How to Get Cast in a Netflix Original Film
During a time when Netflix seems to be coming out with a new film or television series every hour, many of its original features have rightfully risen to the top and come part of the awards race. Tamara Jenkinsā āPrivate Lifeā and Nicole Holofcenerās āThe Land of Steady Habitsā are two similar flicks. Both deal with delicate motifs in humorous and heartbreaking ways, and they feature casts of heavy blockbuster like Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, and Molly Shannon in the former and Ben Mendelsohn, Edie Falco, and Connie Britton in the ultimate. Joining them are youthful gift who endue their performances with beyond-their-times gravitas. Behind these casts is a bicoastal platoon that searched the country for youthful actors who could anchor these stories. Jeanne McCarthy handled Los Angeles, while Rori Bergman, who eventually cast these flicksā two youthful leads, worked out of New York City. Bergman spoke to Backstage about the challenges and triumphs that come with being a casting director.
On Interrogations
In āPrivate Lifeā, how did you fill out the family thatās going through this complicated phase in their lives?
We had someone drop out of playing the bastard fairly close to the launch of firing, and the part opened back over. It handed an instigative occasion to fill it with notoriety who perhaps wasnāt as known to cult. We did a deep enough hunt for it, with Jeanne McCarthy in Los Angeles and me in New York, and Kayli (Carter, who got the part) was the last actor we saw for it. She returned from doing a play in New York on Tuesday, came in on Wednesday, and by Friday we knew she was our choice. Sheās so unique, and what she brings to it's just her own substance and tone.
What was the process for changing Carter like?
We brought a lot of girls in for that part, both girls who had a profile formerly and unknowns. We knew it demanded notoriety inconceivable to anchor and go toe to toe with Kathryn and Paul in those scenes, and it was tough.Itās a complicated emotional part for a lot of reasons. She demanded to be endearing but also youthful and have a kind of emotional childhood but also the maturity to feel like she wasnāt being taken advantage of. We were veritably lucky in changing all of those effects that we demanded in Kayli.
What can actors anticipate from auditioning for you?
I hope that weāve created a terrain in our office that's drinking and open. We encourage actors to ask questions when they come by and to be set but open and ready to work. We love to work with actors, and we āll always do a couple of takes and get the chance to play in the room. I hope that we produce a terrain where actors want to show up ready to do that work with us and trust us to be a part of that process with them.
What's a commodity an actor shouldnāt do in your investigation room?
Apologize for themselves and make defenses. When youāre coming by and youāve got the material 24 hours beforehand, so do everybody differently thatās coming on that day. We all know there is nāt always time to take it to the position that you could with further time, but thatās not always the job. occasionally the job is to come back and make it work. So donāt apologize for the work in the room and make defenses for it. Really enjoy what youāre suitable to do in the time that you have in the room with us.
On Changing the Right Actors
What were some of the challenges you had casting these flicks?
Each film had its own part. Chancing Kayliās part was a tremendous challenge, and when we were approaching filming, it sounded nearly intimidating that we didnāt know who was doing that incredibly pivotal part. Product was coming up presto! In Nicole's film, the part that Charlie Tahan played was also one of the last mystification pieces to come into place, and it was such a huge element and such an important narrative piece of that story. We didnāt resolve that piece of casting until veritably late in the process. Once other pieces came into place around it, it brought that part into relief in a way to allow us to see what it demanded. Itās always the scariest when itās weeks down from starting and those types of places are still open. Itās( about) taking the vault of faith on a choice and knowing that itās going to complete the picture.
What considerations did you have to make when balancing the uproarious and dramatic rudiments of both āPrivate Lifeā and āThe Land of Steady Habitsā?
Both Nicole Holofcener and Tamara Jenkins had veritably clear fancies for the way their flicks looked and sounded. Theyāre not different in some ways, but Nicoleās always looking for the humanity and the genuineness in people. Itās the most important thing for casting the places around Nicoleās film You donāt want to see any of the amusement. They've to be 100 percent veracious. Her humor is the moments you see real life reflected back at you in all of its ugliness or beauty. Tamaraās analogous, but perhaps with a different bit of punch to it. It was about looking for people that just had an honesty to them and that succumbed to the humor from a real place of probity and fearlessness. We wanted actors who were good with comedy, but it could nāt be a sitcom. It really demanded to come from the most honest place, which frequently meant more dramatic actors who are suitable to find humor in those moments and be real in them.
When youāre on a hunt for an actor for a design and you want to look outside of agent cessions, where do you find gift?
In New York, I suppose our first responsibility is seeing as important a theater as we can. When weāre looking for youngish actors, we always will reach out to training programs starting all the way down to St Anneās, BPAS, and La Guardia, all the way over through the masterās programs. We āll cast the net as wide as we need to to find what we āre looking for. However, and that was the case on āThe Americans'', we might dig deeper into those veritably specific communities and the theater community within those demographics, If weāre looking for commodity veritably specific like native Russian speakers. Itās kind of going where the rabbit hole leads us to find whatever it's that we need.
Rori Bergman's Advice for Getting Cast in a Netflix Film
As a casting director, what advice do you have for actors?
Be Set and do your schoolwork. I suppose one of the easiest and most egregious effects that I donāt always see actors doing is taking the time to know as important as they can about the tone of the world that theyāre walking into and that theyāre being asked to fit into when they come in for a design. On āThe Americansā, when people would ask us for notes when they were doing a tone- tape recording, weād say just go watch an occasion of the show. However, youāre just doing yourself an injustice to not know, If you donāt. When youāre going in for a design and you have the occasion to take a look at the filmmakersā former film, or read commodity from that pen, or look at the body of work from the lead actor of the show, it gives you a leg up in terms of being suitable to walk into that room and feel like you know where your performance needs to live as a jumping-off place. Also, (youāre) suitable to work with the casting director in the room to hone that more specifically.
