On the blog
April 25, 2012 | 0 commentsA Guide to the Casting Process
Backstage magazine has published a great, in-depth article on principal casting for network television called A Guide to the Casting Process, From First Read to Meeting the Network Execs. It’s by Melinda Lowenstein, Backstage’s casting editor/writer, and is chock full of honest-to-god straight dope from such Hollywood players as Sharon Klein, executive vice president of talent and casting at 20th Century Fox, and casting director Bonnie Zane of Zane/Pillsbury.
I love stuff like this, because it cuts through all the bullshit and mysticism about how casting works and gets right to the practical issues. Especially in Toronto, where actors and agents can sometimes get obsessed with whether they have the right acting coach on their resume, or whether they’re on a perfect 45 degree angle in their headshot, Lowenstein’s article reveals casting even lead roles in big US network pilots as a straightforward problem of finding the right actor for the role. Get good
actors in front of casting directors; the rest is so much hand-wringing. In the words of screenwriter Alfred Gough:
“You may have had a character who does one thing, and the actor comes in and they are great at 90 percent of what you need and just 10 percent they’re not so good at, but they have the right sort of chemistry with the other actors. They’re the person you want for the role, [so] you tailor things, and you try to always write to their strengths. Then over the course of a show…you watch them grow as actors.”
