When No Country for Old Men wins the best picture award at this weekend's Oscar ceremony—that's right, we're calling it—the film's casting director, Ellen Chenoweth, will not be there. But her stamp on the film, as well as another best picture contender, Michael Clayton, is indelible. "This is I think the first year I've had two movies get nominated for best picture, and I couldn't be more thrilled for everybody," says Chenoweth. "It's not like I don't feel part of it, but you'd kind of like to be a little more included, because I do feel like it's an important contribution to a movie. And when you see all the other categories, it doesn't really make sense to me that we're not included. It would sort of be nice to be at the party. I mean, listen, let me stress how thrilled I am and proud, but I don't quite get it."
Frankly, neither do we, which is why every year we present Back Stage Best Casting, recognizing outstanding casting of a motion picture. The year 2007 was full of star-making turns from virtual unknowns (Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose), scene-stealing octogenarians (Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild and Ruby Dee in American Gangster), preternaturally talented children (Saoirse Ronan in Atonement, Dillon Freasier in There Will Be Blood, the young cast of The Kite Runner), and powerhouse ensembles. While these actors have garnered plenty of praise (and awards), the casting directors in large part responsible for putting them in the roles go virtually unrecognized. So we've selected the five films we believe deserve recognition for outstanding casting, along with three actors who had particularly notable breakouts last year. There are also a few honorable mentions, including:
Best Nonactor Award
Though we could've given this to Into the Wild's Brian Dierker, it's going to Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, the nonactors of John Carney's lovely, lyrical Once. Hansard was cast by his friend and former bandmate Carney, then recommended the radiant Irglová for his female counterpart in the sweet Irish musical. Their chemistry is natural and palpable—so much so that the two became a pair in real life, a fitting ending for this love story.
Sibling Revelry Award
This goes to one of our favorites, Philip Seymour Hoffman, for appearing as not one but two bad brothers. He was paired with Laura Linney in The Savages; bonus points to director Tamara Jenkins and casting director Jeanne McCarthy for casting the great Philip Bosco as their elderly father. This family fights, competes, and presses one another's buttons so well you feel like setting them a place at Thanksgiving dinner. Hoffman also plays big brother to Ethan Hawke in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, bullying his younger sibling into committing a robbery—of their parents' jewelry store, no less. Kudos to director Sidney Lumet and CDs Lindsay Chag and Ellen Lewis for seeing how good Hoffman could be at being bad.
The Broadway Baby Award
Can't afford a ticket to a Broadway show? You could see twice the stars at a fraction of the cost with Peter Hedges' underrated gem Dan in Real Life. While Steve Carell and Dane Cook play siblings vying for Juliette Binoche, the supporting cast is made up of a veritable who's who of theatre greats—not surprising, considering the film was cast by Bernard Telsey and Tiffany Little Canfield, also responsible for some of the best casts on Broadway, from Rent to Legally Blonde. Dan's other siblings include the likes of Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz, two-time Tony nominee (and current Oscar nominee for Gone Baby Gone) Amy Ryan, and Broadway regular Jessica Hecht. And Dan's eldest daughter is played by none other than Alison Pill, who was doing Shakespeare and Kenneth Lonergan on stage while still in her teens. But with parents played by the legendary John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest, such talented offspring should come as no surprise.
The Alan Tudyk Award
Named after our favorite character actor who consistently stands out in ensembles (see this year's honoree 3:10 to Yuma), this annual award goes to Paul Schneider, who delivers outstanding performances in two very different roles. In The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (casting by Mali Finn, Deb Green, and Jackie Lind) he plays the laid-back womanizer Dick Liddil. This is a stark contrast to Schneider's role as family man and soon-to-be father Gus Lindstrom, the befuddled and put-upon brother to Ryan Gosling's Lars in Lars and the Real Girl (casting by Richard Hicks and David Rubin). Schneider has always been a compelling presence in films like All the Real Girls and The Family Stone, but 2007's double feature reminded audiences of his charm and versatility.
