Two sides to the story
Right now, we’re starting casting for Ops, the Fox pilot we’ll hopefully shoot after the holidays. Since most readers out there have never been through network casting — or any casting — I thought I’d talk you through the process. Or at least, the start of the process.
The first thing we had to do was hire a casting director. That was easy; I picked Robert Ulrich, who did the casting for my last pilot. He put together a master list of every name-brand actor to consider for the two lead roles.
Last week, we had a “casting concept” meeting with the network and the studio (both Fox, but different divisions), and talked through the list. I’m always amazed at (a) how many of the names I recognize, and (b) how few of the shows I’ve even heard of.
- THEM
- Tom Cavanagh is unavailable. He’s a series regular on Love Monkey.
- ME
- What the hell is ‘Love Monkey?’
- THEM
- It’s on CBS.
- ME
- Is it on now?
- THEM
- Maybe?
So, barring unforeseen circumstances, don’t count on Tom Cavanagh being in the show. (Although he is apparently in How to Eat Fried Worms, which was one of my old projects. God bless you, IMDb.)
The two lead roles in the show are Joe McGinty and Theo Vanowen. Ideally, one or both roles would go to bigger name actors who are “offer only.” That means that they don’t audition. You call their agents and ask, “Hey, does [fill in the name] want to be in the show?” If they say yes, boom, you’re done.
At the casting concept meeting, we decided to go after one actor who was offer-only. We also talked through all of the actors with which Fox has special holding deals. That’s the dream: you have the guys you want, and you haven’t gone through a lot of auditions/meetings/aggravation to get there.
But in case it doesn’t happen so easily, we decided to begin auditions.
The first step is sending out the breakdown, which describes the roles that are up for audition. The form itself is copyrighted; a company called Breakdown Services handles the process, and given how often they mark “CONFIDENTIAL” on everything, I won’t include the real form so as to avoid pissing them off.
But here’s what we wrote about the characters in the script:
- The driver is an American: THEO VANOWEN (mid-30’s to 40’s). Effortlessly intimidating, he’s fought on four continents and killed many men — but not one more than he had to. He keeps both eyes scanning the road.
- …
- His business partner, JOE MCGINTY (late 20’s to 30’s), is more MBA than Marine. Much better with words than weapons, he’s an expert negotiator who could talk his way past St. Peter. Both men wear body armor.
Both roles are marked “PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES.” From experience, I can tell you that if you don’t do that, you only end up with white people.
Once a part hits Breakdown, every talent agent in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere has access to the information. A related service called Screenplay Online lets actors, agents and managers download .pdf versions of the script, along with the sides.
Ah, the sides.
First, a definition: “Sides” are the scenes from the script that actors read for their auditions. It’s up to the showrunners (me and Jordan) to pick which scenes we want to hear read. For Ops, we’re focussing on casting the two lead roles, so we picked scenes that have both guys in them, and showed a range of emotions, from jovial to pissed off. (That’s pretty much the full range of emotion for this particular show.)
When picking the sides, you want to pick your best scenes, since these are the moments that the studio, the network, and everyone else will see when they watch casting tapes. Every time they hear your clever dialogue, you want them to fall more and more in love with your show, so they’ll give it a plum spot on the fall schedule.
But in many ways, you really don’t want to use your best scenes in the sides, because of one horrible truth: you will hear the exact same scene 5,000 times. You will hear it read by great actors, decent actors, and people you can’t believe have the nerve to call themselves actors. The words will blur together into a meaningless mush.
You will hate these scenes so much that you will rewrite them before you shoot the actual show, just so you can stand to hear them.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first casting session is tomorrow. The actors will be talented. The words will be fresh. And casting will proceed apace.
Articles
November 15th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
How disconcerting that you have to point out to these doofuses that there is more than one ethnicity in the military. Do they also know there is more than one gender? Actually, that part would be up to the writers. Don’t disappoint me, boys. Hey, why not go super fresh and give her a big butt? JGTH, “THINGS THEY WON’T TELL YOU IN FILM SCHOOL”
November 15th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
Good luck with the show John. Too bad its on Fox so it’ll be brilliant and get cancelled.
November 16th, 2005 at 12:09 am
John, let me help you out.
Alana De La Garza. Brillstein-Grey.
November 16th, 2005 at 12:56 am
I’ve been interning in a management office for the past three months, and I’d always wondered who wrote the breakdowns. The style seemed to vary too much from one to another to be an institutional voice, but some of them seemed too clueless and vague to come from anyone who had any direct attachment to the project.
November 16th, 2005 at 4:56 am
Good luck, John!
I really understand what you mean: picking the scene that is going to be repeated endlessly is really tricky. I had to do it some months ago and… well, I still hate that bloody scene that used to be my favorite one!
If you ever have enough time, could you please talk about how do you feel when you see your script on the big screen? Do you suffer or do you relax and watch the movie just like it was someone else’s job?
Thanks for this great site.
November 16th, 2005 at 6:17 am
John, do you ever write an audition scene actors can read but will not be in the script? I understand Mike Nichols had Buck Henry write just such a scene when casting the graduate. He anticipated he’d be burned out on any dialogue he’d heard read numerous times.
November 16th, 2005 at 6:37 am
“The driver is an American: THEO VANOWEN (mid-30’s to 40’s). Effortlessly intimidating, he’s fought on four continents and killed many men — but not one more than he had to. He keeps both eyes scanning the road.”
Well. Joey Tribbiani, anyone?
November 16th, 2005 at 8:53 am
Bradley Cooper = Joe McGinty
November 16th, 2005 at 9:08 am
For someone like myself who has nothing what so ever to do with the industry, the process that you have step by step explained is fascinating. Thank you! I love to know the behind the scenes process of tv/movies, and I completely appreciate you taking the time to explain it to those of us who are not “in the know”!
