July 7, 2025 • 65 mins
Today on What's My Frame I'm joined by comedy casting legend, G. Charles Wright for some much needed laughs, encouragement and stories from his incredible career in casting. G. has nearly 700 episodes of television that are still running in syndication and streaming. Notable credits include THE MIDDLE, ANGER MANAGEMENT & LOPEZ VS LOPEZ to name just a few.
G. has been on both sides of the camera, as an actor and casting director. He brings his prolific insight into the world of casting into his classes at the G. Charles Wright Studio. Today G. shares advice on the craft, self tapes and so much more.
To learn more about classes and private coaching at G. Charles Wright Studio click here!
Full bio:
A graduate of USC with a degree in communications (emphasis on television, critical studies,) G. has been on both sides of the camera, as an actor, a casting director, a content creator, a producer and a director. In addition, G’s been teaching actors how to audition in his private studio classes since 2002.
He began his professional casting career in 1996 as an intern on 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN for Liberman/Patton at Carsey/Werner studios. Shortly after, G moved up the ranks from assistant to associate and finally casting director on THAT ‘70s SHOW seven+ of the series’ eight seasons.
G is the original casting director of the PBS and Jim Henson Co. animated series SID THE SCIENCE KID, the FX channel’s ANGER MANAGEMENT starring Charlie Sheen, the ABC comedy series, THE MIDDLE starring Patricia Heaton, the IFC horror/comedy series from Dana Gould, STAN AGAINST EVIL, the family comedy DIARY OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT on Disney+ and LOPEZ VS LOPEZ for Universal Television and NBC, Peacock, and Netfix.
As a performer and creative, G. is a graduate of both Second City and Acme Improvisation companies and has an extensive list of stage credits in sketch, improv, and legit theatre, as well as many onscreen and VO credits. He also fronted two bands over a 25-year period and has spent what feels like a lifetime trying to play the banjo.
--
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi everyone, today and what's Myframe?
I'm joined by comedy casting legend G Charles Wright for some
much needed laughs, encouragement, and stories from
his incredible career in casting.
G has nearly 700 episodes of television that are still
running in syndication and streaming.
Notable credits include The Middle, Anger Management, and
Lopez versus Lopez, to name justa few.
(00:24):
G has been on both sides of the camera as an actor and casting
director. He brings his prolific insight
into the world of casting into his classes today.
G shares advice on the craft, self tapes, and so much more.
Now let's get to the conversation.
Hey G, welcome to What's my Frame?
(00:44):
Thanks, Laura. It's good to be here.
I'm so excited for this conversation.
For anyone who isn't familiar with your prolific career in
casting and comedy, could you just share a little bit about
your back story and what drew you to the arts, casting
specifically, and some of the pivotal twists and turns that
led us here? Well, I've always been
(01:05):
interested in the arts. I, I heard something the other
day. I was listening to something.
They were interviewing some guy.I've already forgotten all of
all of the important points of this story.
But they had asked him. Oh, no, it was just, it was NPR
thing. They're talking to Mike
Birbiglia and about how his parents influenced him.
(01:26):
And, and they, and I thought, gosh, you know, I think the
biggest influence my parents hadon me was an appreciation for
the arts. So that started right out of the
gate. I will they, there was no, there
was no support for me to be in the arts, but there was an
appreciation of the arts as a patron of the arts.
(01:49):
My dad was a school teacher, buthe was also a writer and my mom
is a just sort of a, a free flowing artist with very low
self esteem. So she kind of just goes from
thing to thing. And I don't think she, I think
if you were to ask her, she would not, she would not say
that she was an artist. But my mom is very artistic and
(02:12):
her mediums of art have changed just over the course of my
lifetime from when I was a little boy.
She she was doing a lot of oil painting and I would say now
she's probably more, I think herart is more in line with
gardening, but everything she does is a very artistic flair
(02:33):
and a real sense of style. So that all kind of drew me.
I've so I've always been artistic and I don't even
remember the question. Well, you got us with a good
foundation, artistic appreciation and childhood.
And then how did you learn that that could be a career path and
how did you start building that out into a career for yourself?
(02:55):
I always wanted to be an actor off of watching television, so
all I did as a child was watch TV.
Now I am. I'm going to be 59 this year, so
that means that the 1970s is is the decade of my childhood.
I started high school in 1980 and I graduated from College in
(03:15):
1989. So the 1970s are when I'm
consciously aware and I'm a kid and all I did really was watch
television and hang out with my grandma.
That's pretty much that's, that's pretty much, those are
the big bullet points for the 1970s with me.
(03:37):
And I really wanted to be an actor.
I was really into it. So when I started high school, I
had a choice of high schools. We lived in a district where
there were a bunch of high schools all within the same
distance from where I from whereI live.
And I chose the high school, Huntington Beach High School,
not to name drop Laura, but I chose it because it was a really
(04:01):
old school that had been built around 1900.
And because of that, it had thisgorgeous giant auditorium.
And this was also back in the days when every school had a
drama department. And all of the other schools
near me had been built during the baby boom, and they all had
the same layout and none of themhad auditoriums.
(04:25):
The kids that were in drama departments put on plays in the
cafeteria, which was really justa giant multi purpose room.
It wasn't even a real cafeteria,right?
So I chose the school that had the auditorium, like a real
auditorium, because that's whereI wanted to be.
I wanted to perform on stage to a real audience.
(04:46):
And that's when I started acting.
Now, how was your acting journeycoming out of school?
Out of school, I would say my acting journey was tough because
school is one thing and the realworld is is something else.
(05:06):
So I, I was, I did extremely well in school as an actor.
And then it, it took a while forme to figure out, I think I came
out with such a big chip on my shoulder that I, I don't think
I, I know that can't a big chip on my shoulder.
I didn't want to study anymore. I had been studying.
(05:28):
I've been, I felt like I knew everything I needed to know and
everywhere I went, I'm from here.
I'm from Southern California. So when I say when I came here,
it's, I mean, I, you know, drove35 miles up up the freeway.
LA Yeah. Yeah, but everyone, that's all
everyone said was you got to getinto class.
You got to get into class. And I was like, the hell you're
(05:48):
talking about. I just got.
Out. I just did, yeah.
Just been like 9 years in class.I'm full of class.
I got so much class so, so I really, I really ignored that.
And what I did, I think is instead of taking acting
classes, what I did do is eventually I started taking
improv. OK, yeah, classes.
(06:09):
And I had never done. That was something I had never,
I had never done. So I started doing improv and
that led to sketch comedy and I joined a band.
And so I was performing all the time right out of right out of
college, I was performing all the time.
(06:31):
I wasn't making a living as an actor, but I was artistically on
fire doing a bunch of different types of performance art.
I was in a band, singing in a band and, and doing sketch
comedy and improv. And then that led me, that led
(06:53):
me eventually to, in a strange way, into casting.
Well, if you don't mind sharing that story, we would love to
hear how, because I think those that cast in a different chapter
of their life, they take some ofthat those lessons that they
learned as actors in the room and bring it into the space that
(07:13):
they then create for actors. Oh yeah, for sure.
So I had been through my SO. So through my sketch comedy and
improv, I met a woman who would change my life and her name was
Cecily Adams. Cecily and I met in a sketch
writing class, super funny. And I discovered through the
(07:41):
class that she was, in addition to be an actor, also a casting
director. In addition to being a casting
director, she also taught audition technique classes.
And a friend of mine who was also in in our class administer
was the sort of her administrator for for Cecily's
(08:03):
audition technique classes. Meaning that my friend would be
the one in charge of, if somebody dropped out at the end
of the month, she'd make pull somebody in off of the wait
list, that kind of thing. And so I got into Cecily's
audition technique class, and that's where I started to figure
out all the things I had been doing wrong in terms of
auditioning. Because the way that you
(08:24):
auditioned for, you know, TV andfilm is, is different from the
way one auditioned for plays in college.
I mean, I, when I was in high school and college, part of the
audition process was sitting there in the room while I
watched everyone else audition. And that is great for your ego
(08:46):
if you're any good, because you watch people and you go, that's
awful. Oh, I'm going to be much better.
And you get to watch people. You're like, oh, no, don't do
that. Oh yeah, do that.
So it's fantastic. And then when you're auditioning
for TV and film, there's none ofthat.
You know, if you if you're luckyenough to sit close enough to
the cat, the door of the castingoffice in the lobby, maybe you
(09:07):
can hear somebody in there and and maybe hear how terrible they
are. But it's still a whole different
thing because when you walk in, it's still just you and
everybody's not people aren't friendly.
There's because these are not teachers, they're not your
school teachers. They don't have to be friendly.
Yeah, it is not education anymore.
That's right. So anyway, so through Cecily and
(09:27):
through that class, I started tofigure those things out and I
worked in the software industry.That was my day job at that
point. I was working in the software
industry in the 90s and this is now the late 90s, nineteen 99
and a company that I was workingfor at the time got bought
triggered an employee stock planthat I was in.
(09:49):
I had only been at this company for 2 1/2 years so it didn't
trigger a lot of money, but it was but it I was able to cash
out of that job and hit the reset button on my life.
I really didn't want to work in software.
I really wanted to work in performing.
(10:10):
I by that time I had done some acting, I'd had some jobs, I'd
had some auditions, but I've also all had always been a
writer and I've been writing things.
And so I went to Cecily and I said, hey, I know you have a lot
of students from class who intern in your casting office.
Do you think I go like, I don't have a job right now.
I just, you know, left my job. I've got some time.
(10:31):
I would really like, I think I'dlike to be ATV writer.
And do you think I could come inturn in your casting office and
maybe I can eventually use that as a way to become maybe a
writer's assistant on show? I was 33 years old and I was
starting over. And so her casting office, she
(10:52):
worked for a casting company called Lieberman Patent Casting
that a year before had been Lieberman Hirschfeld Casting,
which had been one that had beenthe biggest casting office for
TV comedy to that point. And they had an office on
Wilshire, but they also had a satellite office at the CBS
Radford Studios. That's where we worked.
(11:16):
And Cecily was casting Third Rock from the Sun and That 70s
Show, which which was in its second season.
And, and I went, I went in and, you know, I started showing up
and you know, they want show me come at 2O clock in the
afternoon and you can, you know,leave at like 4.
They were really, they really don't want you to be there too
(11:37):
long because you're, you're working for free.
And basically you were just kindof there to like open up
submission envelopes and separate headshots out and maybe
call actors in for the auditionswhen they had auditions and
stuff like that. But I had worked in offices like
I had job, I had had a real career.
I knew how to function in an office where most of the actor
(12:00):
interns didn't like the phone would ring and they're, and all
the blood would rush out of their face.
So, you know, so like, anyway, so I started, I just started
showing up and I would just showup more.
And then I discovered they had me come at 2:00 because they
broke for lunch at 1:00. And then I discovered that
(12:21):
because we had the satellite office at CBS Radford, because
we were working for Carsey Werner Productions.
That's and Carsey Werner Productions at the time was, you
know, a very big TV production studio.
They were so big that the Lieberman Hirschfeld slash
Lieberman Patton Casting, who had a contract with them, had an
office there at CBS Radford justto do Carsey Werner shows,
(12:44):
right. Well, Carsey Werner also had an
employee kitchen and they servedfree lunch.
So when I found out that they had free lunch, I stopped
showing up at 2:00. I started showing up at 11 and
tried, tried to put in an hour, an hour or two.
Then everyone would break at one. 1:00 was the standard lunch
(13:04):
break. And then I'd get free lunch.
And so I'm doing that for a while and I don't know how long
I'm doing that for, but I get toknow the I get to know the chef
at the kitchen. And one day he says to me, how
come I never see you in here forbreakfast?
Are you kidding me? It's free breakfast, too.
