Speaker 1: Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with Higheartradio.
Speaker 2: Micshas and Katie.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 4: First of all, we have to say that at the
Speaker 4: time of this recording, we're just coming together after my
Speaker 4: one of my best friends in the entire world's favorite
Speaker 4: day on Earth, which is Halloween.
Speaker 2: Halloween.
Speaker 5: Whose special holiday is that? Is that? Mister Cci, Oh,
Speaker 5: mister Cci.
Speaker 1: Mister Gierma Diazes. Yes, I love Halloween. I do, I do.
Speaker 1: And oddly enough, I was traveling. I was in Berlin
Speaker 1: for about a week, so I was traveling up until
Speaker 1: the thirtieth. So on the thirty first, on Halloween, I
Speaker 1: ended up just staying like home in my living room
Speaker 1: watching horror movies.
Speaker 5: And I didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't even dress up, but I was I was
Speaker 1: fine with that. I was exhausted.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Secretly, gee, you kind of loved that day.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've done all the things you could possibly
Speaker 4: do out to celebrate Halloween. That it's like it's okay
Speaker 4: once in a while to have a quiet And it
Speaker 4: was on.
Speaker 1: A Tuesday, so it was like, okay, it's gonna stay
Speaker 1: home and rest.
Speaker 4: Yes, for everyone listening. Who who has listened to Unpacking
Speaker 4: the Toolbox? And it's different incantations. You know that a
Speaker 4: big part of the show is that we always do
Speaker 4: six degrees of horror films, and the biggest part of
Speaker 4: horror films and just what we do in general is
Speaker 4: the casting of them.
Speaker 5: G Oh, oh, you brought that up. I wish we
Speaker 5: had someone who is the best casting person in the
Speaker 5: history of casting people around to speak about that. It's
Speaker 5: so weird.
Speaker 3: Yes do we?
Speaker 5: Oh? Way we do? Oh?
Speaker 4: How like the person that oh, one of the people
Speaker 4: that I think saved my life and saved Germo Diaz's
Speaker 4: life along with Yeah, saved all of our lives and
Speaker 4: countless countless actors. Countless actors have paid their rent, their mortgage,
Speaker 4: their health insurance because of this. Yes, Goddess, goddess who
Speaker 4: goes by the name of.
Speaker 6: So long, you all have saved me countless times. Betsy,
Speaker 6: you saved my life so many times, so many times,
Speaker 6: just by.
Speaker 5: Hiring, by the way, that was the smartest. I made
Speaker 5: some good decisions and dumb ones, but that was one
Speaker 5: of the smartest ones. We pat ourselves in the back
Speaker 5: of the luck that we ended up meeting when we did,
Speaker 5: and how when I also tell you too, because you
Speaker 5: won't see this that Linda, there's a whole side of
Speaker 5: our business for people who are listening to this, who
Speaker 5: are learning about these sides of the business, where there
Speaker 5: are these agents and agents represent actors. And when I
Speaker 5: tell you that, Linda Lowie, every time there was a problem,
Speaker 5: I would look at Linda and say, I can't talk
Speaker 5: to that person. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna lose
Speaker 5: my mind. I'm gonna lose my much. She's like, will
Speaker 5: save you. I'm We're going to save you for the
Speaker 5: losing the mind part. I'll take care of it. From
Speaker 5: from the actual casting, the reading, the choosing, the the
Speaker 5: ad the deal making. It sounds the advocating just advocating
Speaker 5: for different people, the ability to put an ensemble together,
Speaker 5: and also being just an all round lovely human being
Speaker 5: who's the most terrific to be around, and also who
Speaker 5: also has a baller husband. You can say that again. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And just so we're clear, we didn't know Linda Lowie
Speaker 5: had a baller husband. When we hired Linda Lowie. She
Speaker 5: was just a baller. It turns out it's a what.
Speaker 2: No, you didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Linda Lowe went along with the one and only Jeff Perry.
Speaker 5: For one We saw we saw Jeff Perry moving like
Speaker 5: a microwave one day and we were like, what's that
Speaker 5: dude doing here? And Linda said, that's my husband. We
Speaker 5: were like, that's her husband.
Speaker 4: This isn't Prospect Studios, right, this is like the OG.