The Foreign Affair Award
This one goes to casting directors Deirdre Bowen and Nina Gold and director David Cronenberg for filling the world of Eastern Promises with an international cast—all playing nationalities other than their own. You have American Viggo Mortensen and Frenchman Vincent Cassel playing Russian mobsters, with Australian Naomi Watts as a Brit. That each is able to pull off not only the accent but also a complex and riveting performance goes to show that talent is universal.
The Scene Savior Award
For this we name John Turturro, who shows up halfway through the movies Margot at the Wedding (casting by Douglas Aibel) and Transformers (casting by Janet Hirshenson, Jane Jenkins, and Michelle Lewitt) and breathes fresh life into a few scenes before disappearing. It's just enough time to remind audiences how terrific he is and how he deserves much larger parts in movies much better than these.
—Jenelle Riley
Lisa Beach and Sarah Katzman
3:10 to Yuma
When director James Mangold was looking to cast his remake of 3:10 to Yuma, he knew he needed actors who possessed the authority of classic Western heroes and villains to convey the sense of masculinity, power, and gravitas inherent in the story. The two leads, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, were cast before Mangold turned the film over to Lisa Beach and Sarah Katzman, who have cast nearly every Mangold film since 1999's Girl, Interrupted.
After Ben Foster auditioned for the role of the devoted, vicious Charlie Prince, right-hand man to Crowe's character, Beach made a comment to Mangold similar to one she'd made about Angelina Jolie's audition for Girl, Interrupted. "There's your best supporting actor of 2007," she said of Foster. "Sadly, I wasn't as psychic this decade as I was last time. When you see performances like that in a room, it's what makes your job the best job in the whole world. He could do no wrong. He was Charlie Prince."
Mangold, who always serves as scene partner while auditioning actors, says he knew Foster was brilliant immediately. "I kept dropping my lines because I was so lost watching him that I wasn't capable of keeping up my end of the scene," says the director. "You want someone who, like a cobra, is so powerful that when they say what they have to say, you forget what you have to say."
The two casting directors met Mangold through his wife and producing partner, Cathy Konrad, whom Beach and Katzman refer to as "the third casting director" because of her keen instincts. For instance, when Alan Tudyk was brought in to play businessman Grayson Butterfield, Konrad thought he'd be a better fit as the gentle Doc Potter.
Butterfield eventually went to Dallas Roberts, whom the CDs first met when casting Walk the Line. "It's not a question of if he gets an Academy Award; it's a question of when he gets one," Beach says of Roberts, who was a standout as record producer Sam Phillips in the Johnny Cash biopic.
"You knew every actor in town would want to be in a Western, because every actor in town is a cowboy at heart. We got hundreds of phone calls from people saying things like, 'Luke Wilson or Peter Fonda would love to do something in this,' " Beach says. Both actors appeared in the film. But the biggest challenge casting 3:10, the CDs say, was finding someone to play the teenage son of Bale's Dan Evans—a kid steely enough to hold a gun to Crowe's Ben Wade. "That was the hardest role, because there are a lot of kids out there, but they are very Hollywoodized," explains Katzman. "They've been acting for so long, and there's this over-the-top quality to them, so to find someone who's a natural who feels they could be from 1885 and from the Plains—it was very hard." About 500 actors were rejected based on looks, and the CDs saw a hundred before finding Logan Lerman.
"We knew when we were casting it that it would be one of the crown jewels or big feather in our cap," Beach says. "Working with Jim and Cathy is absolutely fabulous. When the four of us are in that room together, we mesh well. I can't be superlative enough in our respect as professionals as well as friends now after all these years. We really enjoy our job."
—Cassie Carpenter
Donna Morong
Gone Baby Gone
Casting director Donna Morong admits that the biggest challenge she faced in casting Gone Baby Gone was finding actors who could nail a Boston accent. Director Ben Affleck "really wanted actors from Boston," she recalls. "He was especially concerned with the way they sound, and since he is from Boston, he knows what's authentic and what isn't. He would not even consider certain British actors I had in mind who could do the accent. He didn't want anything that was phony." Morong's problem was further compounded by her Los Angeles locale, where she suspected it would be even harder to find actors who could capture those Beantown vowels, cadences, and rhythms and sustain them over an extended performance. After all, the CD was casting not background players but principals—not including the three leads Affleck had already secured: his brother, Casey Affleck; Morgan Freeman; and Ed Harris.