(13:28):
So then I start showing up at 9.I go and 9:00, I'm going to tell
you what 9:00 looks like in a casting office for ATV show.
Dad, there's nobody there. Nobody's there.
They're not showing up until 10.They're not showing up until 10.
Maybe 9:30 if you're really bucking for a promotion.
But so I would show up at 9:00, I'd go get food, I'd have free
(13:50):
breakfast, then I'd have my freelunch.
And then this goes on for a while.
And then that same chef says to me one day he goes, he says, oh,
you got to make sure you're heretonight for dinner.
I'm serving such and such. And I went, there's dinner.
So now I know that this Carcy Werner Kitchen is serving all
(14:11):
three meals of the day. Yeah, and while all of that is
so I just keep staying, I just increased the hours that I'm
going to be there. Also, I lived in Santa Monica at
the time and CBS Radford Studiosis in Studio City.
So like I'm this is great because I know I'm going to beat
the I beat the traffic. I wait out the traffic.
(14:32):
I get all my meals. I can even pack stuff up because
you pack it up in A to go box. You don't eat in the kitchen, so
you pack it up in Togo box, you take it back to your desk.
So maybe I pack up two boxes andthen I take a box home.
I mean, like this on Fridays. That was what I'd do.
So anyway, a long story made even longer.
(14:52):
I stayed for the food. And while I was there, I
discovered that I really was good at casting.
I liked everything about the process.
And, I mean, and when I say I was good at casting, I wasn't
casting anything yet. Yeah, but all the stuff that
(15:14):
happens the the 95% of what happens in the casting office
that isn't casting related, which is about 5% I was really
good at because I had a lot of experience in in, in a lot of
this stuff. I also had years of of watching
television and movies pretty obsessively.
(15:34):
So I knew a lot of actors. I had a background in acting and
a background in auditioning. Now that told me that helped me
to it gave me a vocabulary for how to how to direct an actor or
how to see why watch somebody. Cecily would say to me, and she
goes, OK, So what do you think? And then I could I would tell
(15:54):
her and sometimes she'd go, Oh well, actually.
And she really helped to sort ofrefine my my taste.
But I had pretty good taste already anyway.
I felt like it was the job I hadbeen preparing for my entire
life and didn't know it. And at the end of that season,
and this is true story, but I'm going to present it with the
(16:17):
caveat that I do not believe in stuff like this, but it's a true
story. At the end of the season, I had
a dream one night that Cecily and I were standing at the copy
machine and that she told me I'mleaving Lieberman Patton Casting
(16:38):
and I'm going out on my own and I want you to come with me.
Like there was already other people there.
You know, it's like she had her,she had an associate and stuff.
And I said yes in the stream. And the next day, we are
standing at the copy machine andshe says, I'm leaving Lieberman
Patton Casting. And I want you to come with me.
(17:00):
And I said I had this dream lastnight.
And she goes, are you kidding me, Emmel?
This exact dream, this exact thing played out exactly like
this. So what was I supposed to do,
Say no? Now, what I did not realize at
the time to be fair, and I did not realize it for several
(17:22):
years, was the unfair disparity in wage between writers and
casting directors. And I'm not talking about
showrunners. I'm talking about your staff
writer, your producer writers. They make five times what a
(17:45):
casting director makes. Plus residuals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus residuals.
I mean it, they it. And had I known?
Had I known just how diabolically unfair the industry
is to casting directors, I wouldhave continued working towards
(18:10):
trying to get a writer's assistant job just for that.
But I really love casting and, and then shortly, maybe a couple
years in into working with Cecily and we're doing That 70s
Show. I took over her audition
technique class. She had a baby and she don't
(18:32):
want to teach class anymore. Imagine that.
So she, she didn't want to work three jobs.
So, so, so it got kind of got turned over to me because by
that time I had been, I'd been administrating the class for
years, even before I got into casting with her.
So people started coming to me and I would coach them and, and
(18:54):
then eventually I just started, I thought maybe I'll just, she
wasn't teaching the class anymore.
So I said, I'm just going to start teaching the class then if
that's OK. And and then that kind of
dovetailed in and I just kept doing audition coaching and
teaching as well as working in casting.
So because it all kind of feeds each other.
(19:17):
Yeah. Well, I mean that education and
casting are going to be interwoven throughout the whole
conversation today. But I do want to, I want to ask
a couple of questions because I believe in my research.
You did improv with Second City,is that correct?
Second City in Acme. Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
So Second City. So the second city in Hollywood
that, you know, is not the same Second City.
(19:39):
Second City originally came to LA and landed in Santa Monica in
the late 1980s, and that's whereI went.
OK. And then it shut down.
It did not last long. It did not last long here.
But it was at the, I think it's the Mayfair Theater, which is on
Santa Monica between 3rd St. Promenade and 2nd St.
(20:01):
And then we had classes nearby. Anyway, some of the great
instructors would come out here from Chicago to start.
Second City stayed because they're not dumb.
This is LA. They were in Santa Monica and
and a couple of them, no. Question with the weather, no
comparison. No question my instructors at
(20:22):
Second City had been Jeff Machowski and and then he had
been my instructor and then his wife Jane Morris would would
fill in for him sometimes. So I studied with the two of
them and they opened an improv club on the prom on the third
sheet promenade called the Upfront Theater.
And then I continued to perform there.
(20:45):
And then years later I had been,I'd started doing some stand up.
This is maybe 1993 is when I started doing stand up and by
1994 I bombed so bad. I was not good at stand up
comedy and primarily because I didn't have AI didn't have an
(21:07):
honest understanding of myself or the OR I I had an honest
understanding of myself. I don't want anybody else to
understand my understand me and I didn't like myself.
That's closer to the truth and those that's a recipe for
disaster if you're trying to do stand up.
And I bombed so badly one night at a club that was full of
(21:33):
comics that I recognized that I,I got stage fright.
I could go on stage again. I'd never had stage fright in my
life. And I sat with that for a while
and I didn't like it. And I said, I need to get, I
need to get over the stage fright.
And so I went back to take some improv classes again.
(21:54):
And that's when I went to Acme. And then it was through Acme
that I met Cecily Adams. So.
Love that I, I've had a couple of of stories like that in my
own life where the butterfly effect of just, you know,
pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and you start one
thing and then that opens to another door and then that
connects you to another person. And I think unfortunately, over
(22:17):
the last several years, actors has become very isolated.
How did you decide which improv studios to work with and train
with? Second City because my best
friend was at second City and, and his name was so oh, so
(22:38):
Cecily Adams, who I was talking to you about, passed away from
cancer in 2004. And almost everyone that has
significant to this, to the story of my, of my rise and fall
is dead. My including my, my best friend
at the time, Andrew Koenig, who was an actor.
And he used to be on a show called Growing Pains.
(23:01):
And we met at summer camp when we were kids and we'd become
good friends. And then he, he started going to
Second City and he said, he said, you got to come.
So, so I did. And so I followed him to second
City and I made other great friends there, people that I, I
still know that I'm still close to.
And that's how he landed there. Acme I don't remember exactly
(23:29):
how I landed it at the Acme. What I can tell you is that
every time I thought about taking improv, the Groundlings
was the school that would come up.
Everyone would always say it's super political and it's really
(23:51):
expensive and it was too expensive for me.
It is a school for people who have who come from money or from
from some kind of means. And I did not.
So I could not afford to go there.
And I was really scared off by the fact that everyone said it
was so political, which is so ridiculous because everything,
(24:13):
everything is, is political. And I always say to people now I
go the one, if I could go back in time and redo one thing about
my, my career, I, it's that I would have, I would have run
away from home and I would have found a way to join the
groundlings because I do think it is.
I think it's probably the best boot camp for if you really want
(24:35):
to be in the industry. But anyway, I landed the Acme
and I made all these great friends.
I don't remember how how I woundup there, but but I didn't had a
wonderful instructor there namedCynthia Sigetty also dead.
And she had been she had been atthe Groundlings.
She had been she's one of the comedy stories.
(24:57):
She was like this. She had been this legendary Los
Angeles based comedic performer,completely insane and remarkably
inappropriate and probably bipolar.
So she checked all the boxes. Yeah, all the boxes.
(25:19):
I was like perfect, perfect. She was great.
And there's a legion of of people today who studied with
her and pulled her in high regard like I do.
She was great. I mean, even though I said all
those things about her, but they're all true.
She. Only a friend would speak the
truth. But she would say those things
about herself. I love working with her because
she was. She would if something was, If I
(25:40):
did something good, she'd tell me.
And if I did something and if I did something that wasn't great,
she'd tell me. But she never tried to.
She never tried to change me. She never tried to break me
down, to rebuild me in her in animage that she wanted, which is
(26:04):
typical with so many acting teachers.
I never had those experiences. I did not have those experiences
at Second City. I did not have those experiences
with her. And, and I'm grateful for that,
yeah. No, there there's so much value
in that because I, I had experienced that in several
classes where that that was their style was they would, they
(26:26):
would tear you down to the the studs to build you into the
actor that you know, was that school of thoughts actor model
and. You know why they do that?
Do you know why? I couldn't tell you a justified
reason. I have theories, but what?
What's? Your what's your what's your
theory? I think with a lot of the Namie
(26:49):
schools, and this is not improv related, this is just, you know,
Navy acting schools, it's because they want to be known
for their stable of talent and what they create.
And you know, same as when you hear Mattel, you think Barbie,
they want to have that brand recognition of what they what
they send out into the industry.I think it's because they don't
(27:09):
know what they're talking about because they they're not
actually acting teachers. What they what they are, are
sociopaths or narcissists who get off on a cult of
personality. And unfortunately, that is a
really great business model because there's a lot of people
(27:31):
who think that's how it's supposed to be.
Oh, yeah, no, I it took me many years to start finding the right
teachers for me. And I was like, oh, this is not
painful. This is not.
Well, it can. Yeah, right.
Because it, I mean the whole process, is painful.
Right. But it doesn't need to be this
like extra layer of like emotional torture.
(27:54):
I mean, we all are very highly sensitive, very empathic people
that have chosen like we want totell stories like that's a
business. And, and it was so I vividly
remember this instance of walking out of class and it was
like a 5 hour class with this teacher who I still admire and
(28:15):
respect. And I was like, I felt elevated,
I felt fulfilled. And I was like, this is what
it's supposed to feel like. And that was one of the huge
catalysts for me wanting to do the podcast when the time and
the opportunity came about is because there's such a
misconception and this like kindof fear mongering within actors
of like, it's supposed to hurt. It's supposed to be hard.
(28:37):
It's supposed to be. So you know, you've got to turn
up all of these demons And it's like it doesn't, you don't, it
doesn't have to be that. But I could go down a whole
rabbit hole on that. But I do want to talk about the
studio a little bit more and what, what inspired you to start
teaching again? Was it something that you were
(28:59):
seeing in the room while castingthat you were seeing?
If I could have, you know, an hour with this person versus 10
minutes, I could help them in their career.
What was the the inspiration to start teaching?
The inspiration was when I started getting contacted by
casting director workshops. So cast well, the, the the
(29:22):
inspiration came after I startedgetting contacted by casting
director workshops. And I think I've been working
with Cecily for a year. She said, I want you to, I don't
want you to do any workshops until you until you you put in a
year and and I said, yeah, fine.So I think after about a year,
she said I could do it. And I said, OK, Now her old
(29:46):
associate did a lot, did a lot casting director workshops and I
was set and I had never taken any because when I was an actor,
they didn't really exist. And, and then I just didn't know
about them, I guess towards, towards the, you know, just
before I got into casting, all they had were those horrible
(30:06):
showcases where people would paythousands of dollars and have to
bring a complete racket. So, so I contacted the old
associate that used to work precisely.
