Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to my channel, Casting Corner. I am here with Gary Zuckerbrod, the head casting director. Just a reminder, this channel is me interviewing different casting directors from a casting director and an actor's perspective for you guys. And if you like the videos, please share, subscribe, like, tell me in the comments below. If there's something you want to know specifically for Gary, leave me a comment and I can maybe do a follow-up with him. Sure. Gary, tell me a little bit about how you got into casting, your background.

Speaker 2: I'm originally from New York. I grew up 30 minutes outside of Manhattan. I was really lucky. My parents took us to a lot of cultural things in Manhattan, and I saw my first Broadway show when I was nine years old, which was the original cast of 1776, and didn't stop after that. By the time I was a little bit older, my older brother and I would take the Loyola Railroad into the city and we'd get two-fers, which were two tickets in the balcony for $4. And we saw everything. And I never stopped. I still go back to New York at least once, twice a year, and see shows there, I see theater here. I got into casting in 1982. I was working retailing, and I hated it. A friend of my dad introduced me to Bobbi Terriman, and I ended up working for her for almost three years. And after that, I got a job as a freelance casting associate, working on a movie called To Live and Die in L.A., which was shooting in Los Angeles, but casting its leads in New York, which was very common at that time. And they brought me out to Los Angeles, and I was kept out here for five months, and the day that I was leaving, my boss got a job out here on the new Twilight Zone series, and two months into it, he split and went back to New York and ended up being the casting director. And that's how I became the casting director. But it was great. And if you go back and look at the early Twilight Zone series from the 1980s, you will see people on that show that you kind of won't believe. Like, I bumped into Bruce Willis one day. He used to be a bartender at Cafe Central in New York, and I saw him all the time. He was always in our office. And I bumped into him on the street out here in Beverly Hills, and I said, Bruce, what are you doing out here? He went, I don't know, Gary. I'm doing this pilot with Cybill Shepard. Who's going to go watch that? And I said, hey, I've got a Twilight Zone episode. Wes Craven's directing it. It's a two-hander. You get to play the good and evil side of yourself. He said, great. I said, come in and meet Wes Craven tomorrow. And he did, and he got it. And he was on the Coupler box set, which sold a lot of videotapes at that time. What are those? So that was an amazing job, and after that, I just started working. For a short period of time, I was an executive at CBS overseeing movies and miniseries.

Speaker 1: Cool. Awesome. Wait, let's talk a little bit about being an executive at CBS. What's it like on the executive side?

Speaker 2: It was very nice. It was a lovely department. One of my closest friends, Lisa Krenberger, brought me in there. I oversaw minis and movies. CBS had two movie nights a week, Sunday and Tuesday. Miniseries probably on four times a year. We were doing 72 to 75 projects a year because we were banking some for the next season. That was a big business at that time. By 2000, the year 2000, it died for a number of reasons. The whole idea of the movie of the week business was based on getting a big television star into the lead that we could promote not only in the United States, but since U.S. television at that time was the dominant force across the world, these movies sold quite well throughout the world. And then it started changing. You couldn't get TV stars to do the movies because they didn't want to do movie of the week. They wanted to do movies in movie theaters. That really was prompted by the success of the cast of ER. I'll never forget, we had one movie of the week. It was a Neil Simon play. We had Woody Allen star. We couldn't get the female lead. We had all these television stars. We couldn't get the female lead. I begged and screamed and said, there's this actor, Sarah Jessica Parker, who's really good. And she ended up doing it. And then a year later, she ended up doing something for HBO. That was what it was like to be an executive. For me, it was interesting, but it wasn't creative. I love working with actors. And I love directing them and helping them find a role. That was so much more exciting to me than being an executive. Being a police person between the actual casting director and the studio.

Speaker 1: Since you've been doing this for a while, how casting has changed from when you started to now and where casting has gone?

