Behind the scenes on "Ellen" - the coming out episode

It's been well over 10 years since Ellen DeGeneres famously came out on the Ellen show, paving the way for others. I've talked about my "Oprah" moment before, but I came across this piece I wrote about being part of the coming out episode, so I thought I would share it with you.

the inside story.....

Ten years ago, I was the Casting Director of the "Ellen" show. We had stopped trying to force Ellen's character into dating guys and instead just played up her comedy. I remember Ellen coming to me and telling me how much she wished that she could be out - We talked about when (if ever) the time would be right for her to come out. In the next season, we began laying secret plans for the now infamous PUPPY episode.

But before we filmed the coming out episode, there was an episode that some of you may remember - Ellen went to a rock n' roll camp with Bonnie Raitt and Aaron Neville and David Crosby. They sang a song together at the end. During the taping of that song, Sheryl Crow came out on stage too. The 5 of them were all singing the song, and then Ellen solo'd with this verse: "I am gay and it's ok" and Sheryl, Bonnie, Aaron and David, all echoed "What did you say, you are gay? That's ok!". The audience went crazy... they couldn't believe what they were hearing (Remember this was many months before she uttered her now famous line "I'm gay" in the airport lounge with Laura Dern). Disney pulled that tape and locked it away in a vault, and it has never seen the light of day.

As we started to prepare for the Puppy episode, it was kept very, very quiet. We called it the Puppy episode to try to lead people astray - we coudn't let anyone know what the episode was ACTUALLY about, so we all pretended it was Ellen getting a puppy. The script was being written by 4 of our producers and Ellen . We knew that we had to find a very special actress for the role that Laura Dern played. I recently pulled out my old ideas list and here is who was on it:
Jennifer Aniston
Ashley Judd
Robin Wright Penn
Laura Dern
Courtney Love
Toni Collette
Madonna
Mira Sorvino
Parker Posey
Anne Heche (!! - this was months before they had even met)
Bridget Fonda
Sarah Jessica Parker
Helen Hunt
Jodie Foster
Julianne Moore
Nicole Kidman
Uma Thurman
Tea Leoni
So, it could have been any one of these ladies, BUT most of them were afraid to do it! No one had done it before. Laura Dern was very brave. Ellen and I both spent time talking to her on the phone, and in fact, she almost got cold feet the day before - she got nervous, but Ellen was able to talk her back in to doing the role. I just read the other day that after this episode Laura wasn't hired for any roles for an entire year!

Filming that episode was overwhelming. On the day of the shoot, we had enlisted many of our friends (k.d. lang, Demi Moore, Billy Bob Thornton, Jenny Shimizu) to be part of a dream sequence. The set was so exciting - but only hours before we were to start shooting, we got word that there had been a bomb threat at the studios. Word had gotten out to the religious extremists and someone called threatening to blow up the stage. We quietly and solemnly evacuated and waited until we were allowed back in. We began filming the show - when it came time for Ellen to utter those famous words, "I'm Gay" there was a moment that felt frozen in time, a silent beat, before the entire stage and the audience ERUPTED with joy and cheers. Everyone was crying, especially Ellen, and it took over 15 minutes before we were able to shoot the scene again.

I will never forget being part of that amazing episode of television, watched by 30 million people back in 1997. And now you know a little bit of the back story.

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.

All quiet on the Casting Front....

This "non-strike" sure does feel like a strike.  It's had a chilling effect on productions being able to get moving.  But it is giving me plenty of time to work on the AreUaStar website, which I invite you to check out (http://www.AreUaStar.com).

Camryn Manheim will be added to the site next week doing a v-blog and she's got a really cool analysis called "Evolution of an Audition" that will be up in addition to her v-blog.  So make sure you check back with the site soon.

I love the 4th of July.  Fireworks and block parties are two of my favorite things.  Pretty sure it comes from being a small kid living on a cul de sac where the teenagers let me light off fireworks at a very early age.  That, and winning the watermelon seed spitting contest were early childhood highlights.

Have a great 4th.  Some big movies out there - I still haven't seen "Get Smart".  I saw "Wanted" and hated it.  Too much blood for my taste.

