Quotes About Casting

There aren't that many actors with hair like this. And Amazon are casting Aragorn and they're doing Interview with the Vampire' on Hulu, so there's all these good jobs.

At 21 years old, I found myself in Vancouver, and that's where I got the part for my first movie. I was sitting in a restaurant, and the director came up to me and asked me to read for his film. I really took it with a grain of salt. It was the creepiest casting situation, probably. It turned out that it wasn't.

A lot of people get stereotyped into roles just from how they look, and I have played such a variety of characters.

Showing variety in representation in casting is super important, it gives minorities a platform and I think it definitely creates a safe space for conversation and progress.

On a really big budget movie you do chemistry reads, and you sort of hedge your bets a little bit more and make sure that these people get along. But on the low budget side of things, I have to trust my gut that when I cast these people, the various elements are going to play together.

If a filmmaker is making a movie about a nice Midwestern family or a story that needs a very white character or a black or a Chinese, then I don't expect to go up for it. But I know, especially in places like New York, there's no excuse not to see various colors.

When I listen to scripts, I never ask who my co-star is - instead, I ask about the characters and the producers of the particular venture.

It would have been impossible to get 'The Verdict' off the ground without Paul Newman obviously, but today without any star, kind of a dramatic piece would be very tough.

People forget actors can adapt and change their appearance. In this industry, people sometimes cast to type, or as close to type as possible, but actors are a lot more versatile than you think!

I pick my actors primarily based on my gut-feel. They could be rank newcomers or established stars, but if I feel they'll do justice to my characters, they are on. I think Bollywood is now looking towards Kollywood for new faces, and, to my mind, Suriya will be a very successful crossover star because he's very versatile.

Sometimes people can't afford to work for you, or they're not interested or available, and you hate to have written the whole movie with somebody in mind and not get them.

I think that certain directors are better at choosing actors that match well with each other. And I have feelings about actors and who I think I'd work well with better moreso than others.

It's so much easier to write for an actor than for an imaginary character and then try to fit that character to an actor. It doesn't work very often in my experience.

When you work on a character, you form in your mind an image of what he ought to look like. Then you go and find one who resembles him.

I have less control over how I'm cast and the jobs that I get than people would imagine. Most of us don't have control over that, but I think it's a preponderance of your body of work.

I don't think it's the case that 'posh actors' get more work than others.

You can make five massive hits in a row and still not get cast by the directors who you want to work with doing little movies.

I cast very much from the gut, and I think I was very lucky to be able to get... many amazing international... people that I had always really wanted to work with.

When I got to Hollywood, at first I couldn't get a lot of jobs. So I grew a beard and look like a really bad Arab, and I started to get a lot of work because that's what they want.

Sometimes you choose the wrong actor, he could be the best actor ever, but hes not cast in the right part then it doesnt work.

I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.

That's a frustration sometimes, that certain directors that I'd like to work with, they just aren't doing stories that I'm sort of castable in. Not always, but sometimes I have that frustration.

Getting the correct writer is simply like casting. You wouldn't hire an actor in order to tell him how to work. He knows how to work, which is why you hired him.

A lot of high school students on TV and in Broadway are played by people in their late 20s and even early 30s. That seems weird to me.