Filmmaker blog by writer / producer Georgia Menides

5/20/08 - Casting Part 1

      If you are an aspiring actor, you’ve just gotten your headshots, and you’re about to start sending them out, I have what I hope is a useful piece of advice.  I’m not pretending to be a casting guru. But at least from this one producers perspective, this is one of the biggest mistakes an actor can make when it comes to landing a role, and it’s something we saw happen far too many times.

     So my advice is this. Before you send your headshots to any agencies or production companies, send a few out to your family and friends first, but don’t let them know it’s your picture. Attach a note that says “Whose photo do you think this is?”  If your family and friends all come back saying “Duh, it’s your photo,” then great, awesome, you are in a good place.

      But if they say, “I have no idea who that girl is.” or, “He sort of looks like you, but not really,” or “Not sure, is she related to you?” or any comments that indicate your headshot may not be the world’s most accurate representation of what you really look like, or that it flat out doesn’t look like you at all, you may want to consider getting new headshots.

      In some ways, the rifling through headshots part of casting is like internet dating. You are looking at a picture of someone and either you’re getting the vibe or your not. So you build all your fantasies and scenarios with this certain face (or faces) in mind. But at some point, you do have to meet this potential soul mate in person, and if they look nothing like their picture, all your illusions are shattered. Even if they are hot and super cool, it doesn’t matter. The fantasy is blown. The vibe is gone.  To make matters worse, now you are questioning the honesty and integrity about this person and you’re annoyed that you’ve wasted your time.

       I experienced this unnecessary barrage of negative emotions too many times during the casting process. There were headshots that hypnotized me, or would hypnotize Doug. The photos would scream “I am the soul mate of your vision of (whichever character)”. So many actors we could completely envision playing these roles. So many actors we would get really exited about. So many actors that we timed our auditions slots carefully to pare or best prospects up with our best prospects.

        I would have to say that about a fourth of the actors we auditioned, turned out to look nothing like their headshot.  Some looked so different that when they walked into the Norris Center I didn’t recognize them, even though I was holding their headshot in my hand.  All those negative feelings of distrust, disillusion, and disappointment would then rush through me, which is hardly the effect any actor is trying to have on someone thinking about casting them in a movie.

        So that is my one piece of advice.  Photoshop your zits, erase a few wrinkles, add a little shine to your hair in post...all totally cool. But I see absolutely no merit to submitting a headshot to anyone unless it honestly looks you.

        But this is my only advice to actors at all. Outside of that, the only rule I’ve noticed is that there are no rules in casting. We even broke our own rules while casting, such as “We will only cast actors who live near Naples” or “Absolutely no more than 3 actors from Hollywood because we simply can’t afford them.”

I am under the impression that something bigger is in play here, because when an actors is meant to be a part of a film, things just come together.

        Yes I am a bit of a hippie, but when I think about all the totally random events, twists, dips and turnarounds that went into the attachment of each actor to Still Green, as well as the relationships, friendships, lessons, and life changing experiences some of them had during those five weeks of production, a lot of which had very little to do with Still Green itself, my only conclusion is each of these actors was meant to go on this ride. Yes part of this ride happened for reasons related to Still Green, but a lot of it seemed to happen for reasons way bigger than our movie, those destiny reasons that we will never entirely understand. 

         But getting back to our movie; our casting process went like this.  Doug, Evil, Paul, and I held a really long day of auditions for all local talent in a building the film commissioner hooked up for us.  Hundreds of people swarmed around all day long and the energy was incredible.  Most of the day was reserved for scheduled auditions although we did run an open call for the last couple of hours. Doug and Evil ran and videotaped every audition while Paul and I greeted and ushered actors in and out, and tried our best to control the mania which hit a crescendo during the open call.

          We went home with the tapes. After weeding out the “absolutely not” auditions, we sent a DVD to Jon. Jon and Andrea watched the auditions out in Los Angeles, and called us. We all discussed the pros and cons for various combinations of actors, and then Jon narrowed down his choices to three actors per role.

          This included the roles where Hollywood actors were already attached, because until a contract is signed, those actors can slip through your fingers the second  they are cast in a bigger project, and most of them were auditioning for bigger projects all the time, up until the hour their contracts was signed with us. Clearly, we were negotiating and fighting to get these contracts signed as soon as possible for this reason.  Clearly, their managers were stalling and negotiating right back trying to delay the actual signing of the contracts for as long as possible. But fortunately, all our four of our Hollywood actors genuinely wanted these roles, they all liked Jon, and they all had managers whom, at the end of the day, were supportive of their client’s artistic goals. 

           On the local front, Paul called all the “finalists” as it were, let  them know they were being considered, and made sure they were really interested, available,  over 18, living in Florida, willing to color their hair etc etc. Jon had a long phone interview with each finalist. We all discussed again, obviously adjusting decisions as the Hollywood contracts started to trickle in. And then, after weighing in all opinions, Jon chose the cast. Even these choices were all tentative until August 1st when Jon and Andrea arrived in Florida, and we could have our first read through with our cast and director.  But this cast was finalized and refinalized and refinalized again and again in light of various events and a few extreme situations, further illuminating my opinion that some things are just meant to be a certain way.

         Rather than trying to break this all down chronologically, I will go through each character and breifly summarize the spark, as well as the random events that led to the casting of each role.  The rest of this blog will be dedicated to all sparks and randomness involved with casting Ryan Kelley in the role of Alan.

The first time I saw Ryan Kelley on screen, I felt an inexplicable connection, I would call it a premonition about him. There was absolutely no reason to have this premonition.  In fact at the time, if anything was certain, it was that we would absolutely NOT be casting Ryan Kelley in Still Green, under any circumstance.

