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.

Look who won an EMMY!

So happy for two of our good friends, Bryan Cranston and Jean Smart - both of whom earned Emmys last night. Bryan won Outstanding Lead Actor for "Breaking Bad" and Jean won Outstanding Supporting Actress for "Samantha Who", which I cast her in. Very pleased about that.

Bryan Cranston is a talented actor - who has really gotten an opportunity to stretch with this cool role in "Breaking Bad"... so many people know him from "Malcolm in the Middle", but this is totally different. He also happens to be a neighbor and friend. You can hear what Bryan has to say about star quality and being an actor in Hollywood on the AreUaStar.com site.

Ok - let's talk about the Emmys. Other than a nice shot of Ron Leavitt in the memorial section, I thought the evening was a disaster. The writing was awful, the use of the 5 reality hosts fell flat. Were those first 8 minutes not the most painful you have ever witnessed in television?

If I were a viewer with no stake in the TV biz, I would never tune in to that show again. But happy with the wins for our peeps. On a down side, came into my office this am to find that someone had broken in and stolen our video cameras. What a drag. As you can imagine, video cameras are a necessity in running a casting office. So, we'll just have to make sure we don't leave any of those kind of things at the office anymore.... or get better insurance.

Have an emmylicious week. Congrats Bryan and Jean!!

Artios Nominations for Excellence in Casting

Every year, the Casting Society of America (C.S.A. - those little initials that you see after most Casting Directors names on the big or small screen) salutes their own stars with an award called the Artios. The Artios nominations are out today, so I'm going to go over some of the highlights. Starting with yours truly, nominated for the Casting of "Samantha Who" on ABC. This is my 4th nomination for an Artios, having won once before for "Ellen" way back in 1998.

We've got tough competition in our category this year: Californication, Pushing Daisies, Chuck and Flight of the Conchords (these are all for the original pilot cast). Drama pilots nominated are: Damages, Mad Men, Gossip Girl, Saving Grace and In Treatment. Feature Dramas nominated are: Across the Universe, Michael Clayton, American Gangster, No Country For Old Men and Iron Man and the Comedy nominations are : 27 Dresses, Hairspray, Dan in Real LIfe, Juno and Enchanted.

The rest of the nominations should be posted later today at the CSA website: www.CastingSociety.com

Congratulations to all the nominees.

Actor of the week: Brooke Smith. Brooke is now on Grey's Anatomy, but she's always been one of my favorite actors. She starred in a great futuristic movie called: Series 7: The Contender which is a little bit like the "Death Race" movie coming out now. You know how some actors have a familiar face but you don't really know their name? This has kind of been Brooke's curse and perhaps strong point.

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