The Hollywood Reporter today has published a new open letter from Woody Allen. The letter is his thoughts on the casting of his films, and his work with his long time casting director Juliet Taylor.
The letter coincides with a larger conversation about casting. At the moment, there is no Academy Award for casting, an issue that is highlighted in the new documentary ‘Casting By‘. That documentary opens in theatres today in New York and LA, and features both Allen and Taylor.
Allen’s letter below:
In my case certainly, the casting director plays a vital part in the making of the movie. My history shows that my films are full of wonderful performances by actors and actresses I had never heard of and were not only introduced to me by my casting director, Juliet Taylor, but, in any number of cases, pushed on me against my own resistance. People like Jeff Daniels, Mary Beth Hurt, Patricia Clarkson and others who are people I was unfamiliar with. A number of discoveries and careers have been launched by the energies and resourcefulness of my casting director. Not only did I use Meryl Streep for a small part in Manhattan when she was a relative unknown, but at the best my casting director helped start the film career of Mariel Hemingway and Dianne Wiest, a stage actress completely unknown to me but known by Juliet Taylor. I’m particularly difficult in the casting area because the whole process bores and embarrasses me. If it were up to me we would use the same half dozen people in all my pictures, whether they fit or not. Despite my recalcitrance, Juliet has forced me to meet and to watch the work of many new people and to hire people on nothing more then her strong recommendation. Because my films are not special effects films and are about human beings, proper casting is absolutely essential. I owe a big part of the success of my films to this scrupulous casting process which I must say if left to my own devices would never have happened. I might add also, anecdotally, that despite my firm conviction that I could never persuade luminaries like Saul Bellow, Marshall McLuhan, Susan Sontag, Mayor Koch and others to work in my films, the confidence and insistence of my casting director proved more accurate and I wound up getting these unlikely notables.
Sincerely,
Woody Allen
Taylor has worked on every Woody Allen film since 1975’s Love And Death. The upcoming ‘Magic In the Moonlight’ will be her 40th time working with Allen on one of his directed projects. She has also worked in such classics as ‘The Exorcist‘, ‘Taxi Driver‘, ‘Schindler’s List‘ and ‘Sleepless In Seattle‘.
Check out our coverage of Casting By and their official site.
3 Comments
I wonder why several of the supporting male actors in “Blue Jasmine” spoke with strong New York accents when they were supposedly from San Francisco. Kinda ruined the film for me.
I agree, the NY accents and some of the expressions, I’m thinking specifically of ‘not fuh nuhthin’, really threw me off and took me out of the movie watching experience.
Yes Bea, You’d think that a top notch casting director would be aware of regional voice differences and cast accordingly.