Morong frequently thinks of New York actors when she's charged with casting a particularly daunting project filled with multileveled characters. Gone Baby Gone was no exception. She recalls immediately considering Amy Ryan for the role of the drug-abusing Helene, convinced Ryan would be able to capture the accent in addition to the complexity of the character. "I had seen her on stage in New York and in a few films, and I knew she was enormously talented, a true chameleon," the CD says. "I felt especially fortunate because she happened to be in Los Angeles at the time. You don't really get the same sense of what someone can do on a tape. Anyway, Amy came in and read. She's a fearless actress, not afraid to make a character ugly. But at the same time, she's able to find the character's humanity. In my notes I wrote, 'F-ing brilliant.'" Ryan has already collected several awards for her performance and is nominated for an Oscar.
But Ryan is only one of Morong's triumphs in casting Gone Baby Gone. The CD also proudly cites Titus Welliver—who plays Helene's brother, Lionel McCready—and Edi Gathegi in the role of Haitian crime lord Cheese. Morong recalls Welliver's audition as nothing short of a revelation, though he had lots of competition for the part. But it was a done deal when he read a monologue from the script. "He talks about the girl stuck in a car while her mother does a drug deal, and then talks about bathing the child and how she was so hot she felt like a pot roast," notes Morong. "He did it with such feeling and complexity." She was especially impressed because the actor was not known for playing working-class characters.
As for casting Gathegi, Morong did not immediately think of him for Cheese. She says she was looking for a "fat white guy" to play the low-life drug trafficker but ended up with a "skinny black one." Always called upon to be flexible, she changed direction when a Boston police officer advised the creative team that many small-time narcotics dealers in the area were from the Caribbean. Gathegi read for another role, and Morong was so taken with him personally—"He has that winning smile and he's so friendly and adorable"—that she took a chance, asking him if he could do a Jamaican or Haitian accent. As it turned out, he could, with uncanny precision. "When he read with the accent, it was transforming."
Looking back at the experience of casting the film, she asserts it was one of the more gratifying in her career. Still, she graciously maintains, "A casting director is only as good as the actors, the material, and director. A lot of people mistakenly think Ben Affleck is a lightweight. Let me assure you he is not. It was an amazing journey."
—Simi Horwitz
Denise Chamian
The Great Debaters
In casting The Great Debaters, Denise Chamian spent a lot of time dissecting and analyzing the characters with director-star Denzel Washington. "That's probably the biggest pleasure in working with Denzel: He is an actor, and he does love to discuss the characters," she says. "We really delve into what they say and what their dialogue tells us about them."
The film, which focuses on an African-American college debate team in the 1930s, presented Chamian with a few challenges. "It was a period picture, so the actors had to speak a certain way; they had to have a certain style to them," she says. Additionally, the project features several meaty roles for young actors; its trio of debaters had to be well-spoken and able to convey a multitude of emotions. "With young adults or children, you have to do a pretty thorough search, and that's what we did," says the casting director, who notes that she put out the call in a number of cities—including Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago—and saw a wide range of actors on tape and in person.
For the role of Samantha Booke, the team's lone female debater, Chamian and Washington had Jurnee Smollett in mind early on. The young actor had risen to prominence for her searing portrayal of a precocious 10-year-old in 1997's Eve's Bayou. "Denzel knew Jurnee from Eve's Bayou, and she had come in for me for a couple of things throughout the years, and I loved her," says Chamian. "Once we read her, she was really our first and only choice."