         This was the fall of 2004. Freedom Park was just finishing its theatrical run in Massachusetts, and Doug and I had snuck off for one afternoon to watch Trevor Morgan’s new highly anticipated movie, Mean Creek. We had, at that point, sent Trevor the script for Still Green and made him an offer for the role of Alan. We had a meeting set up with him that night, and we were watching Mean Creek with our fists clenched and our hearts in our throats.

          We had all met Trevor in the spring of 2004 when his film Uncle Nino played at World Cinema Naples along with Freedom Park. I was immediately blown away by his acting, his character reminded me so much of Alan,  he looked a lot like the high school friend Alan was based on, and sure, of course, he was a teen star, who could bring Still Green to a whole new level. He was also really cool. We all became friends right away.  Trevor and Jon were almost like brothers at that time and there was no question that Trevor wanted to work with Jon and with us.  But whether he would attach his name to Still Green depended on two things, did he like the script (of course), and also, how similar was Still Green to this other coming of age drama he has starred in, that also involved a group of friends coping with a death, that also took place in the water… called Mean Creek.

          We pitched Still Green to Trevor at World Cinema Naples. There is nothing a producer wants to hear less when first pitching a project to their dream actor than “Weird, I just shot a teen drama where someone dies in the water.” But this is what we were dealing with.

          From the trailer, Mean Creek seemed like an entirely different movie, but still we had been anticipating / dreading the release of Mean Creek for months and now here it was.

          The point is there was plenty else going on in our brains when we were watching Mean Creek and there was no reason to be thinking about Ryan Kelley, but I was thinking about him.

         Mean Creek turned out to be one of my all time favorite movies, certainly at the very top in the coming of age genre. But although, there were similarities between Mean Creek and Still Green, there were a million differences too. It simply was a different movie.  Doug and I both breathed huge sighs of relief as we walked out of the theatre and suddenly this phone call to Trevor seemed like it would yield the right results.  The meeting with Trevor that night couldn’t have gone better. He was completely gung ho about starring in Still Green. His manager and agent had also read the script and really liked it. They were full support of the project.

          Ironically, the night Trevor accepted the role of Alan, he said he had a few friends also repped by Anonymous Content who may also want roles in Still Green, and that he’d love to pass the script around. One of the first names he mentioned was Ryan Kelley. Even weirder, later on that night, ready to just zone out, we flopped on our couch threw in a movie that one of Doug’s friends at Starbucks had lent him. It was Stolen Summer, a movie we knew nothing about except that it was the first of the Project Greenlight movies, and that Doug’s friend had thought it may inspire us. And who should be playing the role of Seamus O’Malley but my new premonition boy, Ryan Kelley. It was weird.

            I am not sure what is was about Ryan, maybe his expressive eyes, his vulnerability, maybe he was just really skinny, but there was something about him that induced pure empathy. He was so effortlessly that kid an audience naturally loved, roots for, and wants to succeed. I thought he was magnetic and wished we were in a position to try to attach him.

          But in light of the whole Mean Creek situation, this was not an option.  Although they are different movies, the indie film loving crowd is tough and we already knew we’d be fighting an up hill battle with them.  It was better to be safe, and safe meant not attaching both Trevor and Ryan to Still Green.  We did not send Ryan a script.   

           We did, as Trevor’s schedule and availability began to look more and more doubtful, try to find a Florida based actor who could slip into the role, but no one we auditioned quite encapsulated Alan. We also put out some feelers to a few other agents in Hollywood.  But we had no personal connection to their clients and calling up CAA or UTA out of the blue and trying to get your script to one of their actors can be an exercise in futility if it is your first film, you don’t have a lot of money to offer, and if they’ve never heard of you.  Although there were a few other interested actors from Hollywood, we would have had to make them an offer, on the spot, before they would even look at the script much less talk to Jon, which didn’t sit well with any of us. So when Trevor fell through and Anonymous Content offered to help us replace him with another one of their clients, we were thrilled.

           The first client they suggestion was, of course, Ryan Kelley, and with Trevor out of the picture, there was now no reason not to send a script to this amazing actor. Ryan read the script that night and loved it, and the next morning his manager was on the phone telling us if we wanted him, we could have him!

At that point, we were also having trouble finding the right actor for another role and sending the script to Ryan, we suggested he could play either role. To be honest, although Ryan had the vulnerability and likeable qualities that screamed “Alan” I had never seen him in a movie where he was the lead in the love story.

           This was all coinciding with Andrea and Jon’s touching-down at Fort Lauderdale International Airport.  Doug and I had picked them up and were driving them to Naples where, literally that night, we were to have our first read through.

           The talk in Doug’s mini van was about two things: Turtle Time Inc and Ryan Kelley. Realizing there was nothing we could do about anything turtle related till the morning, we decided to focus on Ryan.  From the moment Ryan was sent the script, Jon had been on a Ryan Kelley movie and TiVo binge and had, by now, seen everything he’d ever been in. I expressed my concerns about Ryan playing a romantic lead to Jon. He said, “are you kidding, he would be the perfect nice guy romantic lead, haven’t you seen Dust Factory?”  Dust Factory, an MGM movie starring Ryan and Hayden Paniterre had just been released and I had not seen it yet. Fortunately, I was not the director of Still Green and was exempt from this kind of due diligence.  Fortunately, the director of Still Green had a copy of Dust Factory, as well as all of Ryan’s other movies in his carry-on. We slid the DVD into his laptop and watched about half the movie as Doug drove back to Naples. By the time we arrived, I was sold. More importantly, Jon was already sold. There was a small possibility of Ryan Kelley playing another role. But really, and we all knew this in our hearts by now, Ryan Kelley was meant to be Alan in Still Green.