And I asked if I could tag alongwith her to a workshop and see
how you know, but she does see how it goes.
So I went with her and, and she she'd show up and they would
(30:27):
hand her they, she would get to the place.
She would be handed a stack of about 24 headshots and resumes.
She would lay them out on the ground and then she would just
based on those, just based on the pictures, she would pull
team people up and assign them scenes.
(30:48):
So and she had all these two person scenes and that's kind of
how that's that was the that's how it went.
But she would pair people up based on the based on the look
of their headshots and he was in.
And then she would go into the workshop, She hands those scenes
to those people. They have about 15 minutes to
work on the scenes with each other.
(31:09):
And then they come in and then people start performing the
scenes. And she would take, she would
have the headshots and she wouldmake a little notes on the on
the headshot. So she would write on the
headshot, the name of the casting director workshop
location so that she would remember that's where she'd seen
this this actor. And then she would just she had
a little sort of a little crib sheet of how she would write
(31:32):
notes for people based on, you know, on the deck.
So I got to see that I was like,this all makes sense.
So then I started, I started doing those and and then
eventually, you know, and I met some really great actors.
I start bringing them in for prereads and almost every time
(31:56):
these, the actor that would comein that I had seen at a workshop
that was great in the scene thatI'd given them would be
terrible. I mean awful.
And to the point of where my boss Cecily is asking me what
was going through my head when Ithought I should bring them in.
(32:18):
And it then occurs to me that it's not that I'm off on my
talent radar, it's that these actors have gotten really good
at preparing A2 person scene in 15 minutes with someone because
they're doing it two and three times a week.
(32:40):
But but they're not getting any better at auditioning because
they don't get a chance to audition as often and they all
they get caught up in the nervesof it and everything.
And it's a completely different,it's a completely different
experience. Absolutely.
And so I said to said to Cecily,I said, I think I need to start
(33:01):
teaching your class because that's what people need.
And so I started. So when casting workshops would
call me and ask if I would come and do a workshop.
I'd say I'll come if you have mecome in for three weeks, once a
week and I run them through auditioning.
And I had a whole and I just created a syllabus for it.
(33:24):
And I said, and this is how we'll work it.
And this is what this is the structure of the class.
And almost all of those workshopplaces told me to kick rocks.
They said nobody, nobody will buy it.
It's too long. Nobody wants to commit to that.
But one place did. One place thought it was a great
idea and, and so I did it. And then I just started doing
(33:46):
those. And then I just kept doing them
and doing them. And then I started and I
thought, oh, and then I got enough attention for it and
enough people asking me about itthat I started teaching my own
class. And this was back in the days
too, when casting offices were pretty big because you had so
much paperwork that needed to befiled, right?
(34:07):
I had shots on resumes and scripts alone, just tons of
paperwork. So in our offices, which were at
still at the CBS Radford lots, Cecily and I had offices there
still and we were working on That 70s Show.
We had a three office suite, heroffice, my office next to hers,
and then a file cabinet room next to mine.
(34:30):
And I could push the file cabinets against the wall,
against the walls. And when I did that, there was
room to set up 8 folding chairs.And I started teaching class in
my file cabinet room at 7:00 PM on Monday nights.
A producer of the of my shows. That is fine.
(34:51):
They didn't care. Nobody was there.
Everybody is already gone. Wasn't getting into the way of
anything. And and I could take eight
people because that's how many could shoot, could fit in there.
And that's that's how it started.
Wow. And you have something that
really caught my attention on your website that auditions
don't have to be stressful. How do you help actors with
(35:14):
mitigating stress and auditions?Or what do you feel like are
some of the big stressors or actors in that space?
I think the biggest stressor is kind of what I was touching on
before when I had when I was doing those workshops and I
realized these actors have gotten really good at preparing
A2 person scene in 15 minutes with some stranger because
they're doing it two and three times a week.
(35:37):
Repetition. That's the real trick is like
with literally anything else, the more consistently you do it,
the better you get at it. So practice is super important,
but if you're not practicing auditioning, you're using the
few auditions you do get in reallife IRL as your as your
(36:06):
rehearsal as your practice. And that's, that's not what you
want to do. One of the great things about
casting director workshops to inmy opinion, that from as an
actor was if you went and did one and you were horrible, you
could pay to go back and see that casting person again when
(36:26):
they come back and do another one.
But if you have an audition and you are horrible, the best case
scenario is that in your horrible audition, they just
forgot you didn't make an any impression at all.
That would be the best case scenario because that means they
might bring you back again because they forgot that you
(36:49):
weren't any good. So, so why not practice in a
space that is safe, where you can take risks, you can take
chances, and you can get better at the really at the very simple
tools that are involved in auditioning, which are not the
same as being on set and workingon on something.
(37:09):
As an actor, there are there arethings you're supposed to do and
most actors do not do those things.
And a lot of the times it's because they've been taught not
to. I would say the big, I mean, not
that you, not that you've asked this question, but in, in our
(37:29):
age of self, in our age of self tape since the COVID pandemic,
because of course there have been self tapes, you know, long
before that. But self tape changes in the
COVID pandemic, because in the old days, people would come into
the room, they would audition, but occasionally someone wasn't
(37:52):
available to come in on that dayand they would send a tape.
And then that tape sits in competition with people that
were seen live in the room. And because of that, there was a
real emphasis on production value of your tape.
(38:14):
And people keep trying to sell that today and it is it, it's
not the reality anymore because the game, the because the
playing field has been leveled. Everyone is taping.
You don't need a high productionvalue, right?
But everything is self tape. And what happens, what I've
(38:35):
noticed what is happening with self tape auditions, of course,
is I don't know how it goes withyou, but a lot of agents and
managers ask that you send that you e-mail your tape to them and
they will upload it to Eco Castro or who you know, wherever
they're uploading it to. Some don't, some don't.
Some let some prefer you to do it, but some want to watch them.
(39:00):
And it is created a sort of a middleman in the casting
process. They're watching your tape and
then they are calling you back and giving you notes, but
they're saying go re tape this. Don't hold your script.
Do this. Do that.
(39:21):
And actors think that those notes are coming from casting.
And sometimes they think that because the agents will tell
them that's where they're comingfrom, although they are not.
And, and it's created a whole new set of misconceptions for
how to audition. And I do have to work against
(39:43):
that a lot. I even posted about this
recently because I'd done an interview with a bunch of actors
who met when they were all working on that Disney Channel
series, Liv and Maddie. Did you remember, do you
remember that show? So I interviewed a whole bunch
and there's a a group of actors all met while they were working
on that show, stayed friends. And still to this day, they are
(40:04):
basically an artist collective when they when any of them have
auditions. They will call one of one of
these people in their collectiveto tape it with them.
And I went to the home of one ofthe one of those actresses from
the show. Her name is Victoria Morales.
And in her home, she has a self tape room set up and that's
(40:28):
where they would all go. So they would all go and meet
there to, to record. And so we did this recording
and, and I had a conversation with them where they said, yeah,
we get told that the casting is the one that's telling us to be
off book. I'm on, it's not casting.
It's, it's your, it's your Rep. And, and anyway, I had posted
this, that segment on my Instagram page and everybody's
(40:49):
writing and saying stuff like, Oh, this is eye opening and
thank you and blah, blah, blah. And and some agent that I don't
even know, I looked him up. He doesn't really it does.
I won't tell you his name or anything, but very low.
I was a very candidly a very low.
I don't know how candid I am. I'm on a podcast kind of a low
(41:09):
level agent that follows me apparently, and he accused me
of, oh, he insulted me, insultedmy anything.
He just basically what he did ishe said I was lying that the
that these notes do come from casting and that the good agents
(41:30):
and the good casting directors are the ones who are paying
attention to this because he's saying younger casting people
ran the data on who is booking versus who wasn't.
And it came down to people who weren't holding their sides.
First of all, there's no, this data doesn't exist.
(41:53):
This is not a the the data. So many follow up questions.
I'm like what shows did you do this data on?
Like how many networks? What was it running like?
The. It doesn't exist like this is.
It, it doesn't exist. But he kept telling us I, I love
people who said it's based on the data.
It felt like the people who say do your own research, it was
really remarkable. And obviously I didn't respond
(42:14):
to it on there, but I thought, yeah, I thought, bro, you, you
just made my point. It's you guys.
And certainly it's not all agents, managers, but, and, and
this guy's actually seems a bit diabolical and insane, but I
(42:36):
would, I would argue that most reps are not.
And I think, but they're not actors and they're not casting
directors. And I think from their
perspective, I think their data might show, oh, so and so booked
a job last week and they didn't hold the script.
They were off book. And somebody else booked a job
(42:58):
and they were off book. So that must be the data.
That must be the secret. So of course to them, they're
going to tell you, you should beoff, you should be off book.
I mean, I understand how they might come up with that, but
what I spend a lot of time doingis trying to help actors figure
(43:18):
out how to how to, how to memorize and still use your
script. Do you have to use your script
when they because they come in and they and they don't look at
it. Yeah.
And when they're not looking at it and they're trying to get
through the scene, they keep blanking out because their brain
(43:39):
is trying to think of what the next line is.
So. Right.
So the whole face, it's, it's like a it's like the rope, but
like we're robots and like you're, you're alive and
animatronic one second and then and then you're back up.
And they somehow think that's better than using the script.
And it's really hard to unlearn.It's hard to unlearn those
(44:01):
things. Yeah.
And we also always, even back inthe old days, I remember when I
used to go on in person auditions before I kind of
figured things out, I would after the audition, I would
think I knew that so well. I knew the lines so well in my
car. I knew the lines so well in my
(44:23):
apartment. How come I can't remember them?
Because most people don't spend enough time working on the
material or all they do is they work on trying to memorize the
lines. They don't work on anything
else. And then of course, once you
once you, once you are reading the scene with somebody else, it
is it is suddenly gone from being a one person show where
(44:47):
you're playing all the characters to now an audition
where you are only in charge of your character and somebody else
is reading the other roles and you don't know how.
And they have to like real time react to that.
Real time react to it exactly. And they don't because you
haven't had a chance to to work on it anyway.
So that's kind of a lot of it. A lot of that those are, I would
(45:08):
say the the the bulk of what what I work on in in my classes.
Going back to what you mentionedearlier, I'm such an advocate
for if you can ever be in a class setting where everyone is
doing the same sides or at leastworking together in front of one
another, It is so powerful to see what other people do.
(45:31):
Because when you can get to a place where you learn where you
and the character overlap and you can learn how to break down
your script and have your littlekeyword so that you can just
scoop it up. Because you see those people
that are, they're writing a whole new script up there or
it's, it's blanked out. And yeah, I, I could go on a
(45:51):
whole soapbox rant about that and bad reps, but we're not here
for that. We're Oh my gosh, we only have
10 minutes left. Are you kidding me?
Gee, Oh my, what kind of podcast?
You're running everything. Everybody's doing three hour, 3
hour interviews now and look at you.
It's part 1-2 and three. This is how we got to six
seasons. We just, we just keep them
(46:12):
going, keep them rolling. OK, so I, I do want to talk
really quickly on self tapes andany advice you have for becoming
better self directors, but also self editors?
Because I think a lot of times actors do a ton of takes and
then they sit down to watch themand they all become this beige
(46:33):
and they can't see any nuances in them and they don't know what
to send. Yeah.
I think the hard, I think the hardest part about being in
charge of your own self tapes isthat is that part.
My advice is this, Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse with your
(46:54):
camera off. Do not turn your camera on until
you have rehearsed this thing and you've got it down.
Yeah, people think people don't want to miss a tape.
They want to tape every single thing they do because their
assumption is one of those is going to be magic.