Speaker 2: It's changing rapidly. I once did a panel at the Screen Actors Guild. Three casting directors. And they introduced the first two and moderated the panel and said, now our oldest casting director. And so I sat down and he said, can you tell us how casting has changed? And I said, sure. When I first started in casting, I used to read actors in Greek. In reality, here's how much casting has changed. When I first started, there wasn't videotape. It was in its infancy and it didn't exist yet to a point where it could be used on a daily basis for casting. We were doing Miami Vice. We were casting the guest stars in New York, and the writer-producers were in Los Angeles, and the producers were in Miami. We had to figure out a system of how the producers could see those auditions. And we got a universal supply desk with a videotape camera. It was about that big. It's hard to watch myself do this. It was about that big and it had a cutout with a pad. And it sat on my shoulder and went out this way. And I read with the actors with it sitting on my shoulder. And it really wasn't that heavy. But most of the actors, none of them had ever seen a video camera like that before. They had seen what were called movie cameras or they were brought in for screen tests. I mean, we used to screen test people when we did movies. You'd rent it out a studio and the director was there, lighting technician, makeup. They put makeup on them? Not for videotaping, but when you did a screen test for a movie. They don't do that anymore. No, they don't. Well, cameras are so much better. So this machine, I would tape the actors. And upstairs at Universal, there was a half-inch video machine that it duped the tapes in half time. And I would have to make one for us, make one for California, and one for Florida. And then I'd run down to FedEx, catch the last FedEx going out to the West Coast. And then I'd go see a show. And then after a show, I'd go out for dinner. And then after dinner, I'd go to some performance piece or a comedy play. And that was my sort of life in casting. If there's been a major, major game changer in casting, it has been the use of recording actors. These days, you don't have a producer in the room with you. You don't have a director in the room with you. I did a great series called Without a Trace. And it was great because it had amazing roles for actors. It was all guest star based. And the roles were incredible. We got wonderful actors to be on it. And it was a great place for new actors who didn't have a lot on their resume to come out and do a role that had some meat to it. And we would still tape actors, but we'd have a producer and director in the room.

Speaker 1: Would it be like you'd see somebody first and then bring them back to the producers?

Speaker 2: No, no, no. We'd take them and we had a producer in the room and we had the director. And the three of us would make up, decide which choices we wanted to send. We would pick like two, possibly three choices, and send those around to the other executive producers. And then they'd pick one.

Speaker 1: How many people would you see? We saw a lot of people.

Speaker 2: We were shooting here in LA. Each episode had eight to 15 roles.

Speaker 3: How many people would you see per role, roughly?

Speaker 2: Roughly seven was about a good number, depending on, unless it was a specialty. Right, right. Somebody once asked me what was one of the strangest roles that you've ever cast. When I was doing The Last Ship, we had a season where we were completely in Asia. We actually got a very funny call once from the casting department at TNT that we weren't having enough diversity in the season. My partner, Kamala, and I looked at each other and said, hmm. So we called the casting people who we were very close with and we said, so you mean we haven't cast enough white people this season? She said, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, in the last four episodes, everybody that we've cast has either been Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese, or Polynesians. Never mind. So that's another major factor, is that we are much more conscious of diverse casting and not only ethnically diverse, but diverse in terms of people with disabilities. Disability, yeah. Age. There's a lot more consideration for that. If I got a script today for a role that I was casting, a series, there were three, four guest star roles written as white. I would call the producers up and say, unless there was a specific, like if it was a family, I would say, look, we're not having any diversity here. And that's very conscious. So there are a lot more people weighing in how it's changed. There are a lot more people weighing in. We have much more access to actors because we can see more. We can either read them ourselves. I happen to love doing readings, doing casting sessions, but a lot of offices have associates for doing the readings. And the casting director just watches them.

Speaker 1: You like to read with the actors?

