Category Archives: Casting Directors

What Would Pacino Do?

by Steve Shrott

Actors, Agents, Auditions, Casting Directors, Crime, Fiction, Film, Short Story 3

Whenever the struggling actor was in a quandary, he asked himself this question. The answer came quickly. 2,614 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

“I’m going to kill you. Gonna watch you die and enjoy it. When you leaked that evidence about me, you made a big mistake. And now you’re gonna pay.” Jonathon Levy moved the gun closer to the bald man.

The bald man’s face remained blank. “Thanks. You can go now.”

“But I got more lines.”

“I’ve heard enough.” The bald man, whose name was William Henry, wrote something down on a pad then pushed his chair toward the desk.

Levy didn’t move.

“Sir, I have other people to see.”

Levy looked around the large empty audition hall, then leaned toward Henry, his small frame tiny next to the other man’s meatier physique. “What did you think?”

“Fine.”

“I can do it another way if you like. More innocence, add in some humor, tougher. Any way you want.”

Henry blew out air. “You should go home, wait for your agent’s call.”

Levy nodded, sure the casting director gave him a signal — a signal that meant he got the part. That was good news, as he needed the money. Levy had been working in “the biz,” as he called it, for several years. He got the odd role, but not enough to keep him from being a waiter in a family restaurant. He hated the rude customers and screaming kids who often spilled ketchup and other crap on his white uniform. He hoped this would be the part that would take him to the top — perhaps getting him work with Pacino, his idol. He grinned at Henry and left.

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Sassy Black Girlfriend Agency Inc.
Part Two

by Diane Haithman

Actors, Assistants, Auditions, Casting Directors, Fiction, Film, Hollywood Diversity, Short Story, TV 1

Was the casting director promoting a sexist and racist business model? Or just finding roles for underserved actresses? 2,149 words. Part One. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

Look, I’m not blind. Or stupid. Even back then, I knew there were a few black women who slipped past the gates to become legitimate stars, including Academy Award winner Halle Berry. (I admire her so much that I’ve granted my husband blanket permission to sleep with her if she ever happens to ask him. I can bed Mahershala Ali.) Now it’s even better, with blazing talents like Viola Davis, Jennifer Hudson and Lupita N’yongo walking away with Oscar statuettes.

No, my role in the industry was not to build the careers of those special few but to champion the right for my SBGs to make a decent living off supporting parts in substandard material, just like any white actor of middling talent in Hollywood. Time’s up on waiting for our right to cash in on being mediocre, just like everybody else.

Time to get sassy! My assistant Cherie and I began watching the video.

The actress’s smile disappeared instantly. The earrings stopped moving and hung immobile for one long alarming moment. Then she spoke in a voice devoid of any dialect. I would never have represented this blandness.

“Hello, Sassy Black Girlfriend Agency Inc. I submitted this video not in hopes of signing with your agency, but to tell you in a very digital way that I am one of a new coalition of Hollywood actors of color who object to your very existence in 2018. Time’s up on limiting your clientele to women — even worse, specifically black women — and reinforcing negative stereotypes by sending them out for this very limited segment of available roles.

“We’re calling you out on your sexist and racist business model and demanding that you cease and desist immediately.“

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Sassy Black Girlfriend Agency Inc.
Part One

by Diane Haithman

Actors, Assistants, Casting Directors, Fiction, Film, Hollywood Diversity, Screenwriters, Short Story, TV, TV Writers 2

African American film and TV roles are all the rage right now. But it wasn’t always that way. 2,135 words. Part Two. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

I opened the photo attachment to full screen. The 23-inch monitor was sitting on my mid-century modern desk, positioned in feng shui perfection beneath a classic wooden ceiling fan in a Spanish-style apartment complex turned office building just off Cahuenga and Santa Monica Boulevards in Hollywood.

Too much detail? Deal with it. That’s just the kind of person I am.

I also like to be able to see things clearly, hence the big screen attached to my MacBook Air at the office. I’m too old to watch Netflix on an iPhone, thank you very much. My Gen Z assistant, Cherie, peered anxiously over my shoulder, standing stork-like on one small bootie-clad foot.

“What do you think?” she asked, nervously stretching the cuffs of her pink cotton H&M sweater down over her tiny hands.

Visually, this actress was just right. Black, mid-30s, with too-tight clothes, at least one hundred long braids, sky-high heels and three-inch gold-painted nails bearing so many jewels they looked like they had clawed open the royal gates of Versailles. Stunning.

