Since Friday, we started casting. First we started casting the role of Zach and Carmen. I could not attend that session but if you read the post below you'll find an entry from Spencer Smith (our every-man). Instead, the way I saw the auditions was through this amazing site called Cazt (below). It's a great system. My casting director (Kevin Hidalgo at HidalgoCasting) records the video and the people over at Cazt upload it for him and he sends me the link. I watched the auditions and I get to rate the actors much like YouTube videos and even comment on them :-D! This is extremely convenient, especially since I couldn't be at the first day of casting in person.
So I watched the auditions. Like Spencer said, the Zachs that came in were fair but the Carmens were mind-blowing good. Although he said I'd have a hard time choosing between the girls I knew which one was most like the character in my head (I don't think I'll reveal any of the actors until a later post). The Zachs were much easier to filter through; there were a lot of weak performances and few strong ones. I'll admit, I was shaky on the Zachs and was even considering just bringing in an entire new batch of guys but then today happened ...
So today I actually got to go to casting in person. Today was schedule for Zach call backs and Zane auditions. We even had our lead come in to read with the Zachs to match chemistry. Seeing them act against the person they'd really be with was great for all of us. Again, though, it was very simple to pick the guy we would go with. There were two really good ones but one had more chemistry with Courtney (the lead) than the other.
Then it was time for the older chaps: The Zanes.
A little note that I wanted to point out. The guy who was in the IGN April Fools's Legend of Zelda Trailer auditioned for Zane! That was really cool! I totally didn't realize it until long after he left (photo to left, the screencap makes him look like a criminal on the news but I swear he's nice). He did a good audition but his voice didn't work for me. It was really deep and husky, which is fantastic for the Legend of Zelda trailer but not so much for a modern, small-time mob boss. If you haven't seen the trailer I'll post it below. He shows up in the first 0:35 of the video (or at least most of his voice does).So for a long time during the auditions I was underwhelmed. I was pretty frightened we wouldn't find anyone I would be completely content with, then one of the men who came in gave a solid performances and after a short break another actor came in who gave the most amazing audition I've ever witness. He actually made my eyes water.
The thing about his audition that moved me so much is that he made me ashamed that I wrote Zane, because I didn't think it lived up to his acting abilities. He made me see who Zane really was. Through his acting, Zane was revealed, Zane found his salvation. Admittedly, Zane would probably have to be my least and most underdeveloped character and this man, this actor, made me ashamed of that. What most of all the other actors did was shout and scream, making Zane seem very insecure and not calm and collected when really he wasn't that at all, or at least in my head he wasn't. A week ago my script supervisor and I were dealing with some of Zane's lines and I had a hard time defending what Zane was as a character but this actor helped me see Zane entirely. He's not a shouting and screaming kind of guy. He's very quiet and demanding and threatening but nothing outward ... but inward ... very subtle ... like Adrian Pasdar as Nathan Petrelli in Heroes. His dialogue and his voice cuts you deep and I really feared him, but he was still vulnerable and reliant on his top assassin.
Today was a good day.
- Antoine Bandele (Director)
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