Will there be a SAG strike?

Does anyone really know if there will be a SAG strike?  And if so, when will it start?  The SAG contract is set to expire on the last day of June, but Alan Rosenberg (the President of SAG) has stated that SAG and the AMPTP (who represents the studios) may continue discussions into July.

So, what does this mean for television and film production?  Well, for me, it means a very slow time.  The writers strike virtually wiped out pilot season, and now the potential of the SAG strike is making it difficult for new projects to be greenlit.  So many Casting Directors are in a holding pattern.

We are waiting on financing for a new film about Kent State.  Hopefully, we'll get the go ahead to start working on that in the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I am working diligently on my new website - which you all  know by now is  http://www.AreUaStar.com

It's been really interesting and fun to connect with people all over the globe who are interested in breaking into acting.  The site has had thousands of visitors from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, Sweden, England and Germany.  Apparently,  the desire for stardom is universal.  

I'm also helping my friend Meredith Scott Lynn (you may recognize her from "Legally Blonde" or from her many TV appearances)  with a project that she has written for the actress Tracee Ellis Ross (Diana Ross' daughter, who just finished a very successful run on the CW's "Girlfriends").  Meredith is putting together a table read of her script and I am helping to populate it with strong actors.  It's been really fun for me to work on some projects that- if it were the busy norm- I wouldn't be able to spend any time on.  

So, let's keep our fingers crossed that the actors won't strike - there has been enough down time this year in the television and film business.  

My favorite actor of the week:  Dylan Moran from "Run, Fat Boy, Run".  He is funny, charming and British.  If you don't know him, check him out on www.imdb.com

ok... next please!

Casting Director pet peeves

My number one pet peeve is when someone refers to Casting Directors as "casting agents". What does this even mean? An agent is someone who represents actors and takes a percentage of their salary in return for soliciting jobs for actors and negotiating their deals. In some larger agencies, there are "casting agents" and this means that those agents are primarily charged with working on getting their acting clients cast in television and film.

A Casting Director, on the other hand, is hired by a studio or production company to present a variety of actors, through the audition process, to the directors and producers and to advise and inform the entire casting process. Casting Directors are responsible for the hiring of the entire ensemble, acting as a liaison between the actors and the producers and directors, and working with the actors agents to find just the right actors to fill specific roles. We sift through the thousands of submissions, audition the actors, narrow down the choices and then help with the negotiations of the deals.

For some reason, print media and many people continue to refer to Casting Directors as casting agents. This drives us crazy. So the next time you hear someone say "casting agent", do all of us CDs a favor and correct them. We'll be very appreciative.

Happy summer solstice!

Casting, Casting, Casting....

So, I just finished two fun projects. The first is a movie for MTV based on the life of Pedro Zamora. Pedro was the HIV positive young man on the Real World back in the early 90's. He was a remarkable young man - committed to educating the world and teaching tolerance and acceptance. He died not long after he left the show, but not before having a huge impact on the youth of that generation.

It was a great challenge to have to match actors to the people who appeared on The Real World. We put up the original Real World cast pictures on our bulletin board and had to keep them in mind always, so as to keep the movie authentic. This is different than any casting I've done in the past - usually, I have a blank slate and can fill the roles with people that are not identifiable with real faces. We found a great young actor named Alex Loynaz to play the role of Pedro. This is his first leading role. Jon Murray (Bunim/Murray Productions executives produces Real World and this film) was absolutely blown away by Alex's performance and his ability to take on Pedro's personality. The always wonderful Justina Machado (6 feet Under) plays Pedro's sister. Hopefully, we'll see this airing sometime in the late part of the year.

I also just completed a short film called "Boutonniere" from a new director. I've never cast a short film before, but I just loved the script, so I decided to do it. We cast the wonderful Wendi McLendon-Covey (Reno 911) in the lead. It's a dark comedy about a mom focused on her daughter's high school prom. This film will be on the festival circuit later this year.

It's over 100 degrees today, and my a/c at home is broken. I may have to move into the office - which unfortunately isn't that much better.