Exciting "Maneater" Casting News!

Well, we're off to a great start in 2009. The Maneater cast is coming together very well... we've set Gregory Harrison and Maria Conchita Alonso as Sarah Chalke's parents and the dashing Philip Winchester (star of NBC's "Crusoe") in the role of Sarah's love interest. Lifetime is excited about the project and we feel really excited about choices that we have for the other roles as well. It's great to work on such a strong script - we've had such positive response from actors and actresses.
We're enjoying working with this strong creative team.

Ok - I've talked about this before, but I have to reiterate my pet peeve from casting sessions.. actresses and actors who wear heavy perfume or cologne. Today, I walked into my waiting room and it was almost stifling. There were competing fragrances and our poor associate Anthony was hardly able to breathe. So, actors, remember this... while it may smell good to you, we have to meet and work with many actors each day, and each one of them bringing their own special "odeur" can make for a pretty overwhelming day. You will never win points for wearing cologne or scent in my book and I know this is a sentiment shared by many of my colleagues.

Congrats to Christina Applegate on her People's Choice award this past week for "Samantha Who". I am so very proud of this wonderful actress, who I have known since she was 15. Keeping my fingers crossed for her this weekend on the Golden Globes. I would have to say that the GGs are my favorite awards. This combination of film and television all in one place - its really the only time that happens during the year. I find the show to be much more fun to watch because the actors are more relaxed and it's not overly produced. Good luck also to Kevin Connolly, who is nominated for Best Actor for Entourage. I cast Kevin and worked with him for 5 seasons in a series called "Unhappily Ever After" for the WB written and produced by the brilliant Ron Leavitt. I know he's a long shot, but what a great thing to be nominated in a category including Alec Baldwin, Steve Carell, David Duchovny and Tony Shalhoub!

Casting awards and other fun things....

Well, this has been a fun week (and it's only Tuesday!). On Sunday, the "Married...with Children" cast reassembled for David Faustino's webseries. It was so great to see everyone in one place, and it felt just like we were "home" again. Great to catch up with Ed O'Neill and Katey Sagal, and to visit with Christina Applegate.

When it came time to shoot and Ed's first line as Al Bundy was "God, I hate my life"... it was as if they had never stopped playing their roles. They all picked right back up where they left off over 10 years ago. Ed O'Neill has that Al Bundy delivery that we all know, and it was really funny to hear it come out of his mouth. I think everyone had a really great time, and it was wonderful to see Steve Ritt, the dog trainer - who brought a dog that looked just like "Buck" the dog. He told us that he had to use spray-on hair color to get the dog to look like the old Buck.

Last night were the Artios awards, where the Casting Society gives out awards to it's own. I was nominated, along with my casting partner Jason Wood, for our work on "Samantha Who". We didn't win, but congratulations to Meg Liberman and Cami Patton who won for "Pushing Daisies". Congratulations also go out to Jason Wood for winning his first Artios for "Park" in the independent low budget feature category.

Other friends of AreUaStar.com who won include David Rubin and Richard Hicks for "Re-Count". It was great fun to see all of the agents, managers and of course, all of my Casting Director colleagues. The CSA put together a great event and a wonderful dais that inclued Neil Patrick Harris as the master of ceremonies, Audra McDonald, Elisabeth Shue, Jimmy Smits, Sandra Oh, Joshua Jackson and Selena Gomez.

The Emmys - Casting Directors win awards!

Congrats go out to the Emmy winning Casting Directors who received their awards at this past weekend's Creative Arts ceremony. This is the evening where they honor those awards that are deemed not important enough to be part of the televised ceremony. The exception to that is Best Guest Actor/Actress - and those people are usually brought out to present at the televised portion which airs this upcoming weekend.

In the category of Comedy Series, the Emmy went to Jennifer McNamara Shroff for "30 Rock". Drama Series went to "Damages" (Julie Tucker, Ross Meyerson & Avy Kaufman) and the winning Casting for Miniseries, Movie or Special went to Kathleen Chopin, Nina Gold and Tracy Kilpatrick for "John Adams".

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees for their great work. And good luck to all our nominated friends for this upcoming weekend, especially Christina Applegate, Jean Smart and Arlene Sanford!

Good news and bad news

I haven't posted in a while, as it's been slow in the casting world. We've got a few things about to start, so I'll share them once they've been greenlit. In the meantime, I'd like to shout out to Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi who were married over the weekend. I've known Ellen for over 20 years. I met her after seeing her do standup at the Comedy Store on Melrose in Los Angeles in 1985. She had just moved down to L.A. from San Francisco and didn't know a lot of people. I thought she was the funniest person I'd ever seen, and I quickly recommended her for a pilot that I was working on (as a Casting Associate) for NBC. She was tested for the pilot, which she didn't get, but that was the beginning of a long friendship and working collaboration.

In 1992, I had finished law school (I went at night while I was casting "Married...with Children) and was going to leave casting to practice entertainment law. Ellen got a series and asked me to cast it. This turned out, as I've discussed before, to be a career highlight - casting "Ellen". So, my best wishes to Ellen and Portia.

Unfortunately, this week, news also came out about Christina Applegate's battle against cancer. Today I heard that she is cancer free after undergoing a double mastectomy. My thoughts are with Christina and her mom Nancy Priddy. I've know Christina since she was in her teens. She is a warm, caring, talented lady and I'm proud of her becoming a leader and role model in support of cancer awareness.