Speaker 4: I mean, for all of you guys listening, Linda Lowe
Speaker 4: and Betsy Beers and Shondaland go back so long before
Speaker 4: there was a Shondaland, before there was Shondaland. I mean
Speaker 4: the of the Shondaland was with Linda Lowi And so
Speaker 4: I'm just assuming you're at your offices in Prospect, and
Speaker 4: lovely husband Jeff Perry, who is like the most amazing actor,
Speaker 4: is helping you put a microwave in your office.
Speaker 5: I think it was a microwave.
Speaker 6: He was walking, he was he was bringing in some
Speaker 6: boxes from the car because I was moving into my office.
Speaker 6: It was the only time I ever saw Shonda run.
Speaker 6: She came running towards me because she saw him out
Speaker 6: the window. And she one of the things she said was,
Speaker 6: oh my god, it's so sad. And I said, what's
Speaker 6: so sad? And she said that that he's moving. Why
Speaker 6: is that actor who's my favorite actor? Were boxes?
Speaker 5: She came back. She was like, it must be really
Speaker 5: hard and I.
Speaker 6: Said that's my husband. She went, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Was she mortified?
Speaker 5: Was she immediately was just like, oh my god, we
Speaker 5: can cast him, we.
Speaker 6: Can cast him. And I said, well, he could be
Speaker 6: you know, t R's father. I was already starting to think, though,
Speaker 6: please got cast it. And she was and she and
Speaker 6: in her way, the way she was, the wheels were turning.
Speaker 6: You could see it in her face. You all know
Speaker 6: that face. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and she was she said, no,
Speaker 6: not his father, but a different father, like she already knew,
Speaker 6: and she wouldn't tell me, but she already. It was
Speaker 6: pretty great. It was pretty great.
Speaker 5: And that was so early, super early on.
Speaker 4: Oh that his role is so iconic as Meredith Gray's dad,
Speaker 4: iconic iconic role.
Speaker 5: That do you mean that the dad of somebody who
Speaker 5: might have been on a medical show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exact, that's exactly correct on a medical show.
Speaker 5: Linda, tell us a little bit, and tell everybody who's list,
Speaker 5: say a little bit. So you are have been for
Speaker 5: years and you are a casting director. What's your story?
Speaker 5: How did you start? How do you how did this happen?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Betsy likes to call it, what's your superhero like
Speaker 4: origin story?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Because I I don't.
Speaker 4: Did you just wake up one day and know that
Speaker 4: being a casting director is something you could do?
Speaker 5: Because we all start as actors. I always figure like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I started as an actor, but that isn't
Speaker 6: you know. Look, I think for me it was it
Speaker 6: was a bit of a different journey. I have to say, say,
Speaker 6: and Katie, I think I told you this, so I
Speaker 6: hope you're not bored. I think we you and I
Speaker 6: talked about this recently. But besides the fact, you know,
Speaker 6: growing up in New York, growing up in New York
Speaker 6: was a huge boost because if you grew up in
Speaker 6: New York and if your parents went to see the
Speaker 6: theater sometimes they sometimes you got lucky and they took
Speaker 6: you to Broadway, and they took me to you know,
Speaker 6: the big Broadway shows. Sound of Music in my time,
Speaker 6: you know Sound of Music and My Fair Lady and
Speaker 6: Oklahoma and Westside Store, you know all those big musicals.
Speaker 6: I was never so happy in my life as when
Speaker 6: I was sitting there, and I think for a kid,
Speaker 6: it was more than just I love this. I like
Speaker 6: wanted to work there. I wanted to vacuum the carpets.
Speaker 6: I wanted to be an usher. I wanted to see
Speaker 6: the show every night for the rest of my life.
Speaker 6: I wanted to, you know, run away from home and
Speaker 6: just be like join the circus. I thought about it
Speaker 6: all the time. I had a little record player and
Speaker 6: I used to play the records over and over and
Speaker 6: over and over and over again, the musicals, and I
Speaker 6: just thought that probably I wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 6: And I think that's where we get confused, because you
Speaker 6: don't know what the other jobs are, right, You just
Speaker 6: don't really know. So I went to the American Academy
Speaker 6: of Dramatic Arts.
Speaker 3: I did not know that you went to AMDA.