(47:17):
But that's problematic because what you have to be able to do
is consistently duplicate because if you get on set, you
will have to do the scene the same way many many times, and if
you are given a redirect, you will have to be able to take
that. You cannot just hope to capture
(47:41):
lightning in a bottle. Also, the more times you do it,
the more takes. The more takes you record, the
more it screws with you mentally.
Oh God, I've been, I've done this 15 times already.
What's wrong with me? So just leave the camera off,
(48:02):
work on it, work on it, work on it.
I am of the opinion that if you can't, if you can't nail it in
three, in three takes, turn the camera back off and go back to
rehearsing because you don't know the scene well enough.
You don't know. You don't know any of your
(48:24):
specifics. And work on all of that and then
record it and the people spend. I think people end up spending
hours and hours and hours and hours making these self tapes
when the truth is you need to spend.
You need to spend a couple of hours rehearsing, just like you
(48:47):
used to have to do in the old days.
You gotta do all that. Then you turn.
Then you turn on the camera and the lights.
Yeah. And then you record it also if
you've got somebody and you want, and I want actors to
really do put in, put in work before they engage their reader.
Because then when you're doing aself tape, you need a reader.
So your reader is probably goingto be somebody, hopefully
(49:10):
somebody close to you. They that person may be there
with you in the room while you record.
They may be on Zoom while you'rerecording, recording it, but do
a lot of work first. And then you bring that person
in and then you do work with that person and you run the
scene with them and you get usedto reacting and you do all that
(49:32):
stuff and you get it, get that down.
And then you turn on the camera.And if you don't get it in three
takes, turn off the camera and figure out what you're not doing
right. Try it again.
But you should be able to get it.
You should be able to get it in three in three takes, sometimes
4. Yeah.
Otherwise, otherwise you weren'tready to have the camera on.
I completely agree. I think it is training a wrong
(49:57):
muscle by doing so many takes because you're not going to have
that kind of time on set and you're used to doing all of
these takes and casting is has no way of knowing how many it
took to get that. I started doing this so when I,
so because I, my class used to be in person and then when
everything, when the pandemic shut us down, we went on to
(50:19):
zoom. And then about six months, seven
months into that, I went back tocasting on ATV series I was
doing and but of course that we're in the middle of a
pandemic and wasn't allowed to see anybody, right?
So that's when it hit me. I was like, oh, shoot,
everything we've been doing in class for the last six or seven
months is exactly what auditioning is.
(50:41):
It's this, it's it's and and I thought this is going to be
tricky because when people send in a self tape, I don't know how
many takes it took them. But I do know that one of the
things I work on in class is consistency.
And one of it's one of the things I used to work on when
people would come in to auditionfor me in person too.
If I don't know you and you would come in to audition for me
(51:02):
and you did the scene and I liked it, I would say do it
again. And the response 9 times out of
10 is any notes. Oh no, I want to see you do that
again. And, and because I want to see
if they can, if they can duplicate it, if they can
(51:23):
duplicate it, then I might ask, all right, now I want you to try
this. And then they do it again.
And if they were effectively able to take that note, well,
that's great. OK, now go back and do it the
way you did it the first time and if they can take that note.
Now I know I found somebody thatI can rely on for auditions and
I lose that, right with self tapes.
(51:43):
So what? So what I started doing was in
the self tape instructions for costar under 5 roles.
I would say do the scene back-to-back on the same tape
the same way and send that in. If it's under five part, you
(52:03):
know, it's a small part, you know, it's got a page, maybe a
page and 1/2. So you do it, take a beat, do
the scene again, just like you would if you we were in person,
which is which is the way actorsseem to be dying to get back to
and and it's amazing how many people would try to trick edit
(52:27):
that that they right some some would edit together 2 takes.
It was, you know, just. You can see.
You can see and then some my this was always my favorite.
Some would just take the exact same take and play it again,
loop it, loop it. Thank you.
(52:49):
Yes, loop it. And I used to get tons of
pushback from reps on that. And so eventually I stopped
doing that. And now what I do is I treat
self tapes as pre reads and thenI do callbacks on zoom.
(53:12):
And I that also is great too from from a self tape
perspective, because you know, I'd have to turn these into a my
showrunner. And if I'm, if so, if I record
everybody in the callback on Zoom, sure, they're at home,
they're going to their backgrounds going to be a little
different. Their lighting is going to be a
(53:32):
little different. But what is not going to be
different is you have the same reader.
It's going to be cutting the scene at the beginning of this.
You know, all of that, all of there's, there, there brings
back a little bit of uniformity to it.
And it gives me a chance to see people and see if they are, if
they can't be consistent. So these are the things that
(53:54):
have changed. You don't have to.
You don't have to know where allof the studio lots are.
You don't have to know where thebest place to find free parking
is when you go for an audition. You don't have to carry around a
bunch of costumes in your car asmuch anymore.
Maybe you do now because commercial auditions are still a
lot of those in person. But you don't have to send out
(54:15):
postcards anymore. Yeah, you don't have to get
headshots duplicated, any of those.
There's, you still have a lot ofstuff that you have to pay for
and that you have to learn how to use a lot of marketing tools
and other things. But they have changed.
And unless you, unless you change with it, you will be left
(54:38):
behind. And this is we are at an
intersection of technology and the entertainment industry now
where the entertainment industryis the technology industry now.
Yeah, and these are the technology things that we as
(54:58):
artists have to know how to use.I would be really remiss if I
did not talk to you about formulating and building out
sitcom world and families. I think that that is something
that you are so talented and andyou have such a prolific comedy
resume people. Thanks.
(55:18):
Yeah, it is, it is something that I really, I really like
casting families. Well, I just like casting.
I mean, I like casting. There is, there's an I I think
an added level of difficulty when you are casting a family.
And, and as someone who grew up watching a lot of television,
one of the things that drove me,drives me crazy still today, is
(55:42):
watching ATV Family where clearly none of these people
could possibly shed the same DNA.
Not possible. Everybody looks like a
completely different person. It drives me crazy.
(56:05):
It is. Well, it was one of the reasons
why I do love shows like I love The Brady Bunch.
Yeah. Those boys all look like they
could, like, that's their dad. And those girls all look like
that. That's their mom.
Yeah. I mean, it's great casting.
Yeah. Even happy Days, Richie
Cunningham looks like he could be his looks takes after his mom
(56:26):
more and Joni Cunningham takes after the father a little bit
more. Like it's still like they don't
look like brother and sister, but they at least still look
like their parents. So right.
I mean, like stuff like that. But then there were, there are
so often all the, I mean, it's tough because when you're
casting kids, you have to find good kids and good kids are hard
(56:49):
to find. And in the old days of casting
sitcoms, typically you start with the you would start with
the adults, the leads, and then you would just kind of cast and
you just, and then you just kindof cast whatever kids you find
that that you know that are funny.
And even when I was, I was, I was partner, I was a casting
(57:14):
partner with another prolific casting director named Deborah
Borilski for a couple of years. And together she and I cast, Oh
my gosh, I want to say 5 pilots,maybe 6 pilots and the pilot and
1st season of the middle together.
And she cast Home Improvement, Arrested Development, so a few
(57:44):
shows you may have heard of. And and that's just the tip.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah, right. Right.
She's, she's older than me. She'd been doing it longer.
She's really prolific, but even and she loved cast kids, but
even she was under the impression she she would say to
me that you just have to like, it doesn't matter if they look
like them or not. They just have to be good
(58:04):
because that was the world in which she came up in.
And I I disagree, but anyway, I do like casting the kids and it
is easier when when somebody else's, when someone's attached
to the show. It definitely makes it easier.
(58:25):
I, I think I cast so the middle.I mean, she and I cast were
casting partners in the middle. The, IT was our really, it was
our second to last project together and it was really
difficult because it did feel a lot like she and I were
competing with each other at that point.
(58:45):
We had, we had some different takes on, on who we thought we
should. So when we, when we went to the
network we had, it was like we each had a horse, a different
horse in the race for a couple of roles.
But that sounds more acrimoniousthan it really was.
But, but it was a, but it was a,it was a, it was a, a shift.
(59:06):
It was a, a shift in the in the relationship, but one of the
great things about that show wasthat Patty Heaton was attached
to it. Another great thing about that
show is that Eileen and Deanne, who are the the creators of it,
had made a version of it. I don't know if you know this.
They had, they had made the mid version like 2 years earlier.
(59:27):
And Atticus Schaeffer, who playsBrick Heck, is Brick Heck in the
first pilot too. He's the only, the only
character, the only actor who who returns for the second
pilot. We got to watch that pilot when
we started casting with, with Patty Heaton attached this time.
So I'm watching that pilot and Iturned to death.
(59:48):
I said, fuck me. We got to find we got to find
somebody to replace this kid. How do you do that?
He's great. So we set up a a meeting for him
to come in and see Eileen and Deanne again.
And he looked the same. Because of that, because of that
issue with this phones, so so I was Oh my goodness, so we
(01:00:11):
didn't. Imagine anyone else playing
Brick. I don't know how you could.
I don't know how you could, right.
But so we had Patty Heaton. She was, she was attached this
time. And Attica Schaeffer still
looked the same. So then it was a matter of
finding a husband and an Axel and a Sue and and that was it.
(01:00:33):
And so, you know, it was pretty easy, but we already had, you
know, we already had the mom andthe youngest the youngest kids.
You kind of you want people thatso I already knew what people
needed to look like. I had a great time casting the
Lopez versus Lopez family that again, when you come into a show
where you have your leads attached, it makes it more fun
(01:00:55):
because you already have a template for what everybody else
or it could be like. But when we, when I cast,
there's a kid on this last show that I did was called Lopez
versus Lopez, just loosely basedon the real lives of George
Lopez and his daughter Mayan Lopez.
And loosely based because Mayan Lopez does not have a child and
(01:01:17):
the Lopezes of the TV family arepoor.
And of course we know the Lopezes are very rich, right?
So it's loosely based, but it's based on their the dynamic of
their relationship. And on the show, she has a
little boy. And when we started casting that
started casting at our first zoom meeting, cast everything on
(01:01:38):
zoom. And and George told us about
this kid that he had seen, he had seen for another show that
he had that he had just that he had just done.
His name was Bryce Gonzalez. So he's in the he's going to be
in this new Eva Longoria directed film called Flamin Hot
about the guy who created the Flamin hot Cheetos.
(01:02:01):
He goes this kids, this kids fantastic.
And he's and he was a TikTok star.
Him and his this kid and his dadmade these really adorable
TikTok. So I had to search for this kid.
I've got to find him. And he didn't have an agent.
I quit. He wasn't listed anywhere I went
to. I think I ended up going to his
(01:02:22):
TikTok and then message, emailing the family.
And so the I emailed the mom andI explained, you know who I am
and where I'm at, what's going on?
And she says, hey, we do have a manager now and happened to be a
manager that I've known my entire casting career.
So I was super excited about that.
So I called that manager and said, hey, we want to, we want
(01:02:44):
to bring Bryce Gonzalez in to audition for this.
And she said, Nickelodeon, she goes, we're sitting on an offer
from Nickelodeon. They want to sign him to a
development deal. Oh wow.
Because we don't want to take itbecause, you know, kids channel.
We would much rather have a likea broadcast network show would
(01:03:07):
be anyway. So so the western ending
auditioning is what I'm trying to say.
There was no auditioning for this kid.
This kid was six years old and had made Tik Toks with his dad
and been in had a a small part in a in a movie about Flamin on
Cheetos and he's got Nickelodeonand NBC Universal in a bidding
(01:03:30):
war. Wild.
Can you imagine? I mean an embarrassment of
riches, but good for. Him no, it was great for him and
it was great for us because we we did get him, but that was
that was crazy. I gosh, if I had been maybe a
day later. Yeah.
Or two days later, they would have taken that deal.
