Casting Director Kate Geller Gives Audition Advice and Talks Indie Films

Chances are, if you’re an actor in New York, you’ve auditioned for Kate Geller. One of the foremost casting directors of indie films, Geller has worked on more than a dozen features in just the last couple of years and has even more on the horizon. A former actor, Geller has an affinity for up-and-comers, which fits, because she is one herself. Her most recent feature, The List, starring Halston Sage, Clark Backo, Christian Navarro and Lucy DeVito, is available on VOD. She spoke with us from her home in New York City.

How did you get into casting in the first place?

I used to be an actor. I met Jessica Kelly at a class and she asked me to come be an intern at Christie Street Casting. Within a month, they had hired me and then I just kind of stayed. For 10 years.

I did both for a few years, acting and casting, and then I was on set one day and realized that I was thinking about the other actors that could have played the role, and how I didn’t want it that much anymore. It’s such a hard, difficult job to be an actor, it’s just not right to do it when you don’t want it badly. And I love casting. I just kind of fell into it, but it made me change my career trajectory.

I find it interesting that, when you’re acting, you’re responsible for one role. When you’re casting, you’re responsible for all of them and have a different impact on a project.

I guess I just look at them very differently. If it was anybody but the actor you put in there, it would change the shape of what the story is. I love teaching and one of the things I always say when I teach is that every actor is an individual little snowflake. I look at my job as to present options. I very rarely will present one actor and be like, This is who you should hire. If asked, I will 100 percent say, This is my favorite. But what I love about it is that it’s such a team sport. It’s such a collaboration.

You say you love teaching. What do you teach?

I teach audition techniques because I think it’s something really important for actors to learn. Especially since, if you’re lucky, you book one of every 10 auditions. If you’re lucky. It’s hard to get into that. I like trying to help actors find the fun in it because frankly, it was my least favorite part of being an actor.

How often do students from your class come in to audition for you using the tricks that you’ve taught them?

I’ll get emails years later. I know it works this way for me, I have to sit with something for a while for it to be absorbed into my subconscious so that I know how to do it. People will say I didn’t quite get it in class, but I started seeing what you were talking about months later, and it’s helped me book these roles. As for people coming in who took my class, for sure.

That’s a really good segue because I was looking over your resume and saw just an enormous number of indie films, and I’m curious if you go into those with a different mindset than the larger films you’ve worked on.

I do work on a lot of indie. With studio films, the dreaminess can be a lot bigger. Reps pay attention a little bit differently from independent films, purely because of budget levels. I can go crazy dreaming on the studio film, putting together a list and doing avail checks that I feel confident about.

As opposed to, with an independent film, I’ve worked with a lot of first-time directors, so knowing which actors are open to working with them, or who wants to be working with established directors already. Knowing which actors are willing to be a producer on it, as opposed to getting the actual paycheck because we don’t have the money.

Unfortunately, in both worlds, they’re looking for big names, which is not my favorite. I kind of love these $300,000 Indies. I mean, I don’t want to do them forever, but I love them because you get these hungry people, that want to make a good movie, and you get these discoveries because you can look for the best actor as opposed to looking for the biggest name. That being said, it’s also fun to dream of these Oscar-winning actors that are willing to take a chance on a new director and help boost that director’s career. That’s also really exciting.

What piece of advice or wisdom would you give to an actor coming in to audition for you?

Remember, we’re all human. We all have bad days, we all have great days and we’re rooting for you. We’re just a person like you are. If we give you a direction, breathe deep, see how it lands and go for it. If we don’t give you direction, say ‘thank you.’

Also, if you flub, we’ve 100 percent seen it happen all the time. If we don’t say anything, we probably barely notice it and it’s not worth redoing. Don’t worry. If you do flub, and we tell you to take a look at the script, do it. Everyone flubs. Don’t go down the rabbit hole of Oh my god, I’m flubbing.

Oh, and don’t tell me why you made a choice. I know why you made a choice. If I’m giving you directions for different choices, it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. I just want to see something different.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

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