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.
Showing posts with label Married...with Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Married...with Children. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
We're doing a Web Series....
My old friend David Faustino called last week to see if we would do the casting on a new project he is producing. It's a web series based on a fictionalized version of himself. You remember David as "Bud Bundy" from "Married... with Children". I watched the pilot, which he already made, and it is hilarious. There is a special appearance by Ed O'Neill (Al Bundy) and the series is going to be lots of fun. There are some pretty outrageous characters. We'll be doing it on a shoestring budget, but I think we will enjoy the process. Also playing a prominent role is Corin Nemec - who you might remember from "Parker Lewis can't Lose". He is one of David's best friends in real life, and plays himself in the series.
We may open up the audition process on the AreUaStar website to allow actors to submit themselves for available roles. Stay tuned for more on that idea.
I'll have some updates as to the positives and the challenges of casting a web series once we begin.
Had a hard time getting into the series premiere of "Heroes" - once my very favorite show. Hopefully I can get swept back up into it. Any reaction out there on new series premieres?
Wanted to let you know that the membership of the Casting Union (Teamsters Local 399) overwhelmingly voted to ratify the contract for a 3 year term. Phew, guess this means we can all keep working.... oh, wait a minute.. there's still a pseudo SAG strike clogging everything up. Well, hopefully that will be over soon and we can all get back to full steam. Kudos to the rest of the Union Steering Committee for all their hard work on making gains and helping Casting Directors to get pension and health benefits.
Actor of the week: Sara Swain. Sara stars in a short movie that I cast called "Boutonniere". I saw a screening of it last week and all the cast was great. Congrats to writer/director Coley Sohn! Speaking of "Heroes", one of the people making a cameo appearance in this short is Zach Quinto, who plays Siler the villian in "Heroes". He plays an effeminite dress shop owner in our short. Here is Sara's info: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1565066/
We may open up the audition process on the AreUaStar website to allow actors to submit themselves for available roles. Stay tuned for more on that idea.
I'll have some updates as to the positives and the challenges of casting a web series once we begin.
Had a hard time getting into the series premiere of "Heroes" - once my very favorite show. Hopefully I can get swept back up into it. Any reaction out there on new series premieres?
Wanted to let you know that the membership of the Casting Union (Teamsters Local 399) overwhelmingly voted to ratify the contract for a 3 year term. Phew, guess this means we can all keep working.... oh, wait a minute.. there's still a pseudo SAG strike clogging everything up. Well, hopefully that will be over soon and we can all get back to full steam. Kudos to the rest of the Union Steering Committee for all their hard work on making gains and helping Casting Directors to get pension and health benefits.
Actor of the week: Sara Swain. Sara stars in a short movie that I cast called "Boutonniere". I saw a screening of it last week and all the cast was great. Congrats to writer/director Coley Sohn! Speaking of "Heroes", one of the people making a cameo appearance in this short is Zach Quinto, who plays Siler the villian in "Heroes". He plays an effeminite dress shop owner in our short. Here is Sara's info: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1565066/
Friday, July 25, 2008
A great man - remembering Ron Leavitt
If you are or were a fan of the show "Married...with Children", then you should know the name Ron Leavitt. Ron (and his then writing partner Michael Moye) created "Married... "Ron came from a journalism background and wrote on shows like "Happy Days" before he created "Married". He passed away in February, but I was thinking a lot about him yesterday, so I wanted to share about him.
Ron was the most intensely loyal producer that I have worked with in the 25 years I have been in the television business. He assembled a crew of people for "Married..." and then used that same crew for the next 20 years - on whatever shows he did ("Unhappily Ever After", "The Help", etc). It was like he was the father of a large extended family and he re-created the same family feeling each time he got a show on the air. Ron was obviously a very funny man, but he also was also generous and gentle with actors. When giving notes to actors he would always start with a buffer... "just the tiniest thing...." so it never felt that he was ordering you to do something, but rather he was collaborating and giving minor adjustments. This is not to say that he didn't have strong opinions - because he did. And they were generally right. He knew his way around a joke.
One spring, a few years ago, Ron had an amazing pilot season. He had 2 pilots ordered at the same time. This is almost unheard of, and it meant that he had to oversee both of them simultaneously. The two pilots were "The Help" for the WB and "The Pool at Maddy Breakers" for Fox. Ron really wanted to be back at Fox because he had helped create the network's success with "Married..." and he wanted to finish out his career with another big hit there.
