backstage.com: Casting director Sarah Finn assembled Marvel's "The Avengers," won an Artios Award for crafting the ensemble cast of "Crash," and found the "Seven Psychopaths" of Martin McDonagh's upcoming film. She says her experience as a New York theater actor early in her career helped her become one of the top casting directors in Hollywood.
4 comments:
I have never considered the job of a casting director, mostly because I don't think I could effectively judge who was talented and who wasn't. My background has mostly been where the director watches in on auditions, and then does most all of the casting decision making. It almost doesn't make sense to have a casting director, how could the casting director and the head director have the same exact feelings? But, I can see where on large movies and such, a casting director would be very helpful. It was also interesting to read that she looked at theatre reviews for relative "unknowns" in the wide cultural world. That's really great that someone is bothering to read reviews of smaller shows in NYC and Chicago and finding real talent.
I would think that being an actor and having that experience, even backstage or as a director, would only help fuel success in the role of casting. It’s great that she has a lot of connections with actors and appreciates a good, well-rounded actor. When she talks about constantly reading reviews, there must be a hallelujah chorus ringing through every actor’s ears. It is so important to be taking whatever you can get by way of publicity because that could be your one-way ticket into the business at a new level. What is also important is the fact that this woman is multi-talented. Not only is the information valuable to her as a person, but also that is how a lot of people get work. They get work because they have multiple talents and skills that are useful to others and still allow that person the ability to make the valuable connections. Her collaborative work idea is also valuable because of how much theater is a team effort. Overall, she has found a unique and difficult way into a very important job that makes or breaks a script.
To tell you the truth, I never really understood what a casting director did. I mean, yes, I know they cast actors into roles for movies and television, but I never understood or took the time to think about what all goes into that process. Like js144 said, I am glad that she reads the press reviews of theatrical pieces for film work. I believe that the theatrical world has so much to offer the film industry and often it is overlooked. I would also like to mention breifly the skills this woman has. I felt that the cast done for "Marvel's The Avengers" was spectacular. There is not one person in the movie I would have casted differently. Like Kelly mentioned, I would have no talent at this whatsoever, so I completely appreciate and respect the skill and talent that goes into this work.
Honestly, I was disappointed that this article didn't focus more on her transition from actor to casting director, and that middle ground between Yale/EST and The Avengers. For an article about that transition, it barely touched it, jumping from her work at EST to her first casting director gig. How did she end up in casting? Did she get her gig with Deborah Aquila using her connection to Garcia, or was that just a coincidence? When did she know for sure that casting was where she belonged? In an industry that contains so many people wanting to be actors, I was hoping that this article would shed a little bit more on how she found satisfaction outside of acting, and therefore possibly open that door to other actors reading the article. But unfortunately, I guess I'll have to do my own research elsewhere.
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