Meanwhile, auspiciously named 17-year-old Denzel Whitaker had a certain freshness that the CD felt was perfect for the role of academic prodigy James Farmer Jr. (His father was played by 2007 Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, no relation.) The young Whitaker had appeared on the Nickelodeon sketch show All That and shared screen time with Washington in 2001's Training Day. "This character was supposed to be in college when he was 14," says Chamian. "Because [Denzel] was a big kid, he kind of fit in that world, yet he had the youth and the innocence. After a couple of readings, he also emerged as the right choice." Nate Parker (Pride, Cold Case) rounded out the group as enigmatic, volatile Henry Lowe. "I think there was something that was kind of mysterious about Nate, kind of remote, that made him right for that part," says Chamian.
The CD is thrilled with the actors who ended up playing The Great Debaters' central trio, but she also singles out Jermaine Williams (Stomp the Yard, Fat Albert), who portrays a conflicted debater who quits the team partway through the film. "He was someone who came in who had this very unique look and very period feel to him and gave a tremendous reading," she says. "I think people have not given him enough credit for the job that he did in the movie."
Chamian says casting the film was a very special experience. "This movie was one of those gifts that you get where the material is really lovely and a little unique," she says. "It gives you an opportunity to do something you haven't done before and cast people you haven't cast before."
—Sarah Kuhn
David Rubin and Richard Hicks
Hairspray
A sizable share of the credit for Hairspray's emergence as one of the most successful movie musicals of all time belongs to casting directors David Rubin and Richard Hicks, who helped pick ideal actors in artfully adapting this Broadway show to film. Though producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan had courted John Travolta for the cross-dressing role of housewife Edna Turnblad from the beginning, the actor took more than a year to accept it. From there, the puzzle pieces fell into place. Rubin notes, "Putting together an ensemble cast is like a mosaic; it's a constantly shifting tapestry, and one decision informs the next."
For the teenage roles, hundreds of actors were considered. "We threw the doors wide open," says Rubin. "What resulted is a mixture of high-profile young actors [Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, Brittany Snow] and brand-new faces [Elijah Kelley, Taylor Parks].
Elijah [who plays high school terpsichorean Seaweed] had done some small supporting roles, but he was a fairly recent transplant from Georgia." A charismatic song-and-dance man, Kelley has been compared to the late Sammy Davis Jr. Rubin and Hicks agree that the ebullient Parks, who plays the youngest main character, Little Inez , is the unsung talent in the group. "She's terrific," says Hicks. "Taylor is L.A.-based, but we had very strong candidates in many cities across the country." Hicks notes that the casting of James Marsden as slightly cheesy yet lovable dance-show host Corny Collins came about when the CDs remembered an episode of Ally McBeal in which Marsden sang in a nightclub. Hicks says, "He became a real revelation to Adam [Shankman, the director] and ultimately to audiences as a triple-threat talent."
As has been widely reported, Nikki Blonsky, who made a spectacular screen debut as ostracized but forthright teenage heroine Tracy Turnblad, had limited professional performing experience and left her job in an ice cream parlor to take the role. Says Rubin, "This was the result of at least six months of open calls in major cities across the country and an online search. It's to the filmmakers' credit that they were open to allowing an unknown to take this lead role. They were intent on having an actress who was physically perfect for the role, as opposed to compromising by going for the Hollywood version of overweight. There was a tremendous emotional connection that the audiences needed to make. Nikki looks like a person you would know." The accolades, nominations, and awards that Blonsky has received attest that any risks taken by the producers paid off beautifully.
Rubin remarks, "People think attention to detail wanes after you cast the central roles. In fact, attention to the smallest part is what truly gives the cast and the story integrity." Rubin explains why veteran actor Paul Dooley was chosen to play the crusty TV-station executive: "He has a face that audiences love to see, and he's such a beloved character actor. Also, he works so well in roles that require a bluster, and he really delivers on that score."
—Les Spindle
Ellen Chenoweth
No Country for Old Men
The casting for No Country for Old Men needed to be "specific to the time and the place that we really wanted to get that feel of: that West Texas 1980 feel," explains Ellen Chenoweth, who has cast six of Joel and Ethan Coen's movies, including the upcoming Burn After Reading. (Local casting for No Country was done by Jo Edna Boldin.) "So you couldn't just pull all the usual people that you might cast. It really took a lot more digging. [The Coens] are really willing to go through that process, and I think that's the way you come up with that kind of cast is just by doing the work."
