my own way, I am making my own statement (missing some great skiing and films) but until this is sorted out, Utah can go suck it…

It’s time for this country to grow up, catch up and earn back its reputation as a voice of freedom and leader of Democracy in the free world. We are 90% there, after all we did elect Barack Obama, so let’s make a difference, make our voices heard and make things right. Let’s really start to make changes, let’s all try to be nice and compassionate and tolerant towards each other and hopefully I will be able to return to Utah, a nice compassionate Gay, tolerant of all and hopeful to a dream a dream that has the Federal Government recognize same-sex-marriage not just individual states, because doing taxes last year was a bitch…

After.Casting

I am back in L.A - I have a little NYC withdrawal. We still have a few roles to cast in “After.Life,” but the director has seen everyone and now she just has to pick out the rest of the day players. My assistant in NY has been great and so helpful, and overall the agents and managers in NY were amazing to work with, so helpful and really on top of the casting, which I appreciated. I am proud of the cast: Liam Neeson, Christina Ricci, Justin Long, Josh Charles & Shuler Hensley. We also have wonderfully talented day players and I am so excited about hiring them.

This is my third film that I have cast in NY and I am so lucky to have the ability to be a local hire, but also learning about more actors is an asset that gives me a competitive edge when trying to get a job. Yes, I have to interview for jobs just like actors and sometimes it feels like an audition, so I hope these experiences make me more attractive to producers and directors.

Now that I am back in L.A, I need to get another gig, not so easy right now because many of the films that are shooting before the new year already have a casting director, I know things will come up in the new year, but waiting for a few months for work to come in is stressful but all part of the deal when being freelance.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s super-casting director-man (or, yup, I’m casting another film in 3 weeks)

In the film I am currently casting, I have many older actor roles to fill. All the roles are for SAG scale either daily rate ($759.00) or weekly ($2634.00). The main cast is great, and these roles are small but significant. I think the script is very well written and it seemed to me that we would have our choice of whom we would want in these roles. Wrong, so very wrong. It has been really hard to cast the film! The older actors that we would just offer the roles to without auditioning want money (so do I), and would rather not work for a day or a week. I am not talking big A-list or even B-list names, but actors who you would see on television who work steadily, they just couldn’t be bothered with only doing one or two scenes.

It’s different in every film; you never know how actors are going to react to roles and offers.

I am in NYC and have been here for 3 weeks. I love casting here, and more importantly I really love being involved with the production office rather then sitting in a separate casting office, getting information late or not at all because I have been forgotten (poor me). The director of this film was determined to be at all of the casting sessions. In fact, he said casting was very important to him. Well, things didn’t really work out the way he wanted. The problem was that the rest of the film’s needs (locations, camera tests, A-list actors groveling for attention, little thing…) got in the way and out of the 20 casting sessions I had, I only had the director with me 4 times. This means that the director is looking at auditions on-line and based on my recommendation and hiring the actor. Just the way I like it! To be honest, it is easier for me to do the casting, especially day-players on my own, I don’t need the director with me, I just need to understand creatively what the director is looking for and then I provide it (hopefully).

Again, this production had a very small budget for me, and I did what would normally take 8 to 10 weeks in 3 weeks, which was fun, annoying and exhausting, but hopefully it will be rewarding as well as this is now my 3rd film that I have cast in NYC and I hope to do more. I like being bi-coastal!