Speaker 2: I love to read with actors. Yeah, I really enjoy it. I may not be the best actor in the world, but I really enjoy reading with actors. It gives me insight into what they're doing. It helps me give them direction. But one of the things that I've noticed lately is actors' preparation. There seems to be a little less of it. And maybe because there's more volume, it still requires an actor being very knowledgeable. There are a couple of things that I always talk about, especially if I teach. When you get an audition and you go into that audition, even if it's somebody else, not the casting director or tape, if it's a television series that's been on and you haven't watched an episode of it, you are immediately behind the eight ball. You are immediately one step down because every single television series has its own rhythms, its own tone, both physically, in other words, you notice that the lighting on one show is different than the lighting over the course of the series. It's different. If you watch the CSI shows, you would have noticed that Miami had an orangish-red, CSI Miami, and CSI had a sort of greenish-blackish tone to it, and CSI New York had a sort of bluish tone to it. It's not by chance. That's very, very calculated. The actors who inhabit that show, they create a rhythm of how it works. The lighting tends to then go along with that rhythm, or there's a rhythm that's created like in an Aaron Sorkin show where it moves quickly, and so if you're going to walk into an audition and you've got a lot of words on that page and you're going to speak slowly and deliberately like this, that probably, unless it was stated, that probably is not going to match the rhythm of how everybody else is talking in that show. You have to be conscious of that when you walk in.

Speaker 1: So for a show that's on the air, if you're going in for it, you should definitely watch an episode.

Speaker 2: You should watch an episode if it's a new show. If it's a pilot and there's nothing to watch. Look up the creators. See what they've worked on before. See what they've done before. Chances are it may be similar. If you read the material and you look at what they've done, it may be totally different. Then you just have to use your best judgment.

Speaker 1: If they come in for a pilot, is it okay to ask, like, what is the tone of this show?

Speaker 2: Yeah, generally the casting office won't know what the tone of the show is unless they've had very in-depth discussions with the producers. Well, that's not true. Actually, you do know. You get a sense of it. You know, we get a sense of it. We read it. If the producers have callback sessions and they work with the actors, it helps us get a sense of what we're looking for.

Speaker 3: To go back, what do you see as the future of casting? The process or, like... The process? Who knows? I mean, I'm not... Do you see it moving towards more, like, everyone self-taping? I think that there's going to be a lot more self-taping

Speaker 2: just because there's a lot more product. And there's only a certain amount of us. Right. And we're not necessarily growing in numbers as a field. We're actually shrinking a little bit. And that's because what you're going to see... The difference is what you'll see are casting offices like Bernie Telsey's and Bialy Thomas and UDK, which are going to sort of expand. And that's how casting sort of was originally. There were fewer offices and people did more of it. It was a very different science than casting when casting first started in the late 1950s. You're going to see bigger offices doing a lot more of the work. You're going to see a lot more self-taping because we're going to have to go through more people. Los Angeles is the largest market for English-speaking actors in the world. New York is probably second. London's probably third. London may be second and New York third. And then Australia and New Zealand. If you're here in Los Angeles, you're competing in the most competitive market in the world for actors.

Speaker 1: I just realized we were not centered this whole time.

Speaker 2: It's okay. They got more of me than you.

Speaker 1: They got all... Well, they wanted me. They wanted me. So, okay. In terms of diversity, for roles and they're all Caucasian, you call your producers and say, we need more diversity. If the roles are open, would you see disabled people and... Sorry.

Speaker 2: I think I know where you're going. If there's no definition of what the role is, I wouldn't just do it off the bat. I would send an email to the producers and say, hey, are you open to diversity here? We have a doctor in a hospital. Could that doctor be in a wheelchair? Or is that going to hurt something script-wise?

Speaker 1: Do you think casting is more open to that?

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Because there was somebody... I forget who, but somebody asked me about this. I'm trying to incorporate this question in.

Speaker 2: It's more satisfying for us creatively. It's more satisfying for the people we work for creatively. Right. It's a more realistic depiction of what we do. Right. If you look at a television show from the 1980s... Back then. Yeah, back then. Back when... Yes. Back when we chiseled the sides in stone. Nice spoken Greek. Chiseled the sides in stone. You'll see episode after episode where there isn't a guest star who's not Caucasian. Right. And that's not the world we live in.