In the case of two of the most memorable scenes in No Country, Chenoweth found her actors while sifting through a pile of headshots. Such was the case with Kathy Lamkin, who plays the trailer-park manager who goes up against hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). "She was just so dry, and I knew [the Coens] would like that. They love a deadpan delivery," says the CD. "They like a good face." She also found Gene Jones, who plays the gas-station proprietor terrorized by Chigurh in the "friendo" scene, from his headshot and, in particular, his résumé. "I noticed he'd done some Horton Foote plays, and so I thought he must be Southern or be able to be convincing."
In some cases, Chenoweth helped to push for certain actors, such as Kelly Macdonald, who plays Carla Jean, wife to Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss. Macdonald, who lives in the U.K., was in New York for a wedding when her agent asked if Chenoweth would meet Macdonald for a general. Chenoweth obliged, liked what she saw, and asked the actor to come back the next day to read for No Country. Again, Chenoweth liked what she saw. The CD recalls, "I kind of dragged her over to the Coens' office and called them—she was leaving town—and I said, 'I'm bringing this girl over. She's Scottish.' They tried to get me to cancel it. And I just said, 'I can't.' And we went over there, and they kind of fell in love with her."
Though it's hard now to imagine anyone but Brolin as Moss, it took longer for the Coens to fall in love with him. It was the most difficult role in the film to cast, and Chenoweth and the Coens considered most of young Hollywood. Three Oscar-nominated actors were attached at various times, only to drop out: Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, and Viggo Mortensen, in that order. Chenoweth later received an unsolicited tape from Brolin, who was working on Grindhouse and had directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez shoot a scene from No Country. She says, "It was so good that I saved it; I still have it. It was so great that Joel and Ethan were like, 'Who shot this?' " Still, the brothers weren't sold on the actor. "We were getting really close to shooting, and we still didn't have this guy," says Chenoweth. Thanks to Brolin's persistent agent, who kept calling her, the actor was brought in on the last day of callbacks and sealed the deal.
If you are called in to read for the Coen brothers, Chenoweth points out, "They don't talk a lot. They don't even very often have someone do a scene again. They'll often just have someone do it once, and they can tell a lot from that. I know that's hard for actors, and actors always want to talk to them and tell them how much they like their movies, and it's not that they don't appreciate it—it's just sort of not their thing. They're not chatty like that."
What the Coens are interested in is detail. "They're so specific in what works for them. And their dialogue is so specific," says Chenoweth. "They know what they want and they know what they like."
—Jamie Painter Young
Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Superbad
Superbad (casting by Allison Jones) features no shortage of talented teens, but the casting of Christopher Mintz-Plasse in the role of the unforgettable Fogell (aka McLovin) proved to be an undeniable stroke of genius. The high school student had never auditioned for anything, had studied drama only in school, yet somehow managed to steal the movie with his heartfelt, dorky antics. He was the perfect actor for the role, making audiences cry with laughter as he brandished the now-infamous fake ID with the single name "McLovin" blazoned across its face. We can't see anyone else delivering Fogell's argument for it—that the name not only wouldn't raise suspicions but would speak to his prowess with the ladies—so effectively. Superbad co-writer Seth Rogen couldn't either.
Rogen told UGO.com, "He was instantly amazing. What's interesting is when he first auditioned, Jonah [Hill] really hated him. He was like, 'That guy's so annoying.' He kept saying, 'He's stepping on my lines.' And he wasn't at all. We made Jonah rewatch it and said, 'Where is he stepping on your lines?' And Jonah was like, 'I don't like him!' We were like, 'That has to be the guy. If he can draw that reaction out of Jonah, he's amazing.'"