And then we would have we would not have had a shot at him.
(01:03:52):
The trick with casting families is you just have to see a lot of
kids. You see a lot of kids.
Yeah. And then you narrow it down from
there. Gee, this has truly made my week
it is. It's fascinating to hear your
artistic perspective, but also your deep understanding of the
(01:04:13):
different compartments and in the different areas of our
industry. I think this is going to help a
lot of the listeners and encourage them and also empower
them to be honest with themselves and also take care of
their creative process. So thank you so much for joining
us here on the podcast today. Oh, yeah, You're welcome.
It was a lot of fun, Laura. Thanks.
(01:04:34):
Hi everyone, thanks for listening and being the absolute
best part of our creative community here at What's My
Frame? If you'd like to learn more
about our guests, please check out the show notes and please
join us on socials at What's My Frame?
To stay in the know for upcomingevents, I'm your host, Laura
Linda Bradley. We'll see you next Monday.
Hi everyone, today and what's Myframe?
I'm joined by comedy casting legend G Charles Wright for some
much needed laughs, encouragement, and stories from
his incredible career in casting.
G has nearly 700 episodes of television that are still
running in syndication and streaming.
Notable credits include The Middle, Anger Management, and
Lopez versus Lopez, to name justa few.
(00:24):
G has been on both sides of the camera as an actor and casting
director. He brings his prolific insight
into the world of casting into his classes today.
G shares advice on the craft, self tapes, and so much more.
Now let's get to the conversation.
Hey G, welcome to What's my Frame?
(00:44):
Thanks, Laura. It's good to be here.
I'm so excited for this conversation.
For anyone who isn't familiar with your prolific career in
casting and comedy, could you just share a little bit about
your back story and what drew you to the arts, casting
specifically, and some of the pivotal twists and turns that
led us here? Well, I've always been
(01:05):
interested in the arts. I, I heard something the other
day. I was listening to something.
They were interviewing some guy.I've already forgotten all of
all of the important points of this story.
But they had asked him. Oh, no, it was just, it was NPR
thing. They're talking to Mike
Birbiglia and about how his parents influenced him.
(01:26):
And, and they, and I thought, gosh, you know, I think the
biggest influence my parents hadon me was an appreciation for
the arts. So that started right out of the
gate. I will they, there was no, there
was no support for me to be in the arts, but there was an
appreciation of the arts as a patron of the arts.
(01:49):
My dad was a school teacher, buthe was also a writer and my mom
is a just sort of a, a free flowing artist with very low
self esteem. So she kind of just goes from
thing to thing. And I don't think she, I think
if you were to ask her, she would not, she would not say
that she was an artist. But my mom is very artistic and
(02:12):
her mediums of art have changed just over the course of my
lifetime from when I was a little boy.
She she was doing a lot of oil painting and I would say now
she's probably more, I think herart is more in line with
gardening, but everything she does is a very artistic flair
(02:33):
and a real sense of style. So that all kind of drew me.
I've so I've always been artistic and I don't even
remember the question. Well, you got us with a good
foundation, artistic appreciation and childhood.
And then how did you learn that that could be a career path and
how did you start building that out into a career for yourself?
(02:55):
I always wanted to be an actor off of watching television, so
all I did as a child was watch TV.
Now I am. I'm going to be 59 this year, so
that means that the 1970s is is the decade of my childhood.
I started high school in 1980 and I graduated from College in
(03:15):
1989. So the 1970s are when I'm
consciously aware and I'm a kid and all I did really was watch
television and hang out with my grandma.
That's pretty much that's, that's pretty much, those are
the big bullet points for the 1970s with me.
(03:37):
And I really wanted to be an actor.
I was really into it. So when I started high school, I
had a choice of high schools. We lived in a district where
there were a bunch of high schools all within the same
distance from where I from whereI live.
And I chose the high school, Huntington Beach High School,
not to name drop Laura, but I chose it because it was a really
(04:01):
old school that had been built around 1900.
And because of that, it had thisgorgeous giant auditorium.
And this was also back in the days when every school had a
drama department. And all of the other schools
near me had been built during the baby boom, and they all had
the same layout and none of themhad auditoriums.
(04:25):
The kids that were in drama departments put on plays in the
cafeteria, which was really justa giant multi purpose room.
It wasn't even a real cafeteria,right?
So I chose the school that had the auditorium, like a real
auditorium, because that's whereI wanted to be.
I wanted to perform on stage to a real audience.
(04:46):
And that's when I started acting.
Now, how was your acting journeycoming out of school?
Out of school, I would say my acting journey was tough because
school is one thing and the realworld is is something else.
(05:06):
So I, I was, I did extremely well in school as an actor.
And then it, it took a while forme to figure out, I think I came
out with such a big chip on my shoulder that I, I don't think
I, I know that can't a big chip on my shoulder.
I didn't want to study anymore. I had been studying.
(05:28):
I've been, I felt like I knew everything I needed to know and
everywhere I went, I'm from here.
I'm from Southern California. So when I say when I came here,
it's, I mean, I, you know, drove35 miles up up the freeway.
LA Yeah. Yeah, but everyone, that's all
everyone said was you got to getinto class.
You got to get into class. And I was like, the hell you're
(05:48):
talking about. I just got.
Out. I just did, yeah.
Just been like 9 years in class.I'm full of class.
I got so much class so, so I really, I really ignored that.
And what I did, I think is instead of taking acting
classes, what I did do is eventually I started taking
improv. OK, yeah, classes.
(06:09):
And I had never done. That was something I had never,
I had never done. So I started doing improv and
that led to sketch comedy and I joined a band.
And so I was performing all the time right out of right out of
college, I was performing all the time.
(06:31):
I wasn't making a living as an actor, but I was artistically on
fire doing a bunch of different types of performance art.
I was in a band, singing in a band and, and doing sketch
comedy and improv. And then that led me, that led
(06:53):
me eventually to, in a strange way, into casting.
Well, if you don't mind sharing that story, we would love to
hear how, because I think those that cast in a different chapter
of their life, they take some ofthat those lessons that they
learned as actors in the room and bring it into the space that
(07:13):
they then create for actors. Oh yeah, for sure.
So I had been through my SO. So through my sketch comedy and
improv, I met a woman who would change my life and her name was
Cecily Adams. Cecily and I met in a sketch
writing class, super funny. And I discovered through the
(07:41):
class that she was, in addition to be an actor, also a casting
director. In addition to being a casting
director, she also taught audition technique classes.
And a friend of mine who was also in in our class administer
was the sort of her administrator for for Cecily's
(08:03):
audition technique classes. Meaning that my friend would be
the one in charge of, if somebody dropped out at the end
of the month, she'd make pull somebody in off of the wait
list, that kind of thing. And so I got into Cecily's
audition technique class, and that's where I started to figure
out all the things I had been doing wrong in terms of
auditioning. Because the way that you
(08:24):
auditioned for, you know, TV andfilm is, is different from the
way one auditioned for plays in college.
I mean, I, when I was in high school and college, part of the
audition process was sitting there in the room while I
watched everyone else audition. And that is great for your ego
(08:46):
if you're any good, because you watch people and you go, that's
awful. Oh, I'm going to be much better.
And you get to watch people. You're like, oh, no, don't do
that. Oh yeah, do that.
So it's fantastic. And then when you're auditioning
for TV and film, there's none ofthat.
You know, if you if you're luckyenough to sit close enough to
the cat, the door of the castingoffice in the lobby, maybe you
(09:07):
can hear somebody in there and and maybe hear how terrible they
are. But it's still a whole different
thing because when you walk in, it's still just you and
everybody's not people aren't friendly.
There's because these are not teachers, they're not your
school teachers. They don't have to be friendly.
Yeah, it is not education anymore.
That's right. So anyway, so through Cecily and
(09:27):
through that class, I started tofigure those things out and I
worked in the software industry.That was my day job at that
point. I was working in the software
industry in the 90s and this is now the late 90s, nineteen 99
and a company that I was workingfor at the time got bought
triggered an employee stock planthat I was in.
(09:49):
I had only been at this company for 2 1/2 years so it didn't
trigger a lot of money, but it was but it I was able to cash
out of that job and hit the reset button on my life.
I really didn't want to work in software.
I really wanted to work in performing.
(10:10):
I by that time I had done some acting, I'd had some jobs, I'd
had some auditions, but I've also all had always been a
writer and I've been writing things.
And so I went to Cecily and I said, hey, I know you have a lot
of students from class who intern in your casting office.
Do you think I go like, I don't have a job right now.
I just, you know, left my job. I've got some time.
(10:31):
I would really like, I think I'dlike to be ATV writer.
And do you think I could come inturn in your casting office and
maybe I can eventually use that as a way to become maybe a
writer's assistant on show? I was 33 years old and I was
starting over. And so her casting office, she
(10:52):
worked for a casting company called Lieberman Patent Casting
that a year before had been Lieberman Hirschfeld Casting,
which had been one that had beenthe biggest casting office for
TV comedy to that point. And they had an office on
Wilshire, but they also had a satellite office at the CBS
Radford Studios. That's where we worked.
(11:16):
And Cecily was casting Third Rock from the Sun and That 70s
Show, which which was in its second season.
And, and I went, I went in and, you know, I started showing up
and you know, they want show me come at 2O clock in the
afternoon and you can, you know,leave at like 4.
They were really, they really don't want you to be there too
(11:37):
long because you're, you're working for free.
And basically you were just kindof there to like open up
submission envelopes and separate headshots out and maybe
call actors in for the auditionswhen they had auditions and
stuff like that. But I had worked in offices like
I had job, I had had a real career.
I knew how to function in an office where most of the actor
(12:00):
interns didn't like the phone would ring and they're, and all
the blood would rush out of their face.
So, you know, so like, anyway, so I started, I just started
showing up and I would just showup more.
And then I discovered they had me come at 2:00 because they
broke for lunch at 1:00. And then I discovered that
(12:21):
because we had the satellite office at CBS Radford, because
we were working for Carsey Werner Productions.
That's and Carsey Werner Productions at the time was, you
know, a very big TV production studio.
They were so big that the Lieberman Hirschfeld slash
Lieberman Patton Casting, who had a contract with them, had an
office there at CBS Radford justto do Carsey Werner shows,
(12:44):
right. Well, Carsey Werner also had an
employee kitchen and they servedfree lunch.
So when I found out that they had free lunch, I stopped
showing up at 2:00. I started showing up at 11 and
tried, tried to put in an hour, an hour or two.
Then everyone would break at one. 1:00 was the standard lunch
(13:04):
break. And then I'd get free lunch.
And so I'm doing that for a while and I don't know how long
I'm doing that for, but I get toknow the I get to know the chef
at the kitchen. And one day he says to me, how
come I never see you in here forbreakfast?
Are you kidding me? It's free breakfast, too.
(13:28):
So then I start showing up at 9.I go and 9:00, I'm going to tell
you what 9:00 looks like in a casting office for ATV show.
Dad, there's nobody there. Nobody's there.
They're not showing up until 10.They're not showing up until 10.
Maybe 9:30 if you're really bucking for a promotion.
But so I would show up at 9:00, I'd go get food, I'd have free
(13:50):
breakfast, then I'd have my freelunch.
And then this goes on for a while.
And then that same chef says to me one day he goes, he says, oh,
you got to make sure you're heretonight for dinner.
I'm serving such and such. And I went, there's dinner.
So now I know that this Carcy Werner Kitchen is serving all
(14:11):
three meals of the day. Yeah, and while all of that is
so I just keep staying, I just increased the hours that I'm
going to be there. Also, I lived in Santa Monica at
the time and CBS Radford Studiosis in Studio City.
So like I'm this is great because I know I'm going to beat
the I beat the traffic. I wait out the traffic.
