All language subtitles for 10 - Casting Actors

that first um

I was a casting director so

um I I did uh

we put a few ads and backstage newspaper

I think it was

and we found Harvey Chitel uh

in 1965 he came to an audition

quote unquote NYU

which was actually just myself and a friend

and a couple of other people for some of my short films

but primarily you

you at that time

just grab your friends and your parents and put them in

because they're gonna have to do it for you

you know your parents

and if they're around

and if they're available to do it

and it isn't so complicated

they've got to do it

so from that

basically a whole movie

the Main Street is like a whole movie in a sense

not literally but

well at some cases yes

but at some points it is

but primarily

a lot of the people in the frame

and even to the center

Robert De Niro

who grew up in that area

so he knew many of the people making the film about

and shot in the hallways of where we grew up

and people around us

it was kind of a

community efforts

so to speak

since then I was able to work on a couple of films

two or three films

a very very key casting process

but says Corman

who did Raging Bull

King of comedy and Last Temptation of Christ originally

but in the late 80s

began to work with the same casting director

Ellen Lewis and

Ellen kind of

of course we discuss the project

she reads what I'm going after

and she usually knows exactly what I want

for good fellas

for example

we were taken up to Rayo's restaurant

and in one night

we cast about five roles

just from the people in the restaurant

so we've been doing that ever since then

for that kind of picture

for that kind of film

um but she gives me a range of choices

and I respond to them

make decisions we can

the reason we work together is I could tell that um

the people she brings to me

I connect with for the most part

so we kind of have the same taste in a way um

and I always say that damn

casting is 85 to 90% of the picture for me

so you know

all of you just starting out

I wanna repeat

you know again in the system

what you want

and you don't settle for close enough

for second best and um

don't imagine there's a shortcut

it's meeting the people

spending time with them

talking with them

then putting them together with the other actors

that's a key thing

and see how the other actors respond

um it's somewhat different

I think then of who

I could imagine a studio system where

in the case of certain key films uh

filmmakers had to work with certain actors

cause of contractual issues and um

very often they didn't get along with each other

but that was the contract

they had to do it

here that may not be the case

I don't say you have to become friends

but you have to be

here's the key thing when casting

and this is why casting directors are important

he or she has to know that

with the actors

primarily you want to work with the actors

you all agreeing you're making the same film

that's the key

now how you get to make the same film

that's part of the process

how you work with the actor

that's a given take somehow

but if you are making the same film

you know that

and your casting director knows that

and she knows to pull actors for you to choose from

that are of the same mind

then you have possibility making the picture

and you get this unexpected dimension

I found that I responded to actors

pretty much through the films I saw now

for many years

through the 40s and early 50s

the films I saw

the acting was of a certain style

right of a certain time

coming out of Hollywood tradition or from England

for example

wonderful like Alec Guinness and Olivia and James Mason

and so many others

um and Hollywood

of course you had the greats

you know it's Stewart and Carrie Grant and Henry Fonda

and so many others

and more you know

her and John Wayne and all of this sort of thing

but they're from another world

you know and of course in England

another world

then I saw Kazanne's films

and so on the waterfront and used to be

and those both in the same year

I think or a year apart

and those were revelation in terms of behavior

and so it's really been um

inspired by what I saw there on the screen

and what I experienced

watching those films over and over again

that's my gauge

I guess that's where I go

and to a certain extent

I do like lower case of Eddie's work

the way I worked on Italian American

my parents documentary

where they're telling stories

are acting in a sense

but are they acting and I I

certain subject matter and certain stories that I make

lend themselves to that kind of directing of actors

or guidance of actors

um but primarily

the actor has to already be there

in a way as I said

you can't tell a person how to lean against a car

in 1955 on Elizabeth Street

or you know

I don't know

other worlds

course I had to be told

in the case of silence

what a interrogation is like

and the magistrates office outside Nagasaki in 1632

so again I see a certain thing

work around that

work with the actors that way

but primarily

primarily it's a it's a

a combination

if I can finding the person on screen

as they're doing it

as they're in the process

almost something that's

that may not be

certainly doesn't feel like it's scripted in many cases

that's what I'm hoping for you know

something natural um

but not I don't know what naturalism is

I don't know realismism just

this is where I was talking about the business

of the mixture of non fiction and fiction

where it all becomes a film

I don't know what you want to call it

but that's what it is

I do think um

for me coming out of a situation where I often used

worked with the people who are around mixed with actors

they have to come from that spot

they have to come from that

that part of the world

they have to come from that culture

I should say

particularly in certain um

films depicting certain periods of certain worlds

like a Mean Streets or a Taxi Driver

Raging Bull etc

can't comedy uh

that was contemporaneous to me you know

and I felt that mixing um

non actors with the actors partially

I must say again

going back to the beginnings of making films

we had no choice but to use non actors

so it became something that was natural to me

and so we kind of relied on that

it also meant that

by placing a non actor in with the actors

as long as the actors as I say

are making the same film as you

as long as they understand the environment that they're

they're they're working within um

they could maybe lose it

there is any artificiality

lose that by being around the non actor you see

so Ben Kingsley doing

George Malay

he uh finds the posture and that's yours

I this this

I know it's there you see

I know it's there um

his look is manner and his use of language and the text

he's one who sticks with the text

and that particular film

and even in Shutter Island would been

you're able to work with that text

I mean he's there

his behavior as the doctor in Shutter Island is there

it was there

the way he moves

the look in his eye

and so that's another way of feeling

how should I say

that the person inhabits the role you see

I had a confidence

in fact I never even thought of him as Ben Kingsley

and when we're doing

you go was always George

I remember the great granddaughter

I think was sitting on the set one day in Paris

and she came to say hello

we got to meet and

and then it came out

it was in it was in the sore bone

and Ben came out of the door

came out of the main auditorium into the lobby

and she suddenly teared up

because was her great grandfather whom she never met

um and this was spontaneous

it's not oh

this is so and so and he's portraying

this is just happened to be at the moment

so there was some sense of authority really

the character

you know something I admire greatly

I can't do it

nor can I think I can really

excel and directing or creating that

with certain actors or certain kinds of pictures

I don't think I can

but when I experience it on the set

where people like

like Ben and Daniel Day and number of others

it's something of a sense of awe

a sense of a sense of

a beauty and power

that something you respect and admire