Currently, he is appearing in the MAX series The Girls on the Bus and stars in the new indie flick The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, which hits theaters April 26. While he continues to act, he is also launching a coaching career, which he hopes will help younger actors better understand the craft. He spoke to us from his home in upstate New York, where he was recovering from minor surgery (don’t worry, he’s fine).

How did you start acting in the first place?

I started acting in high school. A guy who had graduated from my high school came back to direct a Bertolt Brecht play, and I auditioned for it. He cast me as the MC, who didn’t have that many lines in the play, but I read through it and thought to myself, “Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if all the projections that are done in Brechtian plays, that the MC is voicing the projection, so there’s a narration through the entire play?” I pitched this to him and he loved it, so I ended up having an enormous amount of dialogue. I had the most wonderful costume, top hat and tails, spotlight, and it was the beginning of like, “Wow, I enjoy this.” Both the idea of expressing myself in a dramatic way and also the beginning of realizing, “Oh, I have some kind of control or ability to create my own path. I can have an idea, I can express it, and it can be heard.”

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around doing a Brecht play in high school.

I don’t know. He just had an idea, and whoever was in charge of the drama program said “sure.” I mean, it worked. Also, this was 1976. But that’s where it all started. I never really thought about it as a career until I was in college and studying with this guy who ran a theatre company called Playback Theater, which was a psycho-dramatic, therapeutic, but entertaining form of improvisation. He taught this class on clowning, and I fell in love with the idea of it. I developed a character, and then went off and applied and got into circuses. I worked at Big Apple Circus and others and did that for a number of years as I was going to college. Also, I kept working with Playback and kind of fell into the drama program. I never auditioned for it, I just started taking classes, and then all of a sudden, I was graduating with a theater degree and loving it, but then realized, “Oh, I have to figure out what comes next.” I mean, I watched movies and loved movies, but it wasn’t like I wanted to be a movie star. I saw theater and drama as a way to express what I thought was happening in the world around me.

I never knew that you were a clown. Something I’ve always wondered. How do you fit so many guys into the car?

(Laughs) Yeah, I was more like Emmett Kelly. I was more of a solo clown. Never went into a Volkswagen.

Seems a missed opportunity, but whatever. Anyway, after college, you ended up in New York?

I studied with a guy named Bob Modica for years. That’s where I met [my wife] Ana, and I would say, at least once a week we have a conversation about Bob and what he taught us. He didn’t just teach us acting. He taught us about life and what it means to be an artist.

It’s been 21 years since we made that movie together, and it seems like you’ve been working pretty much nonstop ever since.

I would say that’s accurate. I think I’ve been pretty lucky. I would like it to be a lot more than it is, but everybody does. I’d like there to be a fatter bank account, but I feel like I’ve been working pretty consistently since, I’d say 1988. I’ve done commercials and movies and TV and plays, and when you’re going through it it’s hard to think of it that way, but I’m starting to coach, and going back through all my stuff, oh my God, there’s so much. It’s insane. I try not to look back that much because I feel like the best is forward. The best is out there. Hopefully, I’ll do that until the day I die.

I’m curious about your decision to coach. I remember working with you, and while others in the cast tended to be, I don’t want to say limited, but certainly had their specific lane, your approach was much more craft-driven.

Yeah, totally. I feel like that is how I come to it. Teaching-wise, there’s a population of young actors who focus on celebrity, which I think is a big problem.

I’ve gotten to experience these cathartic moments in my life and my career, being on stage or being in a film, getting something, understanding something, discovering something. It’s rare, it doesn’t happen in every single TV show or every single movie, but sometimes you get to have this incredible epiphany. I’ve experienced those moments, and I think that’s what feeds the artistic journey. It’s something that I want to imbue in another generation, that this is what to strive for.

How do you boil that down into its most basic sense?

To me, it’s all about the discovery. It’s that moment, in a scene, in a class, in a movie, in a TV show, if you can have that emotional experience, you’re getting closer and closer to a character, and all of a sudden, it’s no longer you, it’s the character that you’re developing. That is, I think, one of the greatest feelings in the world. It feels like you’re floating on air. It’s literally like you’re dreaming. You’re just living this whole other existence. If you’re not striving for that, then I think something’s wrong.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• Acting Up: Andrew Scott Steals the Show in Netflix’s ‘Ripley’
• ‘Barbarian,’ ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ Casting Director Nancy Nayor Opens Up About Genre Casting
• Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 2: Theatre, Not Therapy

The post ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star Scott Cohen Talks Bertolt Brecht Plays, Joining the Circus and Why He Decided to Start Coaching first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star Scott Cohen Talks Bertolt Brecht Plays, Joining the Circus and Why He Decided to Start Coaching appeared first on Casting Networks.

(The limited series premiered April 4 on Netflix, and all episodes are now streaming)

The Performance: Criminals are fun to play. They’re inherently bad, and being bad is fun. That’s why some actors revel in playing villains because they get to take these bad characters — bad as in lacking moral fortitude, not in substance — and make them somehow sympathetic. The best villains, after all, believe that they’re right. Take the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thanos. He was a genocidal maniac, but in his heart, he only wanted peace. Mass murder and the deaths of quadrillions of living beings were just a necessary side effect.

Thomas Ripley, however, has no such lofty ambitions, he’s just a low-level con man out for himself, preferably with as little effort as possible. The hero, or rather anti-hero, of a series of famous novels by Patricia Highsmith, Ripley has been adapted before, most memorably by Anthony Minghella in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley. In that version, Matt Damon played the role to moderate acclaim. The issue was that he was overshadowed by the man playing the ill-fated Dickie Greenleaf, Jude Law, who scored an Oscar nomination for his efforts.

