Filmmaker blog by writer / producer Georgia Menides

5/31/08 - Keep On Casting

The role of Kerri – Sarah Jones

At the time, we had never heard of Sarah Jones.

She had not been in any films we had heard of or could rent even if we’d had the time to do so. She was not on television yet, she was not even on IMDB yet. Her one credit back then was a fairly large recurring role on an upcoming show called Big Love, which had just finished filming. We had never heard of Big Love either. In short, aside from some faith in Anonymous Content, and in Sarah’s headshot, which was gorgeous, alluring, somehow emanating “tom boy”, “classy” and “mystical” all at once, we had no reason to believe Sarah Jones had it in her to pull of the role of Kerri. Sarah Jones, who turned out to be an incredible actress, perfect for the role, and also the glue that held the cast together, was cast at four in the morning out of sheer panic and desperation.

We had another actress cast in the role of Kerri. At the time, this actress was the dream choice and we had gone through hell and high water to attach her.  She had already been in some bigger teen films and TV shows and had an impressive fan following. In fact, it was the attachment of her name that had enabled us to get the money from our investors to shoot on high definition in the first place, and she was a big part of the reason we were getting so much press in FL. She was also largely responsible for our IMDB buzz, and a big reason the other Hollywood actors had agreed to sign on. In short, firing this actress could have put the movie in major jeopardy and was one of the hardest decisions we had to make. But we weren’t given a choice.

I am not going to, at least in this blog, get into what exactly happened at two in the morning that led to the firing of our lead actress the night before we were supposed to start filming. For now, suffice to say, sometimes the chemistry isn’t there between actors, and the best thing for our production was to replace her.

But this was a nightmare. By the time this decision was made it was literally four in the morning. It was 1 AM in Los Angeles, and yes, Andrea had awakened this actress’ manager to not only discuss the situation and work out the logistics of her departure from the set, but also to strongly request that they send us another actor to replace her immediately, as we did not have the luxury of pushing back production. That may have seemed likely a ballsy request and maybe it was, but Andrea is never afraid to ask for what she wants. With two other Anonymous clients already starring in Still Green, it was in their best interest to help us find a new Kerri. The reality was we needed to start filming the next day. We needed a lead actress who could fly to Florida immediately and proceed to carry the entire movie. Anonymous Content seemed like our only hope.

The next morning, as Paul was driving this actress to the airport, Anonymous Content sent us the headshots of four different actresses, but they were most enthusiastically pushing for Sarah Jones.

This was beyond terrifying for all of us; we had spent months searching for the right actress to play Kerri, had considered a wide range of local and Hollywood actresses, even turned down a few interested name actresses, and had chosen this role with the utmost of care. Now suddenly we were replacing the most important role in the film in less than 24 hours and could do nothing but cross our fingers and hope she would work out.

Fortunately, Anonymous Content is an extremely established agency and judging from the rest of their talent, chances were high that Sarah Jones would be pretty stellar. Fortunately, we loved Sarah’s headshot, she actually looked more like my original vision of Kerri than our previous leading lady. Fortunately, Sarah loved the script which she read in one night. Fortunately, she called Jon brimming with enthusiasm saying things like "No you don’t understand, I am this character.” Fortunately, at least over the phone, Sarah and Jon totally hit it off. The following night she arrived in Florida, which was ironically, the state she grew up in.

As it turned out Sarah couldn’t have been more perfect for the role. She did have the  tomboy/ magical water nymph / totally crazy qualities that Kerri needed to have and played the role better than I could have even imagined. Her hot and healthy but not anorexic skinny body ended up being something girls and boys have loved. We have gotten all kinds of kudos from teenage and college girls for having a leading lady with a real body. Reviewers have raved about her. Industry professionals have raved about her. During production, her chill, down to earth nature ended up being exactly what was needed to bridge what was originally a bit of a chasm between the local actors and the Hollywood actors, a chasm that had been growing daily before Sarah’s arrival, and was starting to scare us, as this movie was never going to fly unless an audience could believe these kids were really close friends.

Sarah appeared on the set and suddenly the chasm was smashed down. Suddenly there was no chasm. Suddenly these kids were bonding, partying, getting close, and acting like, well, like a real group of high school friends would act, and you could no longer tell who was “Hollywood” and who wasn’t. And conveniently, after Florida, as we ventured into the endless time void that is post production, Sarah proceeded to make a name for herself in Hollywood and has gotten bigger and bigger. Big Love came out and conveniently become a hit HBO series on. After Big Love, Sarah appeared in recurring roles on Huff and Ugly Betty. She was cast as a lead regular on the Fox series The Wedding Belles and has just joined the cast of The Riches. In fact these days, Sarah is more recognizable than the actress we had originally cast.

This is what I mean. When it comes to casting, some things were just meant to happen. And sometimes the craziness and heartache associated with it all just adds to that feeling of destiny. A few weeks ago, one of my friends called me. He had been watching The Riches and just seen Sarah character’s first appearance. He sad “Oh my god, isn’t that the girl in your movie?” I said yes. He said “Jesus, she is gorgeous! You guys are really lucky, you know that? I guess Still Green was meant to be because all these good things seem to just fell into your lap.”

I bit my lip. I do not think, in filmmaking, anything ever just falls into your lap. Usually it’s that something bad happens, and then the bad thing becomes the best thing that could ever happen.