November 16th, 2005 at 9:49 am
Hey John. Sorry I missed you at Expo. Hope to meet you at some later point.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:05 am
JOHN:
Before I started directing and producing, I was an agent so I am very familiar with the casting process of a television show. And the scene you just described is one example of why television is so remarkably bad. The problem?
STAR NAMES.
There is nothing worse than seeing those two words after the description of a character. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and I can’t seem to pinpoint when this started happening. Early 90’s. Maybe even the mid 90’s. But somewhere around that time, television networks got the bright idea that they needed STAR NAMES to launch a television show. Kinda like the movies.
Ugh.
How very, very sad. What television executives always forget is that the casting in television and the casting in movies are COMPLETELY different.
MOVIES are a night out. You go to your local theatre, spend about 30 dollars (depends if you get the Super Combo), sit back and watch that STAR NAME that you get to see maybe once a year. If you’re lucky. Movies are about expectation. Audiences know what you get when you see Jack Nicholson on screen. He’ll smile, arch his feral eyebrows, and intimidate the hell out of you.
TELEVISION is a night in. You can wear whatever you want, it’s free, and there’s time to use the bathroom in between yucks. But when you turn it on, you don’t know what to expect. Television is about discovery. Who knew that Ted Danson, Jerry Seinfeld, Matthew Perry, Michael J. Fox, Jason Bateman, or David Cross, or Kelsey Grammar, or Dave Chappelle, and Carol Burnett, and Jennifer Aniston, and Ricky Gervais could be so funny! There was no way to know. And that makes great television. And I know these are all comedies but the same holds true for dramas as well. Prison Break, 24, ER…all little knowns or less. But they auditioned and got the part (I know some created their shows but still…).
The point is this: If you make a mathematical equation of star names in television versus unknowns, the unknowns win in a landslide.
Here’s the good news. Robert Ulrich/Eric Dawson their casting associates are casting your project. They’re a great casting company and they have a great history of discovering talent. Good luck and I hope it turns out great! But if you cast Ben Affleck as your lead…
…GOD HELP YOU.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:15 am
John, Ok so the form itself of a breakdown is copyrighted. Are you suggesting that to put my script in ‘breakdown form’ would have copyright violation consequences? Another way to interpret what you wrote is, “The form they gave me to fill out is copyrighted, so I can’t print it here.” -Malcolm
November 16th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
God help anyone who casts Ben Affleck in anything, to be honest.
November 16th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Huh. I thought I was the only one who got side-itis. I wonder if we shouldn’t just write scenes specifically for sides, ya know? Might be worth the effort.
November 16th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Good luck with the casting, Mr. August! Can’t wait to see the show.
November 16th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Have fun tomorrow John! I guess we’d all love to play Dr. Frankenstein in TV land so keep us abreast as it progresses so we can have some vicarious fun. Now back to the laboratory I go…
November 17th, 2005 at 9:34 am
Paul:
Yup, sometimes you do write scenes specifically for auditions. That often happens when a character doesn’t really have a audition-able moment in the current script. You write something longer and meatier, so you can get a better sense of them. And regardless, you end up tweaking some stuff when doing sides, since you don’t end up needing much stage direction.
Paulo:
Bradley Cooper would be ideal for McGinty. We checked. He is “unavailable for TV.” Which is ironic, since he’s on a TV show (“Kitchen Confidential’) on Fox, which doesn’t look like it will be renewed. But the truth is, he was really good in a giant hit movie (WEDDING CRASHERS), so he can probably get a lot of good movie work at this point.
So you find yourself saying, “We want Bradley Cooper from last year…” (sigh)
The first casting session went really well, by the way, so I feel pretty confident we won’t be lamenting Mr. Cooper’s inavailability.
November 17th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
Very interesting and informative stuff – especially coming from someone whose been through this before. Writers like you give me the hope that there might be a smaller role for which my mananger can actually submit me!
As always, thanks for taking the time to shine a light on another process of our unique industry.
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:35 am
Just read the OPS pilot, Mr. August. Outstanding. Call in Kevin Durand for Vanowen. Not as big a star as they’re looking for, I’m sure, but you’ll thank yourself for bringing him in. The guy’s incredible. And the definition of “intimidating without trying.” I believe he’s in the middle of shooting Joe Carnahan’s new one, SMOKIN’ ACES right now, so I don’t know if he’s in town. Anyhoo, well done, sir.
November 25th, 2005 at 8:50 am
I think that Ethan Hawke would be a good Theo Vanowen.
November 25th, 2005 at 10:56 am
Ethan Hawke is not doing TV. We checked.
When you build your initial casting lists, there’s always a lot of discussion about which movie stars you consider going after. For instance, Ethan Hawke is at a point in his career where you do call and check whether he’s interested in doing TV. It’s not that he’s not getting movie offers, but he could certainly have showcase role like Kiefer Sutherland does on 24.
Do you need stars for a TV series? Not really. Look at Lost: other than Dominic Monahan, none of those actors were movie people. Legend has it that they seriously considered Michael Keaton for Matthew Fox’s role, but they didn’t need him.
For a TV show, you need actors whom audiences will connect with. Some movie stars obviously have that ability, so that’s why they’re in the mix, more than any promotional value of having their name attached.
November 30th, 2005 at 3:56 pm
That son of a bitch Vanowen.
December 1st, 2005 at 4:32 pm
James Marsters is an excellent actor, he made Smallville’s ratings go through the roof. :)
November 30th, 2007 at 9:21 am
This is a test of the live commenting.