There’s no chance of that happening this time around.

Photo credit: Netflix

In the latest screen version, Netflix has given us an eight-episode limited series from writer-director Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for writing Schindler’s List. The title role is played by Irish thespian Andrew Scott, who just about explodes off the screen in a remarkable turn that is alternately seductive and menacing, and so powerful that, no matter who else is in the frame, you can’t take your eyes off him.

The mistake a lot of actors make when playing a sociopath is to tip their hand too early. Giving clues as to their intentions and inherent evil. Scott avoids this by keeping a very cool veneer, even as he’s plotting how he’s going to get where and what he needs. There’s no wink at the audience, no self-conscious smirk to clue us into what he’s got going on. Instead, he gives us a man who appears to be the essence of calm. He is serene. He is a glassy pond at sunrise, without the slightest ripple, until he is ready.

That moment comes at the end of the first episode, when he finally shows us some semblance of his true self, in a chilling moment that sets up the rest of the story. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say, it’s much more menacing than seductive, although there is plenty of the latter in store.

Scott is a brilliant actor who has played his share of villains, but what makes his Ripley so much more interesting than, say, Damon’s, is how relatable he makes the criminal feel. There’s a quiet desperation to him at the story’s beginnings, but not an overwhelming one. Scott acts so much with his eyes that we both empathize with him and wonder what’s going on behind them. They may be the windows to the soul, but Scott wields them instead as mirrors, and that paradoxically serves to draw us in further.

One doesn’t have to love villains to love particular villains. We can pick and choose, based on who the villain is or, even better, how that villain is portrayed. James Bond fans have their favorite versions of Blofeld, for instance, and Batman fans have their favorite Joker. Take some time to sit down with Andrew Scott. He’ll likely become your favorite Ripley.

Photo credit: Netflix

The Career: Andrew Scott had already been a working actor for more than a decade when he showed up in the BBC’s monumental 2010 version of Sherlock, which made Benedict Cumberbatch an international star. He appeared in both Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, for instance, and played Colonel William Smith in four episodes of HBO’s John Adams opposite Paul Giamatti. He was in lots of British TV shows and some short films, and he was someone who had something special.

It was his turn as the villainous Moriarty in those Sherlock episodes that took him to the next level. Suddenly, this was a guy who could play a sociopath with charm and wit, adding to the considerable deviousness and menace that would show up again in several nasty roles, of course, most recently Netflix’s Ripley. In the immediate aftermath of Sherlock came Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as James Bond, Spectre, in which Scott was the traitorous C, leader of the British domestic secret service and ally of Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld.

But of course, Scott is far more than that, which he proved in the 2019 second season of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s seminal Amazon series Fleabag, in which he showed up as a Catholic priest who falls in love with Waller-Bridge’s title character. Scott’s priest was sexy and charming and romantic and made it clear that there was more to this actor than just villains. That was hammered home yet again in 2023, with his leading turn in All of Us Strangers, as a screenwriter who gets a mysterious new way to heal from losing his parents 30 years before. Scott is heartbreaking in the movie, offering a hopeful sadness that is somehow never off-putting. On the contrary, it only serves to make the audience feel for him even more.

The point is, you can’t pin down Andrew Scott. He’s as versatile as they come, and now we get eight episodes of seeing that versatility in action. It’s not just Mister Ripley who’s talented.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• ‘Barbarian,’ ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ Casting Director Nancy Nayor Opens Up About Genre Casting
• Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 2: Theatre, Not Therapy
• Key Equipment for Recording Your Voiceover Projects at Home

The post Acting Up: Andrew Scott Steals the Show in Netflix’s ‘Ripley’ first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post Acting Up: Andrew Scott Steals the Show in Netflix’s ‘Ripley’ appeared first on Casting Networks.

Nayor has had an impressive career that began at Universal Pictures and saw her rising to Senior Vice President of Feature Casting before venturing out on her own. She recently worked on the latest season of the Amazon Prime series The Baxters, as well as the directorial debut of Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda, the Diablo Cody-scripted Lisa Frankenstein, now available to view on Peacock.

She spoke to us from her home office, where she was joined by Buster, the Pomeranian she “timeshares” with her stepson.

How did you get into casting in the first place?

I wanted to be an actress. I was in all my school plays in high school and college. I just loved being in theater, so I thought, “I want to go into theater in New York. But I want to learn what is needed of the actors, so I’m going to go in stealth and do an internship in casting and learn how to succeed in that field. Get the inside scoop.” I did my first internship at Manhattan Theatre Club, and within the first 24 hours, I decided that I love casting and that was going to be my path.

What was it that was so entrancing?

I had to interview a lot of actors for these equity principal interviews. I think it was a biannual requirement of all the Off-Broadway theaters for actors who either had no agent or didn’t have a good agent that they could meet the producers of the theater.

They put me in one of the smaller theaters with a table and chair and I was meeting everyone who was in line. I recognized a lot of those actors from seeing Broadway shows growing up and I thought, “Oh, my God, I don’t want to be in this line at 40, 50, 60 years old.” I thought, they’re so talented, I don’t want to compete with them, I’d rather see if I can help facilitate moving their career forward.

It’s amazing how many casting directors I’ve talked to started as actors.

I think it helps greatly in casting just to have a different dialogue with actors. A different understanding of the psyche of an actor. The challenges. The struggles. I think you have more compassion for the whole process, and I think it just makes you more well-rounded in the job.