(14:32):
I get all my meals. I can even pack stuff up because
you pack it up in A to go box. You don't eat in the kitchen, so
you pack it up in Togo box, you take it back to your desk.
So maybe I pack up two boxes andthen I take a box home.
I mean, like this on Fridays. That was what I'd do.
So anyway, a long story made even longer.
(14:52):
I stayed for the food. And while I was there, I
discovered that I really was good at casting.
I liked everything about the process.
And, I mean, and when I say I was good at casting, I wasn't
casting anything yet. Yeah, but all the stuff that
(15:14):
happens the the 95% of what happens in the casting office
that isn't casting related, which is about 5% I was really
good at because I had a lot of experience in in, in a lot of
this stuff. I also had years of of watching
television and movies pretty obsessively.
(15:34):
So I knew a lot of actors. I had a background in acting and
a background in auditioning. Now that told me that helped me
to it gave me a vocabulary for how to how to direct an actor or
how to see why watch somebody. Cecily would say to me, and she
goes, OK, So what do you think? And then I could I would tell
(15:54):
her and sometimes she'd go, Oh well, actually.
And she really helped to sort ofrefine my my taste.
But I had pretty good taste already anyway.
I felt like it was the job I hadbeen preparing for my entire
life and didn't know it. And at the end of that season,
and this is true story, but I'm going to present it with the
(16:17):
caveat that I do not believe in stuff like this, but it's a true
story. At the end of the season, I had
a dream one night that Cecily and I were standing at the copy
machine and that she told me I'mleaving Lieberman Patton Casting
(16:38):
and I'm going out on my own and I want you to come with me.
Like there was already other people there.
You know, it's like she had her,she had an associate and stuff.
And I said yes in the stream. And the next day, we are
standing at the copy machine andshe says, I'm leaving Lieberman
Patton Casting. And I want you to come with me.
(17:00):
And I said I had this dream lastnight.
And she goes, are you kidding me, Emmel?
This exact dream, this exact thing played out exactly like
this. So what was I supposed to do,
Say no? Now, what I did not realize at
the time to be fair, and I did not realize it for several
(17:22):
years, was the unfair disparity in wage between writers and
casting directors. And I'm not talking about
showrunners. I'm talking about your staff
writer, your producer writers. They make five times what a
(17:45):
casting director makes. Plus residuals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus residuals.
I mean it, they it. And had I known?
Had I known just how diabolically unfair the industry
is to casting directors, I wouldhave continued working towards
(18:10):
trying to get a writer's assistant job just for that.
But I really love casting and, and then shortly, maybe a couple
years in into working with Cecily and we're doing That 70s
Show. I took over her audition
technique class. She had a baby and she don't
(18:32):
want to teach class anymore. Imagine that.
So she, she didn't want to work three jobs.
So, so, so it got kind of got turned over to me because by
that time I had been, I'd been administrating the class for
years, even before I got into casting with her.
So people started coming to me and I would coach them and, and
(18:54):
then eventually I just started, I thought maybe I'll just, she
wasn't teaching the class anymore.
So I said, I'm just going to start teaching the class then if
that's OK. And and then that kind of
dovetailed in and I just kept doing audition coaching and
teaching as well as working in casting.
So because it all kind of feeds each other.
(19:17):
Yeah. Well, I mean that education and
casting are going to be interwoven throughout the whole
conversation today. But I do want to, I want to ask
a couple of questions because I believe in my research.
You did improv with Second City,is that correct?
Second City in Acme. Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
So Second City. So the second city in Hollywood
that, you know, is not the same Second City.
(19:39):
Second City originally came to LA and landed in Santa Monica in
the late 1980s, and that's whereI went.
OK. And then it shut down.
It did not last long. It did not last long here.
But it was at the, I think it's the Mayfair Theater, which is on
Santa Monica between 3rd St. Promenade and 2nd St.
(20:01):
And then we had classes nearby. Anyway, some of the great
instructors would come out here from Chicago to start.
Second City stayed because they're not dumb.
This is LA. They were in Santa Monica and
and a couple of them, no. Question with the weather, no
comparison. No question my instructors at
(20:22):
Second City had been Jeff Machowski and and then he had
been my instructor and then his wife Jane Morris would would
fill in for him sometimes. So I studied with the two of
them and they opened an improv club on the prom on the third
sheet promenade called the Upfront Theater.
And then I continued to perform there.
(20:45):
And then years later I had been,I'd started doing some stand up.
This is maybe 1993 is when I started doing stand up and by
1994 I bombed so bad. I was not good at stand up
comedy and primarily because I didn't have AI didn't have an
(21:07):
honest understanding of myself or the OR I I had an honest
understanding of myself. I don't want anybody else to
understand my understand me and I didn't like myself.
That's closer to the truth and those that's a recipe for
disaster if you're trying to do stand up.
And I bombed so badly one night at a club that was full of
(21:33):
comics that I recognized that I,I got stage fright.
I could go on stage again. I'd never had stage fright in my
life. And I sat with that for a while
and I didn't like it. And I said, I need to get, I
need to get over the stage fright.
And so I went back to take some improv classes again.
(21:54):
And that's when I went to Acme. And then it was through Acme
that I met Cecily Adams. So.
Love that I, I've had a couple of of stories like that in my
own life where the butterfly effect of just, you know,
pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and you start one
thing and then that opens to another door and then that
connects you to another person. And I think unfortunately, over
(22:17):
the last several years, actors has become very isolated.
How did you decide which improv studios to work with and train
with? Second City because my best
friend was at second City and, and his name was so oh, so
(22:38):
Cecily Adams, who I was talking to you about, passed away from
cancer in 2004. And almost everyone that has
significant to this, to the story of my, of my rise and fall
is dead. My including my, my best friend
at the time, Andrew Koenig, who was an actor.
And he used to be on a show called Growing Pains.
(23:01):
And we met at summer camp when we were kids and we'd become
good friends. And then he, he started going to
Second City and he said, he said, you got to come.
So, so I did. And so I followed him to second
City and I made other great friends there, people that I, I
still know that I'm still close to.
And that's how he landed there. Acme I don't remember exactly
(23:29):
how I landed it at the Acme. What I can tell you is that
every time I thought about taking improv, the Groundlings
was the school that would come up.
Everyone would always say it's super political and it's really
(23:51):
expensive and it was too expensive for me.
It is a school for people who have who come from money or from
from some kind of means. And I did not.
So I could not afford to go there.
And I was really scared off by the fact that everyone said it
was so political, which is so ridiculous because everything,
(24:13):
everything is, is political. And I always say to people now I
go the one, if I could go back in time and redo one thing about
my, my career, I, it's that I would have, I would have run
away from home and I would have found a way to join the
groundlings because I do think it is.
I think it's probably the best boot camp for if you really want
(24:35):
to be in the industry. But anyway, I landed the Acme
and I made all these great friends.
I don't remember how how I woundup there, but but I didn't had a
wonderful instructor there namedCynthia Sigetty also dead.
And she had been she had been atthe Groundlings.
She had been she's one of the comedy stories.
(24:57):
She was like this. She had been this legendary Los
Angeles based comedic performer,completely insane and remarkably
inappropriate and probably bipolar.
So she checked all the boxes. Yeah, all the boxes.
(25:19):
I was like perfect, perfect. She was great.
And there's a legion of of people today who studied with
her and pulled her in high regard like I do.
She was great. I mean, even though I said all
those things about her, but they're all true.
She. Only a friend would speak the
truth. But she would say those things
about herself. I love working with her because
she was. She would if something was, If I
(25:40):
did something good, she'd tell me.
And if I did something and if I did something that wasn't great,
she'd tell me. But she never tried to.
She never tried to change me. She never tried to break me
down, to rebuild me in her in animage that she wanted, which is
(26:04):
typical with so many acting teachers.
I never had those experiences. I did not have those experiences
at Second City. I did not have those experiences
with her. And, and I'm grateful for that,
yeah. No, there there's so much value
in that because I, I had experienced that in several
classes where that that was their style was they would, they
(26:26):
would tear you down to the the studs to build you into the
actor that you know, was that school of thoughts actor model
and. You know why they do that?
Do you know why? I couldn't tell you a justified
reason. I have theories, but what?
What's? Your what's your what's your
theory? I think with a lot of the Namie
(26:49):
schools, and this is not improv related, this is just, you know,
Navy acting schools, it's because they want to be known
for their stable of talent and what they create.
And you know, same as when you hear Mattel, you think Barbie,
they want to have that brand recognition of what they what
they send out into the industry.I think it's because they don't
(27:09):
know what they're talking about because they they're not
actually acting teachers. What they what they are, are
sociopaths or narcissists who get off on a cult of
personality. And unfortunately, that is a
really great business model because there's a lot of people
(27:31):
who think that's how it's supposed to be.
Oh, yeah, no, I it took me many years to start finding the right
teachers for me. And I was like, oh, this is not
painful. This is not.
Well, it can. Yeah, right.
Because it, I mean the whole process, is painful.
Right. But it doesn't need to be this
like extra layer of like emotional torture.
(27:54):
I mean, we all are very highly sensitive, very empathic people
that have chosen like we want totell stories like that's a
business. And, and it was so I vividly
remember this instance of walking out of class and it was
like a 5 hour class with this teacher who I still admire and
(28:15):
respect. And I was like, I felt elevated,
I felt fulfilled. And I was like, this is what
it's supposed to feel like. And that was one of the huge
catalysts for me wanting to do the podcast when the time and
the opportunity came about is because there's such a
misconception and this like kindof fear mongering within actors
of like, it's supposed to hurt. It's supposed to be hard.
(28:37):
It's supposed to be. So you know, you've got to turn
up all of these demons And it's like it doesn't, you don't, it
doesn't have to be that. But I could go down a whole
rabbit hole on that. But I do want to talk about the
studio a little bit more and what, what inspired you to start
teaching again? Was it something that you were
(28:59):
seeing in the room while castingthat you were seeing?
If I could have, you know, an hour with this person versus 10
minutes, I could help them in their career.
What was the the inspiration to start teaching?
The inspiration was when I started getting contacted by
casting director workshops. So cast well, the, the the
(29:22):
inspiration came after I startedgetting contacted by casting
director workshops. And I think I've been working
with Cecily for a year. She said, I want you to, I don't
want you to do any workshops until you until you you put in a
year and and I said, yeah, fine.So I think after about a year,
she said I could do it. And I said, OK, Now her old
(29:46):
associate did a lot, did a lot casting director workshops and I
was set and I had never taken any because when I was an actor,
they didn't really exist. And, and then I just didn't know
about them, I guess towards, towards the, you know, just
before I got into casting, all they had were those horrible
(30:06):
showcases where people would paythousands of dollars and have to
bring a complete racket. So, so I contacted the old
associate that used to work precisely.
And I asked if I could tag alongwith her to a workshop and see
how you know, but she does see how it goes.
So I went with her and, and she she'd show up and they would
(30:27):
hand her they, she would get to the place.
She would be handed a stack of about 24 headshots and resumes.
She would lay them out on the ground and then she would just
based on those, just based on the pictures, she would pull
team people up and assign them scenes.
(30:48):
So and she had all these two person scenes and that's kind of
how that's that was the that's how it went.
But she would pair people up based on the based on the look
of their headshots and he was in.
And then she would go into the workshop, She hands those scenes
to those people. They have about 15 minutes to
work on the scenes with each other.
(31:09):
And then they come in and then people start performing the
scenes. And she would take, she would
have the headshots and she wouldmake a little notes on the on
the headshot. So she would write on the
headshot, the name of the casting director workshop
location so that she would remember that's where she'd seen
this this actor. And then she would just she had
a little sort of a little crib sheet of how she would write
(31:32):
notes for people based on, you know, on the deck.