Speaker 6: From ninth grade to twelfth grade. I went from just
Speaker 6: on Saturdays, and I took the train to New York
Speaker 6: ause I grew up in Westchester County. Anyway, I did
Speaker 6: really well there, and they invited me into their college program.
Speaker 6: And they only invited two of us from all of
Speaker 6: the classes into the college program. So you know, I
Speaker 6: was going to go. So I went home that night
Speaker 6: and I said to my dad and my mom, I said,
Speaker 6: you know, this is what's happening. I'm going to stay
Speaker 6: in New York and I'm going to go to the
Speaker 6: American Academy for college. They did not look happy. And
Speaker 6: it's not that they didn't want me to be an actor.
Speaker 6: They just said, that's what is that? And I said,
Speaker 6: it's a two year pro that was it. They were like,
Speaker 6: that's a junior college. No, yeah, that's how they viewed
Speaker 6: the world. It was college, junior college. And I was
Speaker 6: a good student. So my dad and I made a
Speaker 6: deal that i'd apply to one school and if I
Speaker 6: didn't get in, it was pretty a good deal for me.
Speaker 6: I thought, just if I didn't get in, I could
Speaker 6: go and Harvard and Yale and some of the sort
Speaker 6: of we used to call them the seven Sister schools.
Speaker 6: You know, we're off the list, you know, because not
Speaker 6: the obvious. You're not getting into Harvard, so you can't
Speaker 6: use that. But I knew about a little school called
Speaker 6: Northwestern that we used to call the Harvard of the
Speaker 6: Midwest growing up. They didn't know that, my parents, they
Speaker 6: didn't know anything about it. It was in Chicago, it
Speaker 6: was out in the provinces, so to speak. So I said, okay,
Speaker 6: and I knew they had a good theater department if
Speaker 6: worse came to worse, you know. So I applied to
Speaker 6: Northwestern and I got it. So never today could I
Speaker 6: get into that school, but I got in.
Speaker 1: Did you do a lot of plays, Linda, while you
Speaker 1: were there?
Speaker 6: No place?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 6: I got so scared because at north When I got
Speaker 6: to Northwestern, you were all kind of mushed together, you know,
Speaker 6: for auditions and whatnot into a little theater in the
Speaker 6: heart of Evanston, which was called the Benson Street Theater
Speaker 6: or Cohn Auditorium, and you were auditioning against seniors and
Speaker 6: like stars at Northwestern. And that's when I got a
Speaker 6: taste of rejection. And I thought, oh, I don't like
Speaker 6: hell I don't know hell no, hell no, I don't
Speaker 6: know how you all do it. I just was like,
Speaker 6: this is the most depressing I'm you know, I just
Speaker 6: but I still like the the literature, you know, and
Speaker 6: I love the professors, and I loved like my interp
Speaker 6: class and one of the professors at Northwestern. I graduated early,
Speaker 6: and I kept going back to the school to visit,
Speaker 6: and I ran into him and can't even remember his
Speaker 6: name right now. And he said, look, Lynda, I've been
Speaker 6: thinking about you. There's a course in England, in the
Speaker 6: North of England at Durham University that is starting a
Speaker 6: degree for drama and education and they're accepting applicants and
Speaker 6: it's just starting and they're only going to take a
Speaker 6: few people. And I think you should apply. And I
Speaker 6: know that I know the professor who's running it a
Speaker 6: little bit, and he's worth he's worth it. So what
Speaker 6: did I I just thought, okay, you know, I didn't
Speaker 6: even look at a map. I just thought, oh, Durham,
Speaker 6: it's probably near London. I mean it was six hours
Speaker 6: by trying because you'd have to go to the library
Speaker 6: to look at him. I had never been out of
Speaker 6: the country except to Canada. On the train going to Durham,
Speaker 6: it seemed like every stop we made we went back
Speaker 6: in time, about fifteen years. I thought, by the time
Speaker 6: we got to Durham, like the women would be wearing
Speaker 6: like little and I thought there was there was. I
Speaker 6: thought there was Queen's English and Cockney. I had no
Speaker 6: idea that there were all the other.
Speaker 5: Actual you were raised on. You were waste on my
Speaker 5: fir lady.
Speaker 3: I mean, what else did you Poppins? Which they're just
Speaker 3: too Yeah, what did I know it's like?