It’s interesting, too, because every single casting director I’ve talked to has such a love of actors, and yet so many actors view them adversarially.

It’s true, we’re perceived as the gatekeepers, but we are always in the position of wanting to bring out the best performances, to help actors have the best environment. It makes life easy for everyone on both sides. I can be a hero with my producers and director to deliver someone wonderful who they love, so I want an actor to do well.

You do a lot of genre films. What led you down that road?

I was at Universal for the first 14 years of my career and was eventually SVP of feature casting there. In my first year in LA, I came out for two weeks to work on a Universal feature and stayed for 14 years. At the time, we had in-house deals with Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, Ron Howard and John Hughes — amazing filmmakers, and I got to work with all of them. That’s where I met Sam Raimi.

I cast The Whole Nine Yards and Road Trip, and then because I worked with Sam at Universal on Darkman, he brought me onto The Grudge, and then I did The Exorcism of Emily Rose within the same year. Those came out and just happened to be big hits, and it seemed to open the floodgates for the genre for me. I didn’t want to be ungrateful to have a niche, so I thought I would embrace it and just go along the genre journey.

It’s been a blast, and I do enjoy the combination of comedy and genre like Lisa Frankenstein or Barbarian. I did one recently with the Barbarian team called Companion, with Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid. It’s in the post, and it’s just hysterically funny.

Because of the nature of your work, I imagine you also discover a lot of talent, too.

I mean, it’s great. I put Gwyneth Paltrow on her first film ever, which was called Shout. I cast Tessa Thompson in her first film where she was one of the opening cameo kills in When a Stranger Calls. I think genre gives an opportunity for that over and over because you want to feel like you can relate to the people in the film, so you don’t need big movie stars.

I think that’s a trick for the audience to feel like, “this could be happening to me, this horrible story. This horror could be visiting my front door.” That’s why it’s not Brad Pitt starring in a horror film because I can’t relate.

That feels like it segues well into my last question, which is what piece of wisdom or advice would you give to someone coming in to audition for you?

I would say, be relaxed. I think a lot of times, back to your point at the beginning, this fear or this anxiousness or nervousness that comes up because you feel like, “Oh, this person’s not rooting for me or they don’t want to see me succeed,” but it’s the opposite.

We do want to see them succeed. That creates a tension that I think inhibits creativity a lot of the time. Also, to be bold. Not to be fearful of making a choice. Sometimes people are so concerned with making the wrong choice that they go vanilla instead of taking bold chances, which I think are the auditions that are the most memorable.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 2: Theatre, Not Therapy
• Key Equipment for Recording Your Voiceover Projects at Home
• What’s Casting: Vogue Commercial with Major Auto Brand, Goose Creek Candle, badboyboards

The post ‘Barbarian,’ ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ Casting Director Nancy Nayor Opens Up About Genre Casting first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post ‘Barbarian,’ ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ Casting Director Nancy Nayor Opens Up About Genre Casting appeared first on Casting Networks.

When actors forget it’s a job, it can have surprisingly wide-reaching effects.

Any form of acting requires collaboration. If you are using acting as therapy or as a reflection of your worth, you won’t be able to be a team player. It’s difficult to trust a castmate who is ultimately in it for ego or a mental health outlet.

Besides, how it feels doesn’t always translate to how it looks. You can be pouring your heart out on stage, really feeling the moment, but if you are focused on your internal experience, oftentimes you won’t be listening to your castmates, much less reaching the audience. If it’s all about how it feels for you, you can’t be a supportive participant in lifting up the story.

Audiences are smarter than most give them credit for. They can tell when an actor is there to feel the story, rather than tell the story. They will disengage.

Such an outlook is not sustainable anyway. If you are putting your whole self on the line and at the mercy of the industry, you will burn out, and end up phoning in work that you could have otherwise invested in.

Besides the quality of the storytelling, the industry suffers when we don’t treat it like a career. Recent strikes have been a testament to what happens when those in power get used to taking advantage of artists because ‘they should be grateful for the opportunity’ or ‘they’re getting exposure.’

Healthy work boundaries don’t mean you aren’t passionate about the art. Refusing to suffer for the sake of the story does not diminish your work. And when the acting community acknowledges that it is a workplace that needs to be accountable for the safety of their workers, we end up lifting each other up and advocating for those who are less able to. Ultimately, the storytelling can only get better when we treat the storytellers with the respect they deserve.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• What’s Casting: Vogue Commercial with Major Auto Brand, Goose Creek Candle, badboyboards
• Legendary Casting Director John Papsidera Talks ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ and More
• Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 1: Who You Are vs. What You Are

The post Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 2: Theatre, Not Therapy first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 2: Theatre, Not Therapy appeared first on Casting Networks.

If you’re starting your voice acting career and have your home recording studio all set, you can look into filling it with the voiceover gear you’ll use to record. These items include your microphone and cables, interface, laptop and the recording software or Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) you’ll be using.

That said, there are some nuances to these items that aren’t always clear to new voice actors.

To help save you time and money, here’s a quick rundown of the equipment you’ll need, as well as some helpful insights about each piece of gear.

Laptops for Voiceover

As mentioned in our article on building a home voiceover studio, your goal is to eliminate as much noise as possible from your recording. When choosing a laptop to record your voiceovers, aim for a fanless model (the MacBook Air is a safe choice).

Here’s why a fanless laptop is the way to go: The area you’re going to record in will probably get hot, especially if your booth is a modified walk-in closet. Your laptop will heat up due to the amount of processing power, causing the fan to kick in. The noise from the fan will then find its way into your recording, making it unusable for your clients.