Still, there remained one important test she had to pass.

Sass.

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Casting Call

by Gilli Messer

Actors, Agents, Auditions, Casting Directors, Fiction, Film, Managers, Short Story 2

Short or tall. Blond or brunette. Whoever women are, Hollywood wants someone else. 552 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

SEEKING ACTRESSES AND ACTORS WITH TOTALLY ATTAINABLE QUALITIES FOR HIGH PROFILE TOP SECRET FEATURE FILM
OFFICIAL CASTING CALL: UNTITLED FEATURE FILM (MAJOR STUDIO)
*No phone calls. Email pitches ONLY*

FEMALE LEAD: Allison is effortlessly sexy but not intimidating: a true leading lady in every sense. She’s A5B3E0F0-C9C6-486D-B9BF-98B356EAA0EBthe girl next door to the girl next door; a classic beauty with an edgy quality that we cannot describe in words… but we’ll know it when we see it. Her imperfections make her who she is. Maybe she’s got a quirky birthmark on her thigh, or two different color eyes, or a penchant for wild lipstick. Surprise us!

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Tyrannis Rex
Part Three

by Richard Natale

Actors, Casting Directors, Directors, Executives, Fiction, Film, Hollywood Scandals, Journalists, Media, Moguls, Momagers, Oscars, Screenwriters, Short Story, Starlets, Studios 1

The screenwriter’s challenge for Act Two is seamlessly threading the studio mogul’s public and private lives. 2,260 words. Part One. Part Two. Part Four. Illustration by John Donald Carlucci.

Hollywood – 1969

The second act of his screenplay, the Untitled Jules Azenberg Biopic – First Draft, gave Dave problems as second acts generally do. Determined to push ahead, he rose every morning at seven and, hangover or not, sat down at the typewriter with a pot of coffee and waited for his fingers to magically click into action. On a day when his hands just sat there stiffly poised on the keys and not a single coherent scene emerged, Dave took a break. He and his pal Joel Rodgers went out on the town for a movie, dinner and drinks at Trader Vic’s where Joel regaled him with the details of the latest showbiz scandal. Dave listened, but without much enthusiasm. Like most current gossip, it was graphic and tawdry and destroyed what little illusion was left about movie stars’ private lives. What was Hollywood without glamour? Without fantasy?

When the muse finally revisited Dave, she came equipped with a metaphor. Act Two opens with Jules at a gaming table tossing dice in a visual motif establishing the studio mogul as an inveterate gambler and a smart one at that. For Jules proves himself an expert crapshooter, knowing exactly how long to play, how high to raise the stakes, and when to walk away from the table.

By the early 1930s, his Argot Pictures is on a roll. Most of its B-movie competitors fall by the wayside, victims of the Depression. Argot slowly buys up all the rivals and establishes itself as a viable rival to the A-list studios like MGM and Warner Bros. Here, the script hones close to the real story by assigning Jules due credit. Given his brother Mort’s cautious nature, Argot might have survived the transition to sound but not the economic reversal of the times. It took more than business savvy to keep Argot afloat: it took Jules’ ingenuity and daring.

His risky gamble is to jump head-first into larger budget movies at a time when everyone else, including the established major studios, is cutting corners. And for that he needs an ally because Jules feels inferior to the task of convincing talent to sign with Argot rather than a more deep-pocketed institution like MGM. He needs someone with the polish and finesse to talk to theater types. So he enlists a celebrated and ceaselessly charming German-born director and appoints him vice president of production. It’s a curious choice and, at first, the board expresses concern that a creative type will run financially amuck.

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Method
Part Two

by Heather E. Ash

Auditions, Casting Directors, Child Actors, Fiction, Film, Momagers, Short Story 1

Two child actors are up for the same film role – much to the dismay of their momagers. But one mother has second thoughts. Last of two parts. 3,610 words. Illustrations by John Donald Carlucci.

The ER doctor lifted Sam’s shirt and looked to Susan for explanation. Raised welts covered Sam’s back, already purpling. “Sam? What happened?”

Sam picked at a loose thread on the sheet and shrugged. One of his curls was caught in the bandage above his left eye.

“Samuel McGrath, answer me.” She heard her voice shaking.