Ron asked me to cast both pilots, which I was happy to do - but 20th television and Fox were concerned that I couldn't cast both pilots at the same time and told Ron that he needed to hire a different Casting Director. Ron refused. He told them that I was his only Casting Director and he prevailed. I did both pilots. Ron and I had a great time casting them. Ron was a quirky guy - not an early riser- so all casting had to be done on his schedule... nothing before 2 or 3pm. So this meant, that we would cast for both shows, back to back from 3pm - 10pm each day.
Pilot casting is very intense. You generally have a short period of time to get the roles cast, and often you are casting during a time when many other pilots (at least before the writers strike) are being cast, so there is an artificially created feeding frenzy for the actors during this period (February and March). So, we spent a lot of time together during this time. Ron always liked to have some sort of unhealthy food treat around, so he would have an assistant bring fresh pretzels or doughnuts or meatball sandwiches (he couldn't understand why or how I could be a vegetarian) and all of us grew happily larger during our pilot casting days.
Ultimately, "The Help" was ordered to series, while "Maddy Breaker" was not. "Maddy" starred Jodi Lynn O'Keefe (Nash Bridges) and Jill Ritchie (Debs) and Nick Brennan (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) and The Help had a big cast that featured Brenda Strong (Desperate Housewives), Megan Fox (Transformers) and television names Tori Spelling, Mindy Cohn and Antonio Sabato.
Ron always made working a great joy. He was a great storyteller, loved bragging about his children and loved the small bottles of Coke. Never Pepsi. Everyone who worked with him adored him. His death leaves a great void in Hollywood - he was truly one of a kind and I am glad I was his Casting Director for all of those years and for all of those series.
p.s. My AreUaStar actor pick of the week is: Tara Karsian. Tara is a comedic actress with a wonderfully expressive face. Check her out on imdb. You will likely recognize the face, but may not know the name.
Ron was the most intensely loyal producer that I have worked with in the 25 years I have been in the television business. He assembled a crew of people for "Married..." and then used that same crew for the next 20 years - on whatever shows he did ("Unhappily Ever After", "The Help", etc). It was like he was the father of a large extended family and he re-created the same family feeling each time he got a show on the air. Ron was obviously a very funny man, but he also was also generous and gentle with actors. When giving notes to actors he would always start with a buffer... "just the tiniest thing...." so it never felt that he was ordering you to do something, but rather he was collaborating and giving minor adjustments. This is not to say that he didn't have strong opinions - because he did. And they were generally right. He knew his way around a joke.
One spring, a few years ago, Ron had an amazing pilot season. He had 2 pilots ordered at the same time. This is almost unheard of, and it meant that he had to oversee both of them simultaneously. The two pilots were "The Help" for the WB and "The Pool at Maddy Breakers" for Fox. Ron really wanted to be back at Fox because he had helped create the network's success with "Married..." and he wanted to finish out his career with another big hit there.
Ron asked me to cast both pilots, which I was happy to do - but 20th television and Fox were concerned that I couldn't cast both pilots at the same time and told Ron that he needed to hire a different Casting Director. Ron refused. He told them that I was his only Casting Director and he prevailed. I did both pilots. Ron and I had a great time casting them. Ron was a quirky guy - not an early riser- so all casting had to be done on his schedule... nothing before 2 or 3pm. So this meant, that we would cast for both shows, back to back from 3pm - 10pm each day.
Pilot casting is very intense. You generally have a short period of time to get the roles cast, and often you are casting during a time when many other pilots (at least before the writers strike) are being cast, so there is an artificially created feeding frenzy for the actors during this period (February and March). So, we spent a lot of time together during this time. Ron always liked to have some sort of unhealthy food treat around, so he would have an assistant bring fresh pretzels or doughnuts or meatball sandwiches (he couldn't understand why or how I could be a vegetarian) and all of us grew happily larger during our pilot casting days.
Ultimately, "The Help" was ordered to series, while "Maddy Breaker" was not. "Maddy" starred Jodi Lynn O'Keefe (Nash Bridges) and Jill Ritchie (Debs) and Nick Brennan (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) and The Help had a big cast that featured Brenda Strong (Desperate Housewives), Megan Fox (Transformers) and television names Tori Spelling, Mindy Cohn and Antonio Sabato.
Ron always made working a great joy. He was a great storyteller, loved bragging about his children and loved the small bottles of Coke. Never Pepsi. Everyone who worked with him adored him. His death leaves a great void in Hollywood - he was truly one of a kind and I am glad I was his Casting Director for all of those years and for all of those series.
p.s. My AreUaStar actor pick of the week is: Tara Karsian. Tara is a comedic actress with a wonderfully expressive face. Check her out on imdb. You will likely recognize the face, but may not know the name.
Monday, July 14, 2008
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.
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.
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