If the laptop you’re using already has a fan and you can’t switch to a fanless laptop, see if you can turn the fan off when you’re recording.

VO Mic Check

When looking into microphones for voiceover, make sure your microphone of choice is using an XLR input. Many new and aspiring voice actors assume they can use USB microphones for voiceover work to save money. Unfortunately, the direct USB connection signal will mess with your recording quality and you won’t book jobs.

The microphone you need depends on your space and budget. The best microphones for voiceover are high-directionality or condenser microphones because they’re designed to capture the sound in front of them, bringing out more life from vocals.

The best microphones on the market are the Neumann TLM100 series condenser microphones (the TLM 103 is a big favorite in voiceover circles) and the Sennheiser MKH-416 shotgun microphone (also a favorite). However, these are expensive and are not necessary to compete with other working voice actors. There are plenty of budget options that can handle the job just fine, such as the RØDE NT1 or the Synco D2.

As for XLR cables, any brand will work. Many voice actors swear by their Mogami Gold or Mogami Platinum cables, but you don’t have to spend $50-$100 or more on a cable to have a great recording. You’re better off investing the cash in other pieces of equipment when you’re on a limited budget.

Voiceover Interfaces

Your interface is a bit more simplified than your microphone. This is the device you’ll be plugging your microphone into for your voiceover recordings. Just make sure it has 48V phantom power and it should be OK. Like microphones, there are top-of-the-line options such as the Universal Audio Apollo Twin series, but something more modestly priced, like the Focusrite Scarlett or the SSL2, will work on a budget.

Recording Software for Voice Actors

This is the tool that you’ll be recording with on your laptop, as well as editing said recordings, and the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) selection process is simpler than your interface. You can choose to pay monthly subscriptions for DAWs, such as Adobe Audition, or buy them outright like Reaper, Logic Pro or TwistedWave. There are also free options available such as Audacity or GarageBand if you’re a Mac user.

Choose whichever one makes the most sense to you and learn it.

Testing Your Gear

Once you’ve got everything lined up, test your recording space! You want your studio noise floor to be at -60dB to pass the sniff test. The studio noise floor is the quietest level you can record at. Your noise floor is a total of all unwanted sounds on the recording that you can’t remove, such as hiss, hum etc.

When recording, test your levels so that your voice falls between the -18dB and -6dB range. Be sure to avoid clipping, where you exceed the maximum recording levels your program can handle (most DAWs will have a setting you can toggle on and off to avoid clipping).

Sound engineers can help you with any modifications you may need for your home studio, as well as helping you learn your DAW. Some can help you create presets in your DAW so that you can set it, forget it and hit record without any concerns for your sound.

When it comes to grabbing your voiceover gear, the essential items you’ll need are your microphone, XLR cable, recording interface and DAW. There are subtle things to know about each piece of equipment, as well as budgets to keep in mind, but knowing is half the battle. Once you’ve got an understanding of what you need for your situation, getting the right gear is easy!

When you’re ready to record, be sure to test your gear to ensure your home studio sounds professional. If anything seems off, ask a sound engineer for help.

Voice acting casting calls and auditions are added to Casting Networks daily. Get in your booth and start auditioning today!

You may also like:

• Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 2: Theatre, Not Therapy
• What’s Casting: Vogue Commercial with Major Auto Brand, Goose Creek Candle, badboyboards
• Legendary Casting Director John Papsidera Talks ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ and More

The post Key Equipment for Recording Your Voiceover Projects at Home first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post Key Equipment for Recording Your Voiceover Projects at Home appeared first on Casting Networks.

Model for Vogue!

Vogue and a major automobile brand are looking for a model to star in an upcoming commercial. Accelerate your career – submit today!

Work Location: Los Angeles, CA

Submission deadline: April 26, 2024

Register to submit, or if you already have an account, log in to submit.

Star in Goose Creek Commercial!

Light up the screen! Goose Creek Candle is seeking talent to star in their next commercial. Submit today!

Work Location: Los Angeles, CA

Submission deadline: April 26, 2024

Register to submit, or if you already have an account, log in to submit.

Join badboyboards’ Shoot!

Get on board with badboyboards! They’re seeking talent to feature in their upcoming photoshoot. Show off your cooking skills and submit today!

Work Location: Los Angeles, CA

Submission deadline: April 26, 2024

Register to submit, or if you already have an account, log in to submit.

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The post What’s Casting: Vogue Commercial with Major Auto Brand, Goose Creek Candle, badboyboards first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post What’s Casting: Vogue Commercial with Major Auto Brand, Goose Creek Candle, badboyboards appeared first on Casting Networks.

Furthermore, Papsidera’s collaboration with Taylor Sheridan on his “Taylorverse” introduced audiences to several new franchise shows last year that he cast, including 1923, Lawman: Bass Reeves and Special Ops: Lioness.

In addition to these successes, Papsidera cast the Apple TV+ miniseries Lessons in Chemistry. The historical drama stars Brie Larson as a chemist who becomes a cooking show host, leveraging her scientific expertise to enlighten her primarily housewife audience on scientific principles.

In an interview with Casting Networks, Papsidera provided insights into the unique challenges of bringing the show to life, and his experience attending the SAG Awards for the first time earlier this year.

Were any actors already attached to the project when you came on board to cast?

Brie was already attached. She was a producer and had worked in developing the piece. Hannah Fidell, the original showrunner, called me and asked, in conjunction with Apple, if I would be interested. Hannah and I got off to a great start. I had seen the show she did with Kate Mara and Nick Robinson, A Teacher, so we talked about that when I first met her. I found out later she is friends with Jason Reitman, who I’m friends with and work with a lot (Author’s note: Papsidera cast the filmmaker’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and its sequel, Frozen Empire.)