Speaker 1: Right. I had more questions and I forgot them. You're not going to get the part. Dang. Okay, let's talk... Is there striking differences between how you cast a TV show versus... Let's say a pilot versus a movie.

Speaker 2: Yes and no. Okay. A pilot you're casting in 10 weeks, a movie you're usually casting in 10-12 weeks. Depending on the level of the movie, you can either get a better known, more famous name in it. Depending. I mean, I just passed a billboard. There's a Netflix show with Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman. And Paul Rudd's playing two sides of himself, which I can't wait to see.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Because he's such a good actor. Sounds fun. And really one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Yeah, I mean the crossover is so vast today. In a movie, it's a one-shot. You're looking to create an encapsulated world. Unless it's a serial movie. Like, you know... An SIPR movie or something. Yeah, yeah. And on television, you're looking to cast people for the life of the series.

Speaker 1: Right. Can they hold a series? Are they interested?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean...

Speaker 1: Well, not just that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, can they... If there's stars, can they support a series? Can they launch it? But also, you watch actors grow into those roles. Right. Over the course of them. If you watch a series... Take The Walking Dead. Take Andrew Lincoln. If you watch his growth over the course of that series as an actor, it's pretty fantastic. He was a very nice actor when he started the series. But he's really shown depth and range over the course of that series, if you watch that growth. And then they start writing for your scripts. Right. The producers get to know you, you get to know them, and they start writing for all those things that an actor can do. Bryan Cranston. We all knew he was a great dramatic actor. But he had only done comedies in terms of television. And then he does this dramatic role that's one of the greatest dramatic roles ever written.

Speaker 1: Do you see different actors for movies versus pilots?

Speaker 2: Yes, it depends on the level of the movie. So, ten-pull movies are like Disney creating a franchise. You want those names that are going to sell that franchise around the world and know that when it opens up in China, it's going to make more money than it's going to make in this territory. Even when you're doing a small independent film these days, you're looking at these formulas that are sort of calculated by people who crunch numbers. Yeah. Foreign value. And it's by which territory we can sell that name in this territory, this territory, or in this territory. We can sell this name in this territory, in this territory. So, if you put those two names together, they sell in 17 different territories. Right. Or eight territories. So, yeah, that is looked at.

Speaker 1: And what about for like, so let's say not the leads, but like the supporting roles or the smaller roles where it doesn't have to be a name necessarily.

Speaker 2: No, then you're just trying to cast the best actors. You know what the hardest thing about our business is for everybody? There's no formulas to it. It's Tuesday, I'm casting yellow and blue. Wednesday, I'm casting orange and purple. Monday, I'm working on a comedy and Tuesday, I'm working on a heavy drama. There isn't a formula to it. Right. You know, as a casting director, because we have to, especially when you're on a series, you know, every six, eight days, you're doing something completely different. We're kind of used to change. Right. And I talk about that a lot when I teach that you have to be very open-minded when you come in for an audition. You have to prepare. You have to do your research. If you are wedded to that audition in the way that you're doing it and you don't listen and you're not open to having a director or a casting director tell you, well, that was very nice, but why don't we try it slower? Let's put a little bit more heart. Let's get it out of your head a little bit. Let's bring out the emotion. And if you can't change with those directions, you have to look at yourself in the actor and say, okay, how do I adjust my tools as an actor to be able to change when somebody tells me a direction? And I see this all the time because I've got a great viewing. If my director is sitting behind me and the tape person's behind me and I'm facing the actor, I'm listening to what the director is saying. I'm watching the actor go like this and I know it's going right over their head. I can see it in their eyes because they're just thinking. You have to open up your mind. You have to listen because ultimately, when you're acting with another actor, you have to be 100% present with that person the way that you and I are talking right now. We're looking at each other. We're reacting to each other's body language. We're reacting to each other's eyes and reacting to what we say to each other. That's what we do. That's the business we're in. I'm speaking so fast. Are you taking notes?

Speaker 1: You can watch it again. Watch it again. I'm speaking back in my... We're going to be right back.