“Why don’t you let me have a minute?” the doctor suggested, guiding her to the door. Susan knew what that meant. He had to question Sam alone. Ask if Mommy hits him and whether she uses her hands or a hairbrush.

She stepped into the hall. Wendy was coming toward her. “How’s Caden?”

“His arm’s broken.” Wendy swallowed and took a shuddering breath. “They’re taking a CT scan to check…for swelling. In his brain.”

Susan folded Wendy her in my arms. “Caden’s going to be okay. They’re both going to be okay.”

The door opened behind them. “Mrs. McGrath?”

“What do you mean he landed on you?”

“He said I should lie on the ground. To jump over.”

“But why?”

“He said I had to or he wouldn’t be my friend anymore. And you like Miss Wendy, so—” Sam’s voice broke and he leaned his head into her arm.

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Method
Part One

by Heather E. Ash

Auditions, Casting Directors, Child Actors, Fiction, Film, Momagers, Short Story 1

A mother brings her young son to Hollywood hoping he’ll make it as a child actor. Then she starts to rethink everything. First of two parts. 5,983 words. Illustrations by John Donald Carlucci.

Like so many things in Los Angeles, the rain was fake. That didn’t make it any less wet as it pounded onto the heads of the children, dragging Sam’s curls into his eyes. The director yelled cut and then yelled it again. He wanted scissors.

The make-up girl sprang forward, but only wielded bobby pins to secure Sam’s hair with steady hands and a vacant half-smile…products, no doubt, of the pill bottle Susan had seen nestled between the lipsticks.

Sam’s lips were blue. No one seemed the least concerned about hypothermia. Hell, none of the kids would have eaten lunch if Susan hadn’t reminded the A.D. of work rules. The mothers of the other two boys didn’t like that at all. “You can’t cause trouble,” Fake Blonde warned, while Fake Boobs bobble-headed agreement and added, “You want your son to work again, don’t you?” Better to let their kids starve than take a chance at upsetting the D-list director of a cookie ad. They probably thought Susan was some hopeful Okie – but she knew more about this business than both of them combined. She knew people would take advantage of you only if allowed to. And everyone was out to take advantage.

Susan slipped in behind the make-up lady and caught Sam’s eye. “This is the last take, baby,” she told Sam. “This is ridiculous.” Already twenty-six minutes over schedule.

“But Mom,” he protested through chattering teeth, “this is fun!”

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Exit Left

by Steve De Jarnatt

Actors, Auditions, Casting Directors, Directors, Fiction, Producers, Short Story, TV 3

An actor goes to an audition with dismal prospects, high hopes and a terrible sense of direction. 2,447 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

The cold metal doors slam shut, and I am sealed in, coffin-like, for a smattering of seconds or even for a minute or more. But this will pass. I will endure; I always have. Breathe now —  slow from the gut, deep down within the solar plexus. Slower — till the lungs, every inch, are full and aching. Hold. Exhale. Better. Yes. I control my fate. Breath of life, breath of life, breath of life.

“DING!”

My eyes open with the elevator doors, and I move to exit this vertical casket. “Wrong floor, sweetheart. I think you want seven,” warns a small corpulent woman blocking my path. We ride in silence but the woman, sensing my phobia of small spaces, kindly relinquishes as much of the elevator square footage as she can. She doesn’t know that, in my early youth, I had once been trapped in a smashed-up Buick, submerged on a river bottom with my family dead all around me. I survived off trapped air from an empty Thermos till those divers came.

Well, actually — no, that’s not really true. It had happened to my friend Kenny, not me. My invented past can seem so real. God knows I utilize it every chance imaginable for “sense memory.” Pathetic, isn’t it, to have no real trauma of your own? Is it my fault that, as the only child of diplomats, my upbringing was so uneventful? I’ve always been jealous of those raw-nerve actors with some hellish past to draw upon as grist for the creative mill. Maybe that’s why I am still a nobody with an ever-closing five year window to play leads. Yet I try to stir up faux claustrophobia to cover the anticipatory dread of an audition.

The elevator doors open, and I, Josh Barnes, the handsome-ish everyman — early 30s to mid-40s — exhale into the casting anteroom. A dozen others, all from the same narrow band of eerily similar likeness, are spaced around. Some I know, some I know too well. Most sit, many pace, all giving each other as wide berth as they possibly can. Everyone has the same three pages of ‘sides" in their hands. The room is silent but for rustling paper and the compound murmuring.

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