Were there any special requirements for casting this show?

We wanted to capture the time period in the right way to make it as authentic as we could to that world – in which women were second-class citizens in many ways. We needed it to come through authentically rather than cartoony or over the top because the show was also mixing humor with very serious subjects. I knew going in that it would be a mix of comedy and tragic things, but also with a very female-driven point of view. We wanted women to look like women, not just beauty queens. We wanted men to feel like they were from the 50s and represent that in the right way. Those were the biggest things we talked about.

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

How do you accomplish that in terms of look and voice?

It’s subtle. It’s about vocal style and diction. The English language has been trashed over the years, so it’s very different now how someone speaks – in terms of what they say and how they say it – than it used to be in the 50s. During the audition, we had people with a perfect look but not the perfect tone. Others had the tone but looked too contemporary. We’d go back and ask them to do something with their hair, like pull it back, for instance, to try and fit those pieces together. Because some people can get the tone and presentation, and some need a little adjusting.

Shouldn’t casting directors be able to see past hair and presentation?

Yes, we do see it. That’s why we’re asking actors to make that adjustment. It’s not for us. It’s for executives and producers and directors. I’m working on something now where the person said to me, yeah, ‘He’s a good actor, but in that picture, his hair’s not quite right.’ I was like, you’re going to talk about somebody’s hairdo from a resume standpoint, as opposed to the role we’re talking about? Sometimes you have to help those people see the actors in the light that they are looking for. It’s a reality that we deal with all the time.

With Lessons in Chemistry, what were you looking for in terms of look?

Certainly, there was more softness back then. The look of the 1950s was not rail thin and lip injections, you know what I mean? You have to pay attention to those things. Women had curves, and men didn’t have their teeth perfectly capped or their hair filled in.

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

But many actors – and in today’s culture – do have lip injections and filled-in hair because we live in a culture where that’s very prevalent right now. It’s also associated with youthfulness – and actors usually want to look as young as long as possible to extend their careers.

At the end of the day, you have to be a human being and do what you want to do as a human. That’s more important than what you do in life for a career to make money. Just be mindful of the fact it is going to inhibit you at times. However, it also depends on the piece you’re working on, and how important it is or isn’t. Not for every character, but if there’s nudity for women (on period projects), you can’t have augmentations because people will be like, ‘That’s not true to the time.’ All those things come into play.

Unfortunately, I think women are subjected to (scrutiny) more. Part of that is the male gaze and that whole mindset. It can be a hard line for actors to do what’s right for their career and what’s right to make themselves look beautiful and youthful and not surgery themselves out of a job.

Let’s talk about how some of the supporting characters were cast.

Stephanie Koenig, who played Fran, I had known her and thought she was a fabulous actress. My associate, Jennifer Cram, who I’ve worked with on and off for 19 years, wrote and directed her own film [Sick Girl], and Stephanie was in it. I produced it, so we knew what Stephanie could do. She’s one of those actresses who got the tone, look, and style all at once. The [showrunners and studio] didn’t even know what she had done. They just were blown away by her audition. We weren’t bound to have a name for every character so we opened the doors and had people read to find the most realistic people that we could set this world.

Aja Naomi King, [who played Harriet Sloan,] was brilliant in her audition. She was such a force. She and Patrick Walker, [who plays Reverend Wakely,] through their performances and auditions, acted their way into elevated writing because the writers started to write towards them, and beefed up that storyline during the process because it wasn’t there initially. The writing was enhanced by their casting.

Kevin Sussman, [who played the cooking show producer Walter Pine], I’ve known for years and always loved his work. I honestly thought on some level, the producers would be drawn to a big name for that role. But Kevin read, they watched his tape, and they said, he’s perfect.

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

Speaking of bigger names, how did Lewis Pullman come aboard as the Brie’s leading man?

He was coming off Top Gun: Maverick. He had other stuff that he was about to go to, but we made the schedule work. I was thrilled because not only does he read incredibly intelligent, but he has a real sense of humor and can do physically comedic stuff. I was thrilled that we got Lewis and I thought he and Brie had an amazing chemistry.

You were invited to attend the SAG awards for the first time in your career this past February because of Oppenheimer, which you cast. The room must have been filled with actors who have auditioned for you over the years. Any memorable encounters?

The SAG Awards were a lovely experience because I got to see so many actors that I don’t get to see on a regular basis because they’ve all become big stars! I congratulated Margot Robbie, and she said, ‘It’s all because of you.’

What did she mean by that?

I was her first meeting when she came to the United States from Australia. I flipped for her. I happened to be doing the remake of Charlie’s Angels, the television series. I immediately got Margot into that, and she tested. The studio was like, “We don’t really see it.” I’m like, “What?” A week later, she was cast in [the short-lived ABC series] Pan Am, and that was her first big project in the States.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 1: Who You Are vs. What You Are
• Success Story: How Ansley Moncoeur’s Interaction With Michael Cera Led to an Upgrade and SAG Voucher on the Set of ‘Life & Beth’
• ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star PJ Sosko Talks Learning from Masters to Portray Literary, Journalist Icons Earnest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson

The post Legendary Casting Director John Papsidera Talks ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ and More first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post Legendary Casting Director John Papsidera Talks ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ and More appeared first on Casting Networks.

