Simultaneously, the movie business now experiments with a colorblind approach to casting.
With 'The Leftovers,' I was actually super, super lucky. It was my first major audition. When I came out, the casting director was kissing me on the face, and I was like, 'Oh, that's probably a good sign.'
The first time I met Garry Shandling was my audition for 'The Larry Sanders Show,' with Garry and his casting director Francine Maisler. I can recall every minute of it. He was gracious and kind, and he read with me. He was terrific.
Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up.
It would have been an interesting run if we hadn't gotten along! It was good casting, I suppose.
Casting directors now just see me as the hard-core sniper or prison guard.
I used to be very shy. When I first started, I had to go to a casting, and I had to go in a bikini. I thought I was too skinny. But I went in and got the job! And that's how I started.
As I've always said, preproduction is so important. When you cast the actors, you've done much of the work. Now, you may need to guide them a little, take it up or down, have them go faster or slower, but the casting process is crucial.
It is not easy to get parts in mainstream films for most people of color. Hollywood and British writers are not writing parts for us, or the directors are not interested in casting us in parts that are color-blind.
A lot of times in Hollywood, when casting directors find out you're of Middle Eastern descent, they go, 'Oh, you're Iranian? Great. Can you say, 'I will kill you in the name of Allah?'' I could say that, but what if I were to say, 'Hello, I'm your doctor.'
But, Tarantino has seen all of my movies. He's seen my good stuff, he's seen my bad stuff, he's seen the ones I directed, he's read my autobiography. There's an awful lot of things he knows about me, all of which I think had something to do with his casting.
I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent.
My experience with casting children is that... the whole movie is going to rest on their shoulders, so you have to set aside time and wait for the perfect people to appear.
I remember once being told by a casting person, years ago, that I shouldn't pursue a career in the business because of the color of my skin. The fact that I remember it today means it stuck with me. I thought that was really stupid advice and advice nobody should ever give someone.
When you say something or sing something enough times, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's almost like casting spells. I don't mean necessarily in the flighty, 'I'm going to go buy a cloak with a hood now' way.
The public saw my father right out of central casting. He looked the part, acted the part... he was the part! The real life Godfather.
I just like to catch fish, I don't care if it weighs half a pound or 10 pounds. But I can't do a lot of casting. I can work a jig or a worm. But not for long, especially if the big ones are biting. Those big bass will make it hurt after a while.
But then all that died down and as far as casting was concerned it didn't really matter that I had been on Broadway.
When I was thinking of casting this, I thought, What roles would Sellers be playing now?
Even when they have a star that they're going after, casting directors love, if anything, just the excuse to see people. They like to have a dugout full of actors that they can go to.
I started casting. I cast music videos, but I kept getting fired from jobs because I was iconoclastic in my ways of casting.
A friend told me about the casting notice for 'Queer Eye.' I was in Chicago and I had a contract with 'Esquire' magazine, so had been coming to New York City regularly and thought I'd catch a cheap flight, crash on a friend's sofa and do this hilarious audition that I had no chance of winning.
I can do comedy, so people want me to do that, but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep, deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side.
When you're shy, the worst thing you can do is go into all these casting rooms and be scrutinized. But with shyness, I think you just have to bite the bullet.
Sometimes it's all about the casting.
I got into acting as a young child on account of a sort of arbitrary thing. A friend of my mom's was a casting director, so really, as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it.
George Lucas was casting about and had heard favourable things about my work in Clockwork Orange and asked me to come in, which of course I did even though no one knew what the film was about!
I can honestly, and proudly, say that I never was on the casting couch. Oh, of course there have been advances from certain men in the movie industry, but nothing overwhelming.
I've moved into directing as well as acting, and it has taught me never to take casting personally.
The number of Latino roles is very limited, and it's unfortunate there isn't more color-blind casting.
I had moved across the country, taken internships, networked, worked long hours, and called in favors to get there. And I had done it. I was working in Hollywood. So imagine the melancholy I found myself in when I realized that I didn't love casting the way that I always thought I would.
Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.
I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game.
I was shopping with my mother in 2006 and saw that there was a model casting going on. A couple of months later, I was one of the fifteen finalists in an international contest.
I'm flatchested, I'm short, I'm brunette, I have droopy eyes, and so people have a hard time casting me as a 'beauty.'
Casting is sort of like looking at paintings. You don't know what you'll like, but you recognize it when you see it.