How'd you get into Casting?

Probably one of the most common questions I am asked is about how I got into Casting. I can tell you that, at least when I started, no one WANTED to be a Casting Director. It wasn't a career path that people considered... it was just something that people fell into. Now that we have health and pension benefits (only for the past 18 months - thanks to the great work of the Teamsters) - people might actually consider Casting as a viable career option.

I started, as many CDs do, as an actress. I was in lots of children's theatre and high school productions and then went to UCLA as a Theatre major. When I got to UCLA, I quickly realized that there were a lot of other actors who were more beautiful and more talented than I was and so I shifted my focus to behind the scenes. This has always served me well as a CD, because I think I really can empathize with the actors who come into my office.

I got an internship at Fenton- Feinberg (Mike Fenton and Jane Feinberg) and immediately got to work on E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Arc. I like to tell people that I started at the top and worked my way down :) When I say I worked on these projects, I mean that I answered the phones and opened envelopes. I think at that point, I wasn't even allowed to set up appointments - so my contribution was very minimal.... but it did give me an exciting look into the world of casting. I found that I had a knack for remembering actors faces and names, and that I would go into movies and watch the credits at the end to see who the actors were. Remember, this was before computers were used to do most work - so there was no IMDB to look up that kind of stuff. In fact, at the beginning of my career, we typed out cast lists manually on typewriters and when we made mistakes, we had to use the correcting ribbons. It was very primitive.

When I finished at UCLA, I was offered a job with a busy casting company called Holstra/Ross. Judith Holstra and Marcia Ross (currently head of Movie Casting at Disney) and got to work on a variety of movies. From there, I went on to working for a number of different great Casting Directors (the late Elisabeth Leustig - with whom I did Private Resort - starring Rob Morrow and Johnny Depp and others) before landing in television at Embassy TV. This was a great company. My boss was Stephen Kolzak, who was the original Casting Director of "Cheers". Steve was an amazing mentor - he loved live theatre, knew every actor in town and was really dedicated to casting as an art form. He was also an incredible activist - who taught me about standing up for what I believe in and taking an active role in community organizations. Steve helped me to get my first solo Casting gig, which was "Married... with Children". That was an incredible gift to me, as I was only 24 at the time I took on the show.

So, that's how I got my start. Not by direct intention, but more as a reaction to the reality of showbusiness.... and it's been an amazing career. I feel very lucky to have had such a long and successful run.