The first problem with tying your identity to your career is that it creates an imbalanced power dynamic. If others hold the keys to your identity you are not in the driver’s seat. The roles you get will always feel like a reflection of your worth. You will end up pushing yourself past your boundaries (if you set any at all) in pursuit of the idealized career you’ve created in your head.

This attitude encourages and enables the abuse of that dynamic. If you are not treating acting like a job, it creates an environment where you’re more likely to agree to work for free, overlook toxic work practices and even agree to do physically dangerous things for the sake of the art. You will be less likely to speak up. Unfortunately, many a director and artistic directors out there are keenly aware of this dynamic and will push actors far past the bounds of professionalism because they know how terrified actors are of losing any opportunity.

There can be no work/life balance when your work defines your life. Every dip in your career will dominate the rest of your life, putting a strain on relationships and a lens through which you interpret all outside experiences. There have been times in my career where I would have thought Fine. I don’t need anything else but this work. It’s the most important thing to me. But there has to be more. You cannot bring your best self to work onset or on stage if you are not investing in your life outside of acting.

Furthermore, if you take everything as a reflection of yourself it puts your self-esteem in a very precarious position. The rejections will feel like measures of your worth instead of part of the numbers game. Your resiliency will suffer. It puts you at risk of becoming jaded, bitter, or reluctant to take artistic risks for fear of failure.

Aside from your mental health, the more you are wrapping up your sense of self with your success as an actor, the less you will be able to be a supportive cast mate. If you’re in it for you, you have a skewed view of the project, and the work will suffer.

For example. I recently auditioned for a show I knew I was too emotionally invested in. While I booked the show, it was an ensemble track I didn’t feel as confident in, and none of the roles I was hoping for. If I had taken that personally, it would have been easy to say, “Well if I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, I won’t be part of it at all.”

But you know what? It was a job. I needed the money. I liked the people attached to the project. Parts of it were outside my comfort zone, but it started looking like an opportunity to learn. Separating my sense of worth from the casting let me enter into the project with genuine excitement, curiosity and drive to do my best. And the paycheck allowed me to sign up for training I wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise.

That’s the counterintuitive part of this equation. If you don’t pour all of yourself into your career, you’ll have the clarity and energy to accept more opportunities.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star PJ Sosko Talks Learning from Masters to Portray Literary, Journalist Icons Earnest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson
• The Art of Silent Expression: Acting Without Words
• Fight Director Benedetto Robinson Gets into the Nitty Gritty of Fight Choreography, What it Means to Be an Actor Combatant

The post Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 1: Who You Are vs. What You Are first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post Remember, Acting is a Job, Part 1: Who You Are vs. What You Are appeared first on Casting Networks.

How did you decide to become an actor?

It was kind of by accident. I was at a party and I stepped outside to get some fresh air. Then I noticed people coming off [these] huge Megabuses or Greyhound buses, and they were all dressed in 60s, 50s attire. I asked one of them, “What are you guys dressed up for?” He told me [it was] background acting for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I was asking him [questions] like, “Hey, how do you get started?” He told me about a few websites, and from then on I was like, “Oh, this is something I could really see myself doing.”

How did you first discover Casting Networks?

I think that was the first website that [the background actor] told me about. He told me, “Casting Networks is really good. They have a variety [of acting jobs] from commercials to student projects to film.” I was like, “Wow, this sounds like it’s a real official big-time thing. Let me sign up for this.”

Tell me about your experience booking Life & Beth on Casting Networks.

I signed up for the emails from Casting Networks for when new opportunities came up, and I noticed Life & Beth. I see advertising for the show everywhere in NYC. The role was something I was already doing at that time which was “kitchen staff.” They did ask to see if we had the uniform already (black pants and shoes) while they provided the chef shirt and apron. I was just getting off a shift looking at the reference picture knowing that’s exactly what I had on that day.

I submitted [on Monday] and got an email from production with call time on Thursday, so it didn’t take long at all.

Photo courtesy of Ansley Moncoeur.

What was the on-set experience like? How did you end up getting upgraded and getting a SAG voucher out of it?

It was interesting. The role was a restaurant worker. I’ve always been in restaurants doing serving, catering, stuff like that, so it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. I was surprised because only three of us got cast for it.

When they were about to place us on-set, they came to all three of us like we were in a huddle or something and they said, “Okay guys, I need to know who knows how to pour water.” I’m like, “Wait, is this a joke?” All three of us looked so confused and for some reason no one would say, “Yeah, I know how to pour water,” so I did. They said, “All right, cool. You’re going to be the one that pours water for Michael Cera.” So I’m like, “All right, cool. I’m going to get some face time.” That’s all I cared about.

While everything is going on, I’m with the pitcher. I pour the water and then Michael Cera says, “Hi” to me. Naturally, as a human being, I say, “Hi” back. They cut and it was like, “Okay, background, we don’t want you to talk. Sorry about that, it’s just a silent role.” Then here goes Michael like, “Oh, no, I actually want to have a conversation with him. I want to talk to him while he’s pouring the water. I want to make it seem like I knew him from before.” The director was like, “All right, let’s get him a mic. Let’s mic him up.” I’m like, “Oh my goodness. I actually have a speaking line in this.” You get humbled by the smallest things.

Amy Schumer, who also stars on [Life & Beth], was also like, “Yeah, I feel like it should be mutual. It should be like a thing that he just comes [to the restaurant]. And he comes here often, so he should know the waiters that are here.”

Amy Schumer and Michael Cera both agreed, and then all these people [came] with microphones and paperwork that I had to fill out. It’s so much paperwork when you get upgraded.

