Quotes About Casting

Don't try to guess what a casting director wants.

I just have that sort of face and when I got to Hollywood in the late '70s they took one look at me and said, 'Get him a gun. You definitely should be carrying a gun,' and so a lot of it is just the way I look. I look like I'm angry and dangerous, and in fact, I'm loveable and kind.

It takes guts to see me differently. Some casting directors come up with the excuse and they don't see me differently. I just get the feedback from some that you are good looking. I find it very bizarre, what's my look got to do with casting me in a certain character. Just cast me. I can change my look.

If you get the right cast, half your work is done.

We lost our jobs at 'Heart and Lights' at one-o'clock that day. At two-o'clock, I got the call from Telsey telling me I was cast in 'Hamilton.'

The first director I ever worked with on 'Thrones,' he had a big hand in casting me. He said he cast me because there was a bit of an Alec Guinness about me, but a very dangerous Alec Guinness.

I won Miss Teen World, and then a movie rep saw me on the pageant website and thought that I had the perfect image for the role in 'Madrasapattinam.'

There have been many times when I've auditioned and I've actually won a different role in the same film.

I remember when I read in the news that 'Wonder Woman' had been cast, and my heart sank. I had been talking to the studio for so long about doing it, and I was like, 'Well, 'that's that.' I'm sure we wouldn't have made the same choice.

I remember auditioning for the Wonder Woman television show and being told that I wasn't the Wonder Woman type, but if I wanted to play the best friend, I could audition for that.

There was a little of this, 'Oh, you're such a sweet girl!' That's a wonderful thing to have in life; I don't mind it at all for life. But I remember, the first role I was ever cast in as a not-so-sweet-girl, I was so happy.

The wonderful thing about acting is they're always going to need old codgers!

You get angry and frustrated wondering, 'Are there enough parts for women?'

With 'Badlapur', I wasn't even thinking about casting. I was wondering whether any producer will want to make a film with a story like this. It is not your expected, feel-good, or even your regular thriller.

Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I have always played someone like 10 years younger. When I was 23 or 24, I was playing 15 opposite Evan Rachel Wood in a movie called 'Pretty Persuasion.' She was 16 and nobody in a million years would have thought I was that much older than her.

Woody Harrelson played a long-term love interest of Debra Messing's; I think it was for a whole season. They almost cast Nick in that part. They almost had given to him. But at the eleventh hour, Jim Burrows put in a call to Woody, and he said he would do it.

Woody Allen is really the ultimate. I love that he believed in himself enough to do what he did. And I have that same feeling - that there's nobody that looks like me in movies, nobody would cast me as a romantic lead, but I want to do it and I feel confident that I can.

I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'

Cameras love pretty girls and craggy, old character men more than they can take craggy, old character women. But that's what's always happened. Work out how you can fit into it, and make that work. There are never going to be millions of parts for older actresses because there never were.

I like to cast actors I admire, one's that are talented. Each one will bring something new to the part. This play has been done thousands of times and now certain characters are too familiar.

When I came out here, my manager thought that casting directors might think I'm a girl, and when I did Threat Matrix, they thought Jamie was a little light.

I know a lot of people who thrive on self-tapes, but for me, it does come down to first impressions. I like to be in the room, I like to talk to the people I'm acting with.

I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.

I don't know much about writing a show or being a show-runner on a show, but I can only imagine that when you first cast a show and you first do a pilot, there are so many components that you're throwing into the mix and you're not sure how they're going to develop.