The role of Brandon – Paul Costa

There were two non-negotiable requirements for any actor to be considered for the role of Brandon. He had to be able to skate well, and he had to be blond, preferably with blue eyes, although we were open to color contacts in a pinch.

But Brandon had to be blond. There were specific moments and themes in the script that required this. There were even specific shots, and I wasn’t normally prone to writing specific shots, but there were non negotiable shots tied into an entire theme that revolved around the fact that Brandon was blond. So if someone had told me that we were going to end up casting a dark skinned half Italian half Tunisian kid with long crazy dreads in the role of Brandon,  I would have said that was simply impossible.

If Paul Costa had sent us his resume, my guess is it would have landed in the no pile. He did not look like any of the roles we had in mind, and he most certainly did not look like Brandon.  Paul Costa’s life crossed with ours for the first time on the morning of the audition. An actor we were considering for the role of Alan, at the time, as a back up to Trevor, had called me the night before the auditions. One of the sides I had sent him to prepare was a scene between Alan and Brandon. He said he had a friend who would be perfect for Brandon, and could he bring this friend to the audition with him?

We figured why not?  We only had five actors scheduled to audition for Brandon, and only two of those were strong prospects.

My first thought when I saw Paul Costa and his full head of dreaded hair was that I felt bad he had driven all the way from Miami for this. He was holding a skateboard. He seemed incredibly nice, and yes he was certainly hot. But there was just no way. We ushered him into the audition room, but really, we were just going through the motions.

Fifteen minutes later, as Jeremy and Paul walked out, Doug grabbed my hand, and dragged me inside the audition room, and closed the door. He said “Seriously, I know he’s not blond, but that kid was amazing. He is Brandon.” I looked at Evil, who shrugged and said “Seriously, it’s really too bad he's not blond.”

As we were editing our DVD reel for Jon, we got to Paul Costa’s audition. I was blown away. Except for his fucking hair, he was perfect for Brandon.

I have since then become good friends with Paul, who now lives in Los Angeles and hangs out with Doug almost every weekend, and can say that it is no surprise he fit so well in the role of Brandon. You always end up casting actors who themselves naturally embody some of the qualities of their character. Basically, Paul Costa is Brandon. Like Brandon, Paul is happy go lucky, in the moment, fearless, energetic, impish, mischievous, fun loving, and like Brandon does not think too much about the consequences of his impulsive actions. He is also one of the most naturally sexy lady killers I have ever met, like Brandon. So thinking back on it, it does not surprise me that he effortlessly nailed the audition.

But this whole blond thing was screwing with our heads and we didn’t know what to do with him. At the time the reality of production barriers were forcing me to change my script left and right. I was reacting poorly to this. Every time I had to change my script I would freak and I was not about to scrap yet another major theme I’d carefully sewn into this script to accommodate a kid with dreads, no matter how “Brandon” he was.

But he was too good to just leave off the audition DVD and none of the other potentials came close to hitting the essence of Brandon so we included his audition and sent it to Jon.

Now we were having our first conference call about casting. One of the first things Jon said, after, “Well the bad news is that there are absolutely no local actors for Kerri, Alan, or Brandon,” was that one actor he knew we would have to cast in some role was Paul Costa.

He agreed that is was too bad we couldn't cast him in the role of Brandon as, really, this was the role he was most suited to playing. We thought about the other roles in the script. We were all lukewarm about his fit into any other roles. I am sure you can all see where this is going, but at the time none of us could.

We continued to search for other actors who could play Brandon but they all fell short. We even turned to yet another round of cold calls to Hollywood actors in search for a Brandon but this effort didn’t unearth anyone either. This went on for about a week. Jon interviewed him for an hour, and the two of them completely hit it off. Finally, Andrea, probably the best of all of us when it came to thinking objectively, pointed out the very obvious.

Why were we being so stupid, she wanted to know? Why were we looking for another Brandon when the perfect actor was interested and available? Why were we looking for other roles to slide Paul Costa into when he was obviously perfect for Brandon? What was the problem here?  His hair? This one scene I was obsessed with where the sunlight and sky seemed to almost meld into Brandon’s blond hair and blue eyes? Who gave a shit about this one scene? We had the right actor for the role. Why didn’t we just cut the scene and cast him already! I cringed at the words “cut the scene” but of course, she had a point.

The evolution from the people a script is based on, to the characters that writer creates based on these people, to the actors a director chooses to play these characters is a remarkable thing, because things generally change for the better. Still Green was based on a small novel I wrote about my own high school friends when I was in still in high school. Growing up in a nice suburb in Massachusetts, and being white myself, most of my friends were white and it was only natural that my instincts when envisioning these roles were to imagine white actors. But Still Green was not set in Massachusetts suburbia. Being so close to the border, Florida, on the other hand, has a large Latino community. We ended up auditioning a lot of actors from all races, and ended up with a cast including four Latin American actors and Paul Costa along with the corn-fed white kids. It would make sense that a group of high school friends in Florida would be a racially mixed set. In the end this racially mixed cast has been a crucial element to the film, dramatically improving our goals of making Still Green less “O.C.” and a more naturalist teen drama. Many teenagers who have watched the movie have commented positively about the fact the cast is not just a bunch of blond, blue eyed, white kids.  Paul had a life changing experience on the set of Still Green.