Speaker 6: And so when I get off the train and it's
Speaker 6: a Jordy thing, I thought I was in Scotland and
Speaker 6: I had gotten off at the wrong time. I couldn't
Speaker 6: understand anybody, and it started drizzling, and I walked into
Speaker 6: my classroom and maybe the most beautiful man I had
Speaker 6: ever seen in my life, in my whole life, was
Speaker 6: standing at the head of I thought it was hallucinating.
Speaker 3: And it's not Jeff Perry.
Speaker 6: It's not Jeff Perry. It wasn't Jeff Perry. It wasn't
Speaker 6: my first husband either. But it was Sting.
Speaker 3: Oh, no one, the only Sting.
Speaker 6: The only only He wasn't Sting. Then he was Gordon
Speaker 6: Sumner and he was a teacher in a high school
Speaker 6: in Newcastle.
Speaker 5: Please tell me, Please tell me there was love. You
Speaker 5: guys make out.
Speaker 4: And then please take us through you.
Speaker 5: Please tell me there was sweet sweet love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then tell us what I was like.
Speaker 1: Truth.
Speaker 6: So the reason I bring that up is because you
Speaker 6: never know how your past is going to intersect with
Speaker 6: your future. And the reason I got my first big
Speaker 6: break in casting, which was to do a Michael Apted film. Wow,
Speaker 6: every casting director wanted to meet him, every single one
Speaker 6: in the world, And I thought, I don't even know
Speaker 6: how I got there. Anyway. I was sitting there and
Speaker 6: I was thinking to.
Speaker 3: Myself, how do I make out with Sting?
Speaker 6: Yeah? How come I didn't make out with Sting? That's
Speaker 6: what I was thinking about. I was thinking to myself, Well,
Speaker 6: wait a minute, he did Bring on the Night. Michael
Speaker 6: Apted directed Bring on the Night, the Sting documentary, so
Speaker 6: I thought, oh, I'll talk to him about Sting. You know,
Speaker 6: I'll tell him what happened. And when I told him
Speaker 6: that story, it was like his chin had to be
Speaker 6: lifted off of the desk. He just said, you know,
Speaker 6: when we were doing Bring on the Night, we were
Speaker 6: looking for anybody who knew him in that at that time,
Speaker 6: if there was an American that might have known him
Speaker 6: during those years when he had that other band. He said,
Speaker 6: this is so incredible, and he and I got along
Speaker 6: like wildfire, and I got the job above like I
Speaker 6: hadn't cast one thing yet.
Speaker 4: Wow, Wow, we will be back with more after the break.
Speaker 6: My degree never helped me one bit. It was the
Speaker 6: place and people, so sting that helped before that. Going
Speaker 6: back now to after graduate school, when I moved back
Speaker 6: to New York and I lived in the West Village,
Speaker 6: I lived in the East Village. Sorry, I lived on
Speaker 6: Tenth Street. And I go and interview with this company.
Speaker 6: They're called TDF and they support Broadway during previews through
Speaker 6: a subscription that they do, and they pretty much support
Speaker 6: completely support off off Broadway, or they did through this
Speaker 6: thing called a voucher program. It's just to give theater
Speaker 6: a boost, and they gave Broadway a boost during previews
Speaker 6: because they sold cheaper tickets to their subscriber based smart right.
Speaker 6: Any company that was getting X amount of dollars from
Speaker 6: the federal government at that time that was a not
Speaker 6: for profit had to start providing for the differently able. Anyway,
Speaker 6: go for my interview, and I made it to like
Speaker 6: the third or fourth, I guess it was the third
Speaker 6: interview where I met that guy who ran the place
Speaker 6: and he was a brit I didn't know that. And
Speaker 6: he's looking at my resume and he said, did you
Speaker 6: actually go to Durham University? And I said, well, you know,
Speaker 6: I didn't make it up. And he said, I'm from
Speaker 6: Durham and I've never met an American that's ever spent
Speaker 6: time there. So we talked about Durham the whole time
Speaker 6: and where I lived and my experiences and everything, and
Speaker 6: he hired me off the spot at age twenty three
Speaker 6: to run this program to make Bad Way cut to
Speaker 6: I was interested in doing this, getting sign language interpreters
Speaker 6: in and signing the shows, you know, once a month.