To his credit, Hill, who plays the lead character of Seth in Superbad, acknowledged Mintz-Plasse's talent: "We had also read with every young actor around because it was hard to cast that part. We didn't hang out and talk to Chris; he just came in and read. So it wasn't him; it was just how good his acting was. He was the first person to challenge me, and that is why he was perfect." Superbad producer Judd Apatow also saw that the first-time actor has a gift. "He has a comic rhythm and energy," Apatow told UGO. "He's going to do very well."
—Nicole Kristal
Saoirse Ronan
Atonement
In a recent editorial, the Irish Independent dubbed Saoirse Ronan "probably our greatest hope of glory since the golden days of My Left Foot." That might seem a tall order for a schoolgirl who wasn't even born when Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for playing disabled Irish artist Christy Brown. Fortunately for the Emerald Isle, Ronan is no ordinary lass. At 13, she's already earned Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations for her haunting performance as young heroine Briony Tallis in Atonement.
The sweeping tale of a girl's betrayal and regret, the film would not work without Ronan's deliberate but naive Briony. "She was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so," wrote author Ian McEwan, on whose novel the film is based. Whether marching the halls like a tiny soldier or delivering the wide-eyed lies that shatter her loved ones' lives, Ronan chills with her spot-on portrayal of the possessed pixie.
"As if by osmosis, she distills only the absolute essentials of the literary character," says Jina Jay, who cast Ronan after seeing her videotaped audition. The casting director, who has worked with children in such hit films as Billy Elliot and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, quickly sensed that Ronan's talent went beyond her years. "Very often, one is trying to find a child who, at that point in his or her life, captures the essence of the character," says Jay. "The stunning thing about Saoirse is that she is not at all like Briony." Able to transform from "her natural joyous self into odd, lonely, complicated, calculated, and fierce Briony," Ronan intuitively knew how to "inhabit the soul" of the conflicted youngster, says Jay.
Yet Ronan also knew how to evolve, working with director Joe Wright to create a complex, layered performance that many young actors would find "too exhausting," says Jay. "It's very, very healthy as well," Wright told the Los Angeles Times. "She's doing a scene where she's crying or scared or intimidated, and we'd all be watching and be scared or crying or frightened. When it was over, we'd be left in that state, and she'd be up and asking where the tea and biscuits were."
Says Jay, "Her capacity to allow an audience to somehow go on a journey with the character, although Briony is impossible to love, is staggering."
—Brooke O'Neill
Olivia Thirlby
Juno
It's not easy to stand out when you're a fresh face in a little film populated with name actors such as Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Allison Janney. It may be even harder when you're stuck in what could be a typically thankless "best friend" role with only a handful of scenes. Fortunately, Olivia Thirlby had been honing her acting chops and building a solid résumé before she auditioned for the role of Leah, best friend to Juno's titular pregnant teen (Ellen Page). Thirlby had trained at the American Globe Theatre in her native New York and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London; her credits include United 93, the NBC drama Kidnapped, and Snow Angels.
In the casting process, Thirlby's friendship with Page may have helped her stand out among other young female actors (casting by Mindy Marin). Beyond being pals, the two were already cast in Bradley Rust Gray's "lesbian werewolf" film Jack and Diane, due out in 2010. "Juno and Leah are a little bit like Ellen and myself, [but] definitely extreme versions," Thirlby told Premiere.
Leah, a character who could have been just another empty-headed mallrat, gained a sweet innocence as played by Thirlby, who tapped into Leah's genuine love for Juno—not an easy thing to express in Juno's quirky universe. Even when Leah calls an ultrasound image of her friend's unborn child "freaky-looking" and ponders whether the baby's fingernails could "scratch your vag on the way out," her crude comments are just surface to the sincerity beneath.
Thirlby seems to be carving out a career in indies about troubled youth. In The Wackness, which recently won Sundance's Audience Award, Thirlby plays opposite Ben Kingsley as a psychiatrist's daughter who falls for a drug-dealing teen. Her busy docket also includes Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret; Uncertainty, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt; and Safety Glass, with Hilary Duff and Amber Tamblyn.
—Lauren Horwitch