Actor of the week: Beatrice Rosen - Beatrice is a French born actress who you may have seen recently in "The Dark Night" playing the Russian ballerina that dates Bruce Wayne.

Emmy nomination day

This is always an exciting day for those of us who work in television. Today, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the nominations for the 2008 Emmys. I'm going to post the Casting nominations below.... and no, we were not nominated for our work on "Samantha Who" this year - however congratulations to CHRISTINA APPLEGATE and JEAN SMART from the show, who were nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy Series and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

Also, congratulations go out to our talented colleagues in the casting world for their great work of this past season. And the nominees are....

Outstanding Casting For A Comedy Series

30 Rock
Jennifer McNamara Shroff

Californication
Felicia Fasano, C.S.A., Casting By
Pat McCorkle, C.S.A., Original New York Casting

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Allison Jones, Casting Director

Pushing Daisies
Camille Patton, C.S.A.,
Meg Liberman, C.S.A.,
Jennifer Lare, C.S.A.,

Ugly Betty
Jeff Greenberg, C.S.A.
Mark Scott, C.S.A.

Outstanding Casting For A Drama Series

Brothers & Sisters
Jeanie Bacharach, C.S.A., Casting Director
Gillian O'Neill, C.S.A., Casting Director

Damages
Julie Tucker, C.S.A., Co-Casting Director
Ross Meyerson, Co-Casting Director
Avy Kaufman, Casting Director - Pilot

Friday Night Lights
Linda Lowy
John Brace
Beth Sepko, Texas Casting Director

Mad Men
Kim Miscia, Casting Director (Pilot)
Beth Bowling, Casting Director (Pilot)
Laura Schiff, Casting Director (Series)
Carrie Audino, Casting Director (Series)

The Tudors
Nuala Moiselle
Frank Moiselle
Mary Jo Slater, C.S.A., US Casting
Steve Brooksbank, C.S.A., US Casting
Stephanie Gorin, C.S.A., C.D.C., Canadian Casting

Outstanding Casting For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special

Cranford (Masterpiece Theatre)
Maggie Lunn, Casting Director

John Adams
Kathleen Chopin, C.S.A., Casting Director
Nina Gold, C.D.G., Casting Director
Tracy Kilpatrick, Casting Director

Recount
David Rubin, C.S.A., Casting Director
Richard Hicks, C.S.A., Casting Director
Lori S. Wyman, C.S.A., Florida Casting Director
Kathleen Chopin, C.S.A., New York Casting Director
Julie Schubert, New York Casting Director

The Bronx Is Burning
Billy Hopkins
Paul Schnee
Hopkins, Smith & Barden Casting

The Company
Denise Chamian, C.S.A.
Scout Masterson
Diane Kerbel, Canada Casting
Priscilla John, UK Casting
Zsolt Csutak, Hungary Casting

The initials C.S.A. after most of the American CD's names indicate membership in the Casting Society of America. I'd like to give a personal shout out to my friends nominated this year including: David Rubin and Richard Hicks, Meg Liberman and Cammi Patton and Jeff Greenberg.

for more information and the rest of the nominations, you can visit www.emmy.tv

Sometimes, Casting is about timing.

I was thinking about luck and timing as it pertains to actors, and I was reminded of a casting story from very early in my career.

When we were casting the pilot episode of "Married... with Children" (way back in the late 80's), we cast 2 kids to play the roles of Kelly and Bud - and it wasn't Christina Applegate or David Faustino! That's right - in the originally taped pilot, two other young actors had been cast in the roles - Tina Caspary for Kelly and the son of Karen Black, Hunter Carson as Bud. Christina Applegate had turned down the role! It was, remember, a very racy script for that time, and on a fledgling network that no one had any reason to trust. (the pilot script didn't even have a name - we just called it "Not the Cosby Show")

After we shot the pilot - at Sunset Gower studios in Hollywood - and it was picked up by Fox for a series order, the producers Ron Leavitt and Michael Moye decided to re-cast the kids roles and re-shoot their scenes. We again went after Christina Applegate, who had just finished shooting a series called "Heart of the City" with Robert Desiderio. This time, she agreed. To recast the role of Bud, we had to bring choices to the network for a test (this is a common practice - you bring 3 or 4 top choices to the network and then there is a collaborative discussion about who to cast). On the day of the network test, we were bringing 6 young men to show to Fox. David Faustino was one, and our other top choice was Vonnie Ribisi - now known as Giovanni Ribisi. But on that day, Vonnie was booked as a guest star for another show, and he couldn't get out of his filming schedule to get to the test. David Faustino got the role and created that very memorable character of Bud Bundy. But who knows what might have happened if Vonnie had made the test. So you see, luck and timing are factors in the casting process.

On a side note, Ron Leavitt - the creator of "Married..." and "Unhappily Ever After", passed away recently. He was a very special man - the most loyal person that I have ever worked with - a rare quality to find in Hollywood. Ron was gentle, funny, brilliantly smart and extraordinarily generous. He created a family on the set- hiring the same crew over and over again for all of his projects. His death is a huge loss to the creative community of Hollywood.

My actor of the week is: Max Thierot who stars in Kitt Kittridge. Turns out he is from Los Altos Hills, which is where I grew up too.