Speaker 6: We figured we would figure it out. The Schuberts and
Speaker 6: the Nederlanders wouldn't let us do that because of union rules.
Speaker 6: They were being so still. It was like we're unionized
Speaker 6: down to the floor tax and you can't do that
Speaker 6: or we'll get sued. And we're like, well what do
Speaker 6: you That doesn't anyway. They just didn't want to do it.
Speaker 6: They thought it would be I didn't want to do
Speaker 6: a night for the deaf, and I knew so they
Speaker 6: could look through the sign language interpreters onto the stage.
Speaker 6: We'd have a special play bill. It would be an
Speaker 6: integrated event. And they said you can't start at Broadway.
Speaker 6: You need to start off off Broadway and I was like, okay, Well,
Speaker 6: if you're a deaf person and you're taking the bus,
Speaker 6: to work like every person in the city. And you
Speaker 6: see marquees for you know, a chorus line. You want
Speaker 6: to go see a chorus line. You do not want
Speaker 6: to go see kabuki media down in the east, you know.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And it was and I was.
Speaker 1: Naked, which Katie was doing in a black box theater
Speaker 1: when she started.
Speaker 5: She was naked and she was reroly running glass.
Speaker 3: Yeah anyway, that's hard period.
Speaker 4: No, yeah, no, I want to see the show like
Speaker 4: this is ridiculous.
Speaker 5: People.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, it was ridiculous. So for two So for
Speaker 6: two years or a year and a half, while that
Speaker 6: was a fight between my boss and the supert Anitalanders,
Speaker 6: I went around all the boroughs and got a mailing list,
Speaker 6: like a huge mailing list of deaf people interested. And
Speaker 6: Phyllis Freelich was you know, around then, and there were
Speaker 6: people that were helping me. And but in the meantime,
Speaker 6: I did a wheelchair access. I did tickets if you
Speaker 6: were visually impaired. I became like a little box office,
Speaker 6: and so people could come to me and I could
Speaker 6: get your seats up front. I could get your seats
Speaker 6: a nile seat. I could get you what you needed
Speaker 6: because I became friends with all the box office treasurers.
Speaker 6: Here was I twenty three, running around God, my friends
Speaker 6: with all the box office treasurers.
Speaker 1: So Great lod.
Speaker 6: Hold, Children of a Lesser God comes to Broadway and
Speaker 6: wins two. And at that point the Schubert's called Hugh
Speaker 6: Southern my boss. And they said, that little persnickety sassy
Speaker 6: gal you got back there. Tell her she can do
Speaker 6: whatever she wants.
Speaker 5: No way.
Speaker 6: So we started and I hired the I had the
Speaker 6: ability to hire a few of the actors from the
Speaker 6: National Theater of the Deaf to be like my board,
Speaker 6: you know, to be like my to make sure that
Speaker 6: the signing, that the signage of the interpreters was correct,
Speaker 6: and to just to just lend a hand, so to speak.
Speaker 6: And so what happened was I started casting, and I
Speaker 6: didn't know I was casting because I wanted the sign
Speaker 6: language interpreters, and there's a lot of them in New York,
Speaker 6: to look like the shows. So if we were doing
Speaker 6: chorus line, I wanted them to look like dancers. If
Speaker 6: we were doing you know, best Little Whorehouse in Texas,
Speaker 6: I didn't want them to look like I wanted them
Speaker 6: to look like something else. And so that's that's that
Speaker 6: isn't so, you know, incredible. So I didn't really know
Speaker 6: I was casting though until I came to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 5: We keep start hearing this. That's what's interesting because I
Speaker 5: think certainly I can relate to a lot of what
Speaker 5: you're talking about. Is I always say when people ask them,
Speaker 5: like every single thing you do will lead you to
Speaker 5: what ends up bringing you joy or you feel success
Speaker 5: full or confident doing every single job you do, every
Speaker 5: single thing you study. I mean, the fact that you've
Speaker 5: just pointed out that the location you were in, which
Speaker 5: was in Stick City, England, that I mean, then the
Speaker 5: stink connection, the fact that you had the experience you had,
Speaker 5: all of that added to a job and it's like
Speaker 5: it's like spirits were going like, this is your job,
Speaker 5: but you don't know it yet. You're just gonna build it.