The whole upgrading itself is going from just sitting in a regular holding [area] and now they have you sitting with the stars. I’m sitting right next to Michael Cera. I’m sitting right next to Amy Schumer and we’re having a regular conversation talking about how [Michael] should try Audible for the first time.

The whole process was like the earth just cracked open. At a certain point, I didn’t know how big of a moment this was until everybody started congratulating me. This is the thing that people actually strive for and luckily enough, through Casting Networks, I was able to get it. I owe the biggest thanks to Casting Networks for this.

Photo courtesy of Ansley Moncoeur.

What would you say can help somebody succeed on Casting Networks?

Persistence, and making sure that you give [casting directors] exactly what they ask for. Casting Networks makes it so easy to upload anything. It’s pretty basic stuff that directors look for, and as long as you can give it to them, you’ll be set. As long as you can fit the requirements that’s asked of you, you’re going to get there.

What are some audition tips that you might be able to share?

Get something with lighting. If you don’t have good natural light, then I would suggest you buy one of those ring lights or go to a well-lit area. Be confident in what you’re doing, because I feel like [casting directors] could pick up on that. And take it seriously. There [are] certain things you can do off-camera to practice, but when you’re sending in something, make sure that you give it all you can. I feel like the [casting] directors would understand that, they will see it, they’ll understand and they’ll definitely take it into consideration.

What are some other successes and high-profile jobs you’ve booked off of Casting Networks?

I did a photo shoot. It was a commercial shoot for Coca-Cola. That was pretty dope, because I didn’t expect it. I mean, first they don’t tell you exactly what you’re going in for. They told me to bring different clothes, and that shoot was amazing. It was a billboard shoot. To have that opportunity to work with so many good people knowing that it just comes from a click of a button…[I wonder] how many opportunities are actually there waiting for people.

Coca-Cola’s one. I got a few more good background acting roles from Casting Networks, and a few commercials. I got some modeling opportunities from there. Casting Networks actually has staffing agencies, so if you want to do catering or serving, they have that as well. That surprised me.

They look for model servers, or model staff. They want to see that you can model or have the look of a model, but are still able to serve cocktails and stuff like that, so that definitely does help. I’ve gotten a few [jobs] from there too, thanks [to] Casting Networks.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star PJ Sosko Talks Learning from Masters to Portray Literary, Journalist Icons Earnest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson
• The Art of Silent Expression: Acting Without Words
• Fight Director Benedetto Robinson Gets into the Nitty Gritty of Fight Choreography, What it Means to Be an Actor Combatant

The post Success Story: How Ansley Moncoeur’s Interaction With Michael Cera Led to an Upgrade and SAG Voucher on the Set of ‘Life & Beth’ first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post Success Story: How Ansley Moncoeur’s Interaction With Michael Cera Led to an Upgrade and SAG Voucher on the Set of ‘Life & Beth’ appeared first on Casting Networks.

On the MAX series The Girls on the Bus, he has been cast as the ghost of legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It’s the first major streaming role for the actor, whose work on the show is earning kudos, even among a stellar cast that includes Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Griffin Dunne and plenty more.

PJ and I have known each other for more than a quarter century. We bartended together when times were tougher and have seen and read each other’s work over and over again through the years. Seeing his success now is especially gratifying, considering how many times I watched him in less than stellar Off-Off-Off Broadway fare in which he was by far the best part. He was at home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in between acting gigs, when we spoke. It was the first time he’d been interviewed in years, and the first time I’d interviewed a good friend, so strap yourself in. We cover a lot of ground.

Do you remember how we met?

You walked into Exile, that bar on West 70th, when I was just starting.

I think it was the winter of 1998. I had made Two Ninas, my first movie, but it hadn’t hit festivals yet.

I remember you gave me a VHS tape of it.

When we started talking, I said, “Are you a good actor?” And you looked at me dead in the eye and said, “Yeah, I’m really good.” I remember thinking, “I believe this guy.” You looked at me and said, “Are you a good writer?” And I said, “I’m awesome.”

(Laughs) That was the beginning of our friendship! That we both owned it. You want to keep some humility, but knowing you can back it up and jam with anyone is the key. I think we saw that in each other. Now, I’m working with people that I’ve admired, Carla Gugino and Jackie Earle Haley, and with them, it’s instant. We’re playing.

In all of the years we’ve been friends, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you this question: how did you get into acting in the first place?

I was a nationally-ranked cross-country runner. I did the National Junior Olympics my senior year of high school, I was kicking ass, getting all the records, blah, blah, blah. I went to the University of Rochester on a scholarship. The coach turned out to be a dick, and after I missed a practice, benched me. So I quit.

Photo by Brette Taylor, courtesy of PJ Sosko.

You really quit?

My parents were pissed. And that happened right as a guy from the Royal Shakespeare Company named Mervyn Willis was taking over the theater program, ultimately to get his green card. I started getting cast because I was the only one who was comfortable on stage. I liked getting in front of people. I was a bit of a class clown, but I didn’t know that this would turn into a career.

One of the things I’ve always admired about you, and I think that this has always been a cornerstone of our friendship, is we’re both lifers. There was never a moment when it occurred to either of us to say, I can’t do this anymore. How did you get through the dark times?

If I didn’t have people say to me, “Hey, you have something special,” I don’t know that I would have. I put the work in. The craft is important to me. That’s always been part of it for us both. We bust our ass. There are a lot of steps along the way where you can get lazy, but for me, voiceovers happened, which was lucky. Many people enter the voiceover world and stop acting, but that allowed me to be patient. I could do the Off-Broadway show that you don’t get paid that much, but I do it because I’m the lead. I could go away for a week to do a developmental thing. It allowed me some freedom to do whatever I wanted. My side job was the job.