So I got to see that I was like,this all makes sense.
So then I started, I started doing those and and then
eventually, you know, and I met some really great actors.
I start bringing them in for prereads and almost every time
(31:56):
these, the actor that would comein that I had seen at a workshop
that was great in the scene thatI'd given them would be
terrible. I mean awful.
And to the point of where my boss Cecily is asking me what
was going through my head when Ithought I should bring them in.
(32:18):
And it then occurs to me that it's not that I'm off on my
talent radar, it's that these actors have gotten really good
at preparing A2 person scene in 15 minutes with someone because
they're doing it two and three times a week.
(32:40):
But but they're not getting any better at auditioning because
they don't get a chance to audition as often and they all
they get caught up in the nervesof it and everything.
And it's a completely different,it's a completely different
experience. Absolutely.
And so I said to said to Cecily,I said, I think I need to start
(33:01):
teaching your class because that's what people need.
And so I started. So when casting workshops would
call me and ask if I would come and do a workshop.
I'd say I'll come if you have mecome in for three weeks, once a
week and I run them through auditioning.
And I had a whole and I just created a syllabus for it.
(33:24):
And I said, and this is how we'll work it.
And this is what this is the structure of the class.
And almost all of those workshopplaces told me to kick rocks.
They said nobody, nobody will buy it.
It's too long. Nobody wants to commit to that.
But one place did. One place thought it was a great
idea and, and so I did it. And then I just started doing
(33:46):
those. And then I just kept doing them
and doing them. And then I started and I
thought, oh, and then I got enough attention for it and
enough people asking me about itthat I started teaching my own
class. And this was back in the days
too, when casting offices were pretty big because you had so
much paperwork that needed to befiled, right?
(34:07):
I had shots on resumes and scripts alone, just tons of
paperwork. So in our offices, which were at
still at the CBS Radford lots, Cecily and I had offices there
still and we were working on That 70s Show.
We had a three office suite, heroffice, my office next to hers,
and then a file cabinet room next to mine.
(34:30):
And I could push the file cabinets against the wall,
against the walls. And when I did that, there was
room to set up 8 folding chairs.And I started teaching class in
my file cabinet room at 7:00 PM on Monday nights.
A producer of the of my shows. That is fine.
(34:51):
They didn't care. Nobody was there.
Everybody is already gone. Wasn't getting into the way of
anything. And and I could take eight
people because that's how many could shoot, could fit in there.
And that's that's how it started.
Wow. And you have something that
really caught my attention on your website that auditions
don't have to be stressful. How do you help actors with
(35:14):
mitigating stress and auditions?Or what do you feel like are
some of the big stressors or actors in that space?
I think the biggest stressor is kind of what I was touching on
before when I had when I was doing those workshops and I
realized these actors have gotten really good at preparing
A2 person scene in 15 minutes with some stranger because
they're doing it two and three times a week.
(35:37):
Repetition. That's the real trick is like
with literally anything else, the more consistently you do it,
the better you get at it. So practice is super important,
but if you're not practicing auditioning, you're using the
few auditions you do get in reallife IRL as your as your
(36:06):
rehearsal as your practice. And that's, that's not what you
want to do. One of the great things about
casting director workshops to inmy opinion, that from as an
actor was if you went and did one and you were horrible, you
could pay to go back and see that casting person again when
(36:26):
they come back and do another one.
But if you have an audition and you are horrible, the best case
scenario is that in your horrible audition, they just
forgot you didn't make an any impression at all.
That would be the best case scenario because that means they
might bring you back again because they forgot that you
(36:49):
weren't any good. So, so why not practice in a
space that is safe, where you can take risks, you can take
chances, and you can get better at the really at the very simple
tools that are involved in auditioning, which are not the
same as being on set and workingon on something.
(37:09):
As an actor, there are there arethings you're supposed to do and
most actors do not do those things.
And a lot of the times it's because they've been taught not
to. I would say the big, I mean, not
that you, not that you've asked this question, but in, in our
(37:29):
age of self, in our age of self tape since the COVID pandemic,
because of course there have been self tapes, you know, long
before that. But self tape changes in the
COVID pandemic, because in the old days, people would come into
the room, they would audition, but occasionally someone wasn't
(37:52):
available to come in on that dayand they would send a tape.
And then that tape sits in competition with people that
were seen live in the room. And because of that, there was a
real emphasis on production value of your tape.
(38:14):
And people keep trying to sell that today and it is it, it's
not the reality anymore because the game, the because the
playing field has been leveled. Everyone is taping.
You don't need a high productionvalue, right?
But everything is self tape. And what happens, what I've
(38:35):
noticed what is happening with self tape auditions, of course,
is I don't know how it goes withyou, but a lot of agents and
managers ask that you send that you e-mail your tape to them and
they will upload it to Eco Castro or who you know, wherever
they're uploading it to. Some don't, some don't.
Some let some prefer you to do it, but some want to watch them.
(39:00):
And it is created a sort of a middleman in the casting
process. They're watching your tape and
then they are calling you back and giving you notes, but
they're saying go re tape this. Don't hold your script.
Do this. Do that.
(39:21):
And actors think that those notes are coming from casting.
And sometimes they think that because the agents will tell
them that's where they're comingfrom, although they are not.
And, and it's created a whole new set of misconceptions for
how to audition. And I do have to work against
(39:43):
that a lot. I even posted about this
recently because I'd done an interview with a bunch of actors
who met when they were all working on that Disney Channel
series, Liv and Maddie. Did you remember, do you
remember that show? So I interviewed a whole bunch
and there's a a group of actors all met while they were working
on that show, stayed friends. And still to this day, they are
(40:04):
basically an artist collective when they when any of them have
auditions. They will call one of one of
these people in their collectiveto tape it with them.
And I went to the home of one ofthe one of those actresses from
the show. Her name is Victoria Morales.
And in her home, she has a self tape room set up and that's
(40:28):
where they would all go. So they would all go and meet
there to, to record. And so we did this recording
and, and I had a conversation with them where they said, yeah,
we get told that the casting is the one that's telling us to be
off book. I'm on, it's not casting.
It's, it's your, it's your Rep. And, and anyway, I had posted
this, that segment on my Instagram page and everybody's
(40:49):
writing and saying stuff like, Oh, this is eye opening and
thank you and blah, blah, blah. And and some agent that I don't
even know, I looked him up. He doesn't really it does.
I won't tell you his name or anything, but very low.
I was a very candidly a very low.
I don't know how candid I am. I'm on a podcast kind of a low
(41:09):
level agent that follows me apparently, and he accused me
of, oh, he insulted me, insultedmy anything.
He just basically what he did ishe said I was lying that the
that these notes do come from casting and that the good agents
(41:30):
and the good casting directors are the ones who are paying
attention to this because he's saying younger casting people
ran the data on who is booking versus who wasn't.
And it came down to people who weren't holding their sides.
First of all, there's no, this data doesn't exist.
(41:53):
This is not a the the data. So many follow up questions.
I'm like what shows did you do this data on?
Like how many networks? What was it running like?
The. It doesn't exist like this is.
It, it doesn't exist. But he kept telling us I, I love
people who said it's based on the data.
It felt like the people who say do your own research, it was
really remarkable. And obviously I didn't respond
(42:14):
to it on there, but I thought, yeah, I thought, bro, you, you
just made my point. It's you guys.
And certainly it's not all agents, managers, but, and, and
this guy's actually seems a bit diabolical and insane, but I
(42:36):
would, I would argue that most reps are not.
And I think, but they're not actors and they're not casting
directors. And I think from their
perspective, I think their data might show, oh, so and so booked
a job last week and they didn't hold the script.
They were off book. And somebody else booked a job
(42:58):
and they were off book. So that must be the data.
That must be the secret. So of course to them, they're
going to tell you, you should beoff, you should be off book.
I mean, I understand how they might come up with that, but
what I spend a lot of time doingis trying to help actors figure
(43:18):
out how to how to, how to memorize and still use your
script. Do you have to use your script
when they because they come in and they and they don't look at
it. Yeah.
And when they're not looking at it and they're trying to get
through the scene, they keep blanking out because their brain
(43:39):
is trying to think of what the next line is.
So. Right.
So the whole face, it's, it's like a it's like the rope, but
like we're robots and like you're, you're alive and
animatronic one second and then and then you're back up.
And they somehow think that's better than using the script.
And it's really hard to unlearn.It's hard to unlearn those
(44:01):
things. Yeah.
And we also always, even back inthe old days, I remember when I
used to go on in person auditions before I kind of
figured things out, I would after the audition, I would
think I knew that so well. I knew the lines so well in my
car. I knew the lines so well in my
(44:23):
apartment. How come I can't remember them?
Because most people don't spend enough time working on the
material or all they do is they work on trying to memorize the
lines. They don't work on anything
else. And then of course, once you
once you, once you are reading the scene with somebody else, it
is it is suddenly gone from being a one person show where
(44:47):
you're playing all the characters to now an audition
where you are only in charge of your character and somebody else
is reading the other roles and you don't know how.
And they have to like real time react to that.
Real time react to it exactly. And they don't because you
haven't had a chance to to work on it anyway.
So that's kind of a lot of it. A lot of that those are, I would
(45:08):
say the the the bulk of what what I work on in in my classes.
Going back to what you mentionedearlier, I'm such an advocate
for if you can ever be in a class setting where everyone is
doing the same sides or at leastworking together in front of one
another, It is so powerful to see what other people do.
(45:31):
Because when you can get to a place where you learn where you
and the character overlap and you can learn how to break down
your script and have your littlekeyword so that you can just
scoop it up. Because you see those people
that are, they're writing a whole new script up there or
it's, it's blanked out. And yeah, I, I could go on a
(45:51):
whole soapbox rant about that and bad reps, but we're not here
for that. We're Oh my gosh, we only have
10 minutes left. Are you kidding me?
Gee, Oh my, what kind of podcast?
You're running everything. Everybody's doing three hour, 3
hour interviews now and look at you.
It's part 1-2 and three. This is how we got to six
seasons. We just, we just keep them
(46:12):
going, keep them rolling. OK, so I, I do want to talk
really quickly on self tapes andany advice you have for becoming
better self directors, but also self editors?
Because I think a lot of times actors do a ton of takes and
then they sit down to watch themand they all become this beige
(46:33):
and they can't see any nuances in them and they don't know what
to send. Yeah.
I think the hard, I think the hardest part about being in
charge of your own self tapes isthat is that part.
My advice is this, Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse with your
(46:54):
camera off. Do not turn your camera on until
you have rehearsed this thing and you've got it down.
Yeah, people think people don't want to miss a tape.
They want to tape every single thing they do because their
assumption is one of those is going to be magic.
(47:17):
But that's problematic because what you have to be able to do
is consistently duplicate because if you get on set, you
will have to do the scene the same way many many times, and if
you are given a redirect, you will have to be able to take
that. You cannot just hope to capture
(47:41):
lightning in a bottle. Also, the more times you do it,
the more takes. The more takes you record, the
more it screws with you mentally.
Oh God, I've been, I've done this 15 times already.
What's wrong with me? So just leave the camera off,
(48:02):
work on it, work on it, work on it.
I am of the opinion that if you can't, if you can't nail it in
three, in three takes, turn the camera back off and go back to
rehearsing because you don't know the scene well enough.
You don't know. You don't know any of your
(48:24):
specifics. And work on all of that and then
record it and the people spend. I think people end up spending
hours and hours and hours and hours making these self tapes
when the truth is you need to spend.
You need to spend a couple of hours rehearsing, just like you
(48:47):
used to have to do in the old days.
You gotta do all that. Then you turn.
Then you turn on the camera and the lights.