Speaker 5: But there's a job. And that's one of the things
Speaker 5: we keep saying in this podcast is listen, like what
Speaker 5: you did. That's amazing story because you've absolutely encapsulated what
Speaker 5: I would call an incredibly inspiring but successful path of
Speaker 5: accepting what comes in your lap. It's like, for me,
Speaker 5: I gave up acting because I needed to make money,
Speaker 5: and I read scripts and it turned out I was
Speaker 5: really good with scripts and material. All of a sudden
Speaker 5: there was a job.
Speaker 6: At that point, I thought maybe I was going to
Speaker 6: turn into Betsy. Do you remember the producing team in
Speaker 6: New York for theater Now Nation and Len McCann. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I thought I was going to be them with a
Speaker 6: different person, you know, like I'd have a partner and
Speaker 6: I produced theater. I had no idea how you did it,
Speaker 6: but I just loved, you know, that cold New York thing.
Speaker 6: And to tell you the truth, when you would go
Speaker 6: see movies. I didn't really watch television, but when you
Speaker 6: would go see movies, casting directors did not get upfront
Speaker 6: credit for a very very long time. It did not
Speaker 6: become a thing. I think Lynn stall Master.
Speaker 5: I remember Wody Allen. It was a big thing. Like
Speaker 5: it happened relatively early.
Speaker 6: Alan gave it and also Mike Fenton fought for it,
Speaker 6: and I think it started somewhere around Kramer versus Kramer,
Speaker 6: people started getting, you know, main title credit. Lynn Stallmaster
Speaker 6: got it early, I think for something that he had done,
Speaker 6: but it didn't stick. It wasn't like every have know
Speaker 6: and that was it, and.
Speaker 5: It was like a one off with different directors too,
Speaker 5: so it's like it was a it was a cluster.
Speaker 5: But it's so interesting when you look at that, and
Speaker 5: this is a whole other area of the business that
Speaker 5: obviously it's relevant to all of us. And when you
Speaker 5: look at credits, if you're just a viewer, there's a
Speaker 5: lot that goes into figuring out like who's before the
Speaker 5: show starts or the movie starts and credits on TV
Speaker 5: or sort of wacka doodle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And also for you listening, there's shared cards or
Speaker 4: single cards, which means some actors get their name by themselves.
Speaker 4: Some actors have to have their name alongside one, possibly
Speaker 4: two other actors. And these are all things worked out
Speaker 4: in the deal before you start working. And that's the
Speaker 4: stuff that Betsy was talking about in the beginning that
Speaker 4: when she's like, ah, this sucks, because it does, Linda Lowe,
Speaker 4: that is a muge part of casting is like these deals.
Speaker 6: That's the biggest thing is credit.
Speaker 5: The deals are and to the it's it's such a
Speaker 5: big deal. And when you think about like basically what
Speaker 5: I've always thought is okay, cour with the people you
Speaker 5: couldn't make the show without right for the genesis of show.
Speaker 5: You can't do Jack Poop without a great casting director,
Speaker 5: like you can't because the whole show the same way,
Speaker 5: the look of it, I mean, every single thing like
Speaker 5: and the fact that it was sort of treated as
Speaker 5: I would say, a chick job for years. It's like
Speaker 5: the casting ladies. I mean, there are men too, but
Speaker 5: it was sort of like it's it's not a supporting roles,
Speaker 5: it's every single thing. And I think what's interesting to me,
Speaker 5: Lenny is it's like, you know, you started looking at
Speaker 5: theater and then you ended up in movies, and then
Speaker 5: in a way you skip movies for a second where
Speaker 5: their leads and their stars, and that's so much of it.
Speaker 5: And you go back to your comment about ensembles, which
Speaker 5: to me is so much theater and TV. It must
Speaker 5: have been really interesting to make the transition for movies
Speaker 5: to televisions.
Speaker 6: Because because even in theater, and we all have experienced
Speaker 6: this with theater, and we all experience this with with
Speaker 6: I mean Girmo and Katie. You know what I'm talking
Speaker 6: about when I say there's a difference between what feels
Speaker 6: canned and you know, we ordained compared to what feels
Speaker 6: in the moment, and that's how I conducted every audition
Speaker 6: I ever. Did you know how much did you rehearse
Speaker 6: this at home? And how much can I get out
Speaker 6: of you right now here in the moment where I
Speaker 6: feel something and you're telling me the truth and it's
Speaker 6: exciting and it's not just just something you worked on
Speaker 6: at home, which I can tell that you're not veering
Speaker 6: off from. And that's what all my direction was always about.