While most actors are losing time working on acting while they’re doing their side job, you’re only continuing to hone it?

Right. And since I was constantly working, I didn’t bring any less of what I do with a role to a short film than I do to a feature. It’s really hard work.

That was our long-running joke. I saw you in, like, a couple dozen theatrical things, and it was always, “I hated the show, but you were great in it.” The work was always stellar.

At some point, that starts to become a world that no longer satisfies you as an artist. It was something that would come out of our conversations. I was always trying to make sure that everybody was bringing their A-game because I’m going to bring a level to this. What I learned to do was to start throwing my two cents in because I’m realizing that they’re not matching what I’m bringing.

I was listening to Ethan Hawke, who was on Marc Maron’s podcast, and he said he can’t approach a role now not like a filmmaker, and that’s me, too. I’ve done too much, and seen too many things go wrong. Now, I approach every job as a producer, because I’ve done all those things. This HBO show was the first time for me to work with a huge machine, so it was a new experience about how to collaborate.

Photo courtesy of PJ Sosko.

How did that work, then? You’re used to being a big fish in a small pond, and now it’s the opposite.

I think it’s important for them to allow the actor, when you’re working with a certain talent, to let me surprise you on the creative side, and bring ideas to the table. My point of view is worthy interesting, valid and unique, and that’s something that I don’t take away. I’ve lived a very full life. The good, the bad, the ups, the downs, I’ve gone to the extremes. But I put everything I had into this character while I was there for eight months.

Well, let’s talk about this. Because as you said, this is the first time you’re walking into a real machine. This is big time. You’ve survived in a way that 99% of actors don’t, and now you’re doing it as a character who is a well-known part of the Zeitgeist.

I’ve played real people before. Remember, I played Hemingway …

That’s where you met Marta.

That’s where I met my wife. There’s no way I should’ve been playing him. I’m about 100 pounds too light and six inches too short, but it was about technique. I know how to make myself bigger. I know those things. I learned them from masters along the way because I never stopped learning. In the film, there are lots of tools that you can use from your theater experience if you’re crafty with it and if you realize that you just gotta turn the volume down on it, but filling the frame, sometimes people don’t think about how you fill a stage is the same as the frame.

That’s a terrific answer to a question I didn’t ask.

(Laughs) Sorry. Hunter S. Thompson. HBO.

I was up for a part in the Scorsese movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, which was shooting down here. Then I got an offer for the lead in an indie film from a couple of producers I’d worked with before. I asked the Scorsese people and they hadn’t made a decision, so I took the indie. In the hiatuses, I shot some other stuff, and while I was shooting this other low-budget thing, I got the audition for an HBO show for a recurring character named Hunter S. Thompson.

I had no time to prepare this, but I found one video that I connect with, but because of working on Hemingway and these other real guys, it gave me a shorthand to how he spoke. I did one take of the self-tape and sent it in, and Marta said, “If they don’t hire you, they’re stupid.” Two days later, I’m on hold. One day after, it’s mine.

I got like, a month of prep time, which I never had in New York without my wife and kid, so I did a real deep dive and just started memorizing all these quotes of his, just beautiful stuff that wasn’t well known. I was an advocate for the character and let it fly. I would talk to the directors or Melissa about how there was room for something here or there, but it’s rarefied air.

I wonder how many actors would feel comfortable enough to go in like that.

I came in and did an episode of a popular network drama during all this as well. The season three finale was great. We banged out almost an entire episode in like a day. And then they wrote the character back into this season. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought I was just going to be a robber of the week.

I have to think part of that is because of the choices I made. The availability. The consistency that I brought. They didn’t have to write him back on, but even though I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the process, I couldn’t stop my creativity from coming out. And now I’ve earned my spot. I know what I’m doing. Each time that I get a chance to work with these geniuses, these people who I’ve watched over the years, I’m humming along with them, and that’s it. To gain more of that experience gives me confidence.

Photo by Colin Key, courtesy of PJ Sosko.

A lot of actors are on this site, and I imagine a good number of them are struggling. As someone who struggled for a long time and is finally getting his shot, what advice would you give to that person reading this?

What are you doing about it? Are you sitting there and complaining? Are you happy with your auditions? If you’re not, have you taken a class recently? You’re always learning. In this career, if you think you know it all, that’s a foolish thought. There’s always someone to learn from, there’s always a moment that you can figure out from somebody else’s work, or share a director’s note that landed on you.

If you’re a lifer, you just have to keep creating. Are you doing the work? Your body is your instrument, and you have to keep making it better. You have to keep adapting. I found collaborators and they helped make me better. Find other artists and create together. Don’t sit at home and say, Why am I not getting anything? Go out and make shit. Shoot something in the park with two people. Find people you can work with and do it. You’re gonna fail sometimes but keep doing it. That’s what I did, and here I am.

Casting directors use Casting Networks every day to discover people like you. Sign up or log in today to get one step closer to your next role.

You may also like:

• ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star PJ Sosko Talks Learning from Masters to Portray Literary, Journalist Icons Earnest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson
• The Art of Silent Expression: Acting Without Words
• Fight Director Benedetto Robinson Gets into the Nitty Gritty of Fight Choreography, What it Means to Be an Actor Combatant

The post ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star PJ Sosko Talks Learning from Masters to Portray Icons Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson first appeared on Casting Networks.

The post ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Star PJ Sosko Talks Learning from Masters to Portray Icons Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson appeared first on Casting Networks.