Yeah. And then you record it also if
you've got somebody and you want, and I want actors to
really do put in, put in work before they engage their reader.
Because then when you're doing aself tape, you need a reader.
So your reader is probably goingto be somebody, hopefully
(49:10):
somebody close to you. They that person may be there
with you in the room while you record.
They may be on Zoom while you'rerecording, recording it, but do
a lot of work first. And then you bring that person
in and then you do work with that person and you run the
scene with them and you get usedto reacting and you do all that
(49:32):
stuff and you get it, get that down.
And then you turn on the camera.And if you don't get it in three
takes, turn off the camera and figure out what you're not doing
right. Try it again.
But you should be able to get it.
You should be able to get it in three in three takes, sometimes
4. Yeah.
Otherwise, otherwise you weren'tready to have the camera on.
I completely agree. I think it is training a wrong
(49:57):
muscle by doing so many takes because you're not going to have
that kind of time on set and you're used to doing all of
these takes and casting is has no way of knowing how many it
took to get that. I started doing this so when I,
so because I, my class used to be in person and then when
everything, when the pandemic shut us down, we went on to
(50:19):
zoom. And then about six months, seven
months into that, I went back tocasting on ATV series I was
doing and but of course that we're in the middle of a
pandemic and wasn't allowed to see anybody, right?
So that's when it hit me. I was like, oh, shoot,
everything we've been doing in class for the last six or seven
months is exactly what auditioning is.
(50:41):
It's this, it's it's and and I thought this is going to be
tricky because when people send in a self tape, I don't know how
many takes it took them. But I do know that one of the
things I work on in class is consistency.
And one of it's one of the things I used to work on when
people would come in to auditionfor me in person too.
If I don't know you and you would come in to audition for me
(51:02):
and you did the scene and I liked it, I would say do it
again. And the response 9 times out of
10 is any notes. Oh no, I want to see you do that
again. And, and because I want to see
if they can, if they can duplicate it, if they can
(51:23):
duplicate it, then I might ask, all right, now I want you to try
this. And then they do it again.
And if they were effectively able to take that note, well,
that's great. OK, now go back and do it the
way you did it the first time and if they can take that note.
Now I know I found somebody thatI can rely on for auditions and
I lose that, right with self tapes.
(51:43):
So what? So what I started doing was in
the self tape instructions for costar under 5 roles.
I would say do the scene back-to-back on the same tape
the same way and send that in. If it's under five part, you
(52:03):
know, it's a small part, you know, it's got a page, maybe a
page and 1/2. So you do it, take a beat, do
the scene again, just like you would if you we were in person,
which is which is the way actorsseem to be dying to get back to
and and it's amazing how many people would try to trick edit
(52:27):
that that they right some some would edit together 2 takes.
It was, you know, just. You can see.
You can see and then some my this was always my favorite.
Some would just take the exact same take and play it again,
loop it, loop it. Thank you.
(52:49):
Yes, loop it. And I used to get tons of
pushback from reps on that. And so eventually I stopped
doing that. And now what I do is I treat
self tapes as pre reads and thenI do callbacks on zoom.
(53:12):
And I that also is great too from from a self tape
perspective, because you know, I'd have to turn these into a my
showrunner. And if I'm, if so, if I record
everybody in the callback on Zoom, sure, they're at home,
they're going to their backgrounds going to be a little
different. Their lighting is going to be a
(53:32):
little different. But what is not going to be
different is you have the same reader.
It's going to be cutting the scene at the beginning of this.
You know, all of that, all of there's, there, there brings
back a little bit of uniformity to it.
And it gives me a chance to see people and see if they are, if
they can't be consistent. So these are the things that
(53:54):
have changed. You don't have to.
You don't have to know where allof the studio lots are.
You don't have to know where thebest place to find free parking
is when you go for an audition. You don't have to carry around a
bunch of costumes in your car asmuch anymore.
Maybe you do now because commercial auditions are still a
lot of those in person. But you don't have to send out
(54:15):
postcards anymore. Yeah, you don't have to get
headshots duplicated, any of those.
There's, you still have a lot ofstuff that you have to pay for
and that you have to learn how to use a lot of marketing tools
and other things. But they have changed.
And unless you, unless you change with it, you will be left
(54:38):
behind. And this is we are at an
intersection of technology and the entertainment industry now
where the entertainment industryis the technology industry now.
Yeah, and these are the technology things that we as
(54:58):
artists have to know how to use.I would be really remiss if I
did not talk to you about formulating and building out
sitcom world and families. I think that that is something
that you are so talented and andyou have such a prolific comedy
resume people. Thanks.
(55:18):
Yeah, it is, it is something that I really, I really like
casting families. Well, I just like casting.
I mean, I like casting. There is, there's an I I think
an added level of difficulty when you are casting a family.
And, and as someone who grew up watching a lot of television,
one of the things that drove me,drives me crazy still today, is
(55:42):
watching ATV Family where clearly none of these people
could possibly shed the same DNA.
Not possible. Everybody looks like a
completely different person. It drives me crazy.
(56:05):
It is. Well, it was one of the reasons
why I do love shows like I love The Brady Bunch.
Yeah. Those boys all look like they
could, like, that's their dad. And those girls all look like
that. That's their mom.
Yeah. I mean, it's great casting.
Yeah. Even happy Days, Richie
Cunningham looks like he could be his looks takes after his mom
(56:26):
more and Joni Cunningham takes after the father a little bit
more. Like it's still like they don't
look like brother and sister, but they at least still look
like their parents. So right.
I mean, like stuff like that. But then there were, there are
so often all the, I mean, it's tough because when you're
casting kids, you have to find good kids and good kids are hard
(56:49):
to find. And in the old days of casting
sitcoms, typically you start with the you would start with
the adults, the leads, and then you would just kind of cast and
you just, and then you just kindof cast whatever kids you find
that that you know that are funny.
And even when I was, I was, I was partner, I was a casting
(57:14):
partner with another prolific casting director named Deborah
Borilski for a couple of years. And together she and I cast, Oh
my gosh, I want to say 5 pilots,maybe 6 pilots and the pilot and
1st season of the middle together.
And she cast Home Improvement, Arrested Development, so a few
(57:44):
shows you may have heard of. And and that's just the tip.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah, right. Right.
She's, she's older than me. She'd been doing it longer.
She's really prolific, but even and she loved cast kids, but
even she was under the impression she she would say to
me that you just have to like, it doesn't matter if they look
like them or not. They just have to be good
(58:04):
because that was the world in which she came up in.
And I I disagree, but anyway, I do like casting the kids and it
is easier when when somebody else's, when someone's attached
to the show. It definitely makes it easier.
(58:25):
I, I think I cast so the middle.I mean, she and I cast were
casting partners in the middle. The, IT was our really, it was
our second to last project together and it was really
difficult because it did feel a lot like she and I were
competing with each other at that point.
(58:45):
We had, we had some different takes on, on who we thought we
should. So when we, when we went to the
network we had, it was like we each had a horse, a different
horse in the race for a couple of roles.
But that sounds more acrimoniousthan it really was.
But, but it was a, but it was a,it was a, it was a, a shift.
(59:06):
It was a, a shift in the in the relationship, but one of the
great things about that show wasthat Patty Heaton was attached
to it. Another great thing about that
show is that Eileen and Deanne, who are the the creators of it,
had made a version of it. I don't know if you know this.
They had, they had made the mid version like 2 years earlier.
(59:27):
And Atticus Schaeffer, who playsBrick Heck, is Brick Heck in the
first pilot too. He's the only, the only
character, the only actor who who returns for the second
pilot. We got to watch that pilot when
we started casting with, with Patty Heaton attached this time.
So I'm watching that pilot and Iturned to death.
(59:48):
I said, fuck me. We got to find we got to find
somebody to replace this kid. How do you do that?
He's great. So we set up a a meeting for him
to come in and see Eileen and Deanne again.
And he looked the same. Because of that, because of that
issue with this phones, so so I was Oh my goodness, so we
(01:00:11):
didn't. Imagine anyone else playing
Brick. I don't know how you could.
I don't know how you could, right.
But so we had Patty Heaton. She was, she was attached this
time. And Attica Schaeffer still
looked the same. So then it was a matter of
finding a husband and an Axel and a Sue and and that was it.
(01:00:33):
And so, you know, it was pretty easy, but we already had, you
know, we already had the mom andthe youngest the youngest kids.
You kind of you want people thatso I already knew what people
needed to look like. I had a great time casting the
Lopez versus Lopez family that again, when you come into a show
where you have your leads attached, it makes it more fun
(01:00:55):
because you already have a template for what everybody else
or it could be like. But when we, when I cast,
there's a kid on this last show that I did was called Lopez
versus Lopez, just loosely basedon the real lives of George
Lopez and his daughter Mayan Lopez.
And loosely based because Mayan Lopez does not have a child and
(01:01:17):
the Lopezes of the TV family arepoor.
And of course we know the Lopezes are very rich, right?
So it's loosely based, but it's based on their the dynamic of
their relationship. And on the show, she has a
little boy. And when we started casting that
started casting at our first zoom meeting, cast everything on
(01:01:38):
zoom. And and George told us about
this kid that he had seen, he had seen for another show that
he had that he had just that he had just done.
His name was Bryce Gonzalez. So he's in the he's going to be
in this new Eva Longoria directed film called Flamin Hot
about the guy who created the Flamin hot Cheetos.
(01:02:01):
He goes this kids, this kids fantastic.
And he's and he was a TikTok star.
Him and his this kid and his dadmade these really adorable
TikTok. So I had to search for this kid.
I've got to find him. And he didn't have an agent.
I quit. He wasn't listed anywhere I went
to. I think I ended up going to his
(01:02:22):
TikTok and then message, emailing the family.
And so the I emailed the mom andI explained, you know who I am
and where I'm at, what's going on?
And she says, hey, we do have a manager now and happened to be a
manager that I've known my entire casting career.
So I was super excited about that.
So I called that manager and said, hey, we want to, we want
(01:02:44):
to bring Bryce Gonzalez in to audition for this.
And she said, Nickelodeon, she goes, we're sitting on an offer
from Nickelodeon. They want to sign him to a
development deal. Oh wow.
Because we don't want to take itbecause, you know, kids channel.
We would much rather have a likea broadcast network show would
(01:03:07):
be anyway. So so the western ending
auditioning is what I'm trying to say.
There was no auditioning for this kid.
This kid was six years old and had made Tik Toks with his dad
and been in had a a small part in a in a movie about Flamin on
Cheetos and he's got Nickelodeonand NBC Universal in a bidding
(01:03:30):
war. Wild.
Can you imagine? I mean an embarrassment of
riches, but good for. Him no, it was great for him and
it was great for us because we we did get him, but that was
that was crazy. I gosh, if I had been maybe a
day later. Yeah.
Or two days later, they would have taken that deal.
And then we would have we would not have had a shot at him.
(01:03:52):
The trick with casting families is you just have to see a lot of
kids. You see a lot of kids.
Yeah. And then you narrow it down from
there. Gee, this has truly made my week
it is. It's fascinating to hear your
artistic perspective, but also your deep understanding of the
(01:04:13):
different compartments and in the different areas of our
industry. I think this is going to help a
lot of the listeners and encourage them and also empower
them to be honest with themselves and also take care of
their creative process. So thank you so much for joining
us here on the podcast today. Oh, yeah, You're welcome.
It was a lot of fun, Laura. Thanks.
(01:04:34):
Hi everyone, thanks for listening and being the absolute
best part of our creative community here at What's My
Frame? If you'd like to learn more
about our guests, please check out the show notes and please
join us on socials at What's My Frame?
To stay in the know for upcomingevents, I'm your host, Laura
Linda Bradley. We'll see you next Monday.
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