Speaker 6: And for me, that's been a continual signpost right up
Speaker 6: to right now.
Speaker 4: You know, Oh my god, And you can really tell
Speaker 4: for all the actors listening, Like when you go into
Speaker 4: other auditions rooms, it might be in like a big
Speaker 4: conference room that's like massive, and you're trying to like
Speaker 4: fill the space with your voice, even though it might
Speaker 4: be like a very intimate scene. Or you might be
Speaker 4: in like, oh my god, I've been in casting offices
Speaker 4: that I am not going to name names where such
Speaker 4: fucking insanity is going on.
Speaker 3: I can't even begin to.
Speaker 4: Tell you, like such like like twenty I know we're
Speaker 4: all dog people here, but like twenty dogs in the
Speaker 4: audition room like jumping on my lap and I'm trying
Speaker 4: to have a break down like craziness, but like you
Speaker 4: go into Linda's office and it feels like you go
Speaker 4: and there's a cat like it's very intimate and informal,
Speaker 4: but formal at the same time, it's like you know
Speaker 4: and you know you better do your work because in
Speaker 4: the business, everyone knows Linda Lowie's a theater person, she's
Speaker 4: a real actor's casting director, she's married to Jeff Perry.
Speaker 3: You got to know your shit.
Speaker 4: But then when you get in there, it's all about
Speaker 4: like honesty and truth and yeah, it's really I mean,
Speaker 4: I know ge you feel like that when you go
Speaker 4: in Oh totally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well we had so much fun. We have so
Speaker 6: much fun. But there's no room in it. Like the
Speaker 6: last time I was casting, there was a room. Now
Speaker 6: there's no room. It doesn't seem like as I go
Speaker 6: back into you know, the casting world arena.
Speaker 5: I really, I really hope that there rooms because we
Speaker 5: need it. I still believe, especially for chemistry readings. And
Speaker 5: I think we've talked about this a little bit on
Speaker 5: this podcast, but that's something we all do. When we
Speaker 5: have a couple of actors who are going to work
Speaker 5: very closely together and the casting director puts the two
Speaker 5: actors in a room so that and tapes it so
Speaker 5: we can see it if we're not there or if we're
Speaker 5: sitting there, we watch it so we can sort of
Speaker 5: feel if there's real if there's a real vibe between
Speaker 5: the actors, right, And I think at the I still
Speaker 5: think that there's something about in person. And I also
Speaker 5: can say as a producer in Linda Lwi's office, it's
Speaker 5: a little bit like how do I put this, It's
Speaker 5: like a cross between a spa and a church, but
Speaker 5: now but with a sense of humor. I'm never in
Speaker 5: that office, I did, no, but you coming in like
Speaker 5: there there'd be water and there'd be sort of like
Speaker 5: it'd be kind of quiet and nice, and people would
Speaker 5: be coming in and out and feel.
Speaker 3: Kind of sacred. Like it didn't.
Speaker 4: It doesn't feel like did like you're part of this
Speaker 4: huge machine. The other like cool thing about Linda is like,
Speaker 4: you know, some of these rooms you go in and
Speaker 4: there's five hundred people, like you feel like you're in
Speaker 4: a meat market. I mean it is bananas. And I
Speaker 4: feel like, Linda, you do so much of your work
Speaker 4: knowing all of what the actors are currently doing, what's
Speaker 4: on what are they working on, so that when a
Speaker 4: park comes up, you already know who would be quote
Speaker 4: unquote right for this, and also who are all the
Speaker 4: outside types that might or completely not what we've discussed
Speaker 4: but could be very fucking right and different.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, for me, usually every actor, you know,
Speaker 6: I want them so bad to get the job, and
Speaker 6: I always want them to leave the office feeling good
Speaker 6: about what they did. And I always do. I get
Speaker 6: behind because I direct a lot and I you know,
Speaker 6: always tip them off to sort of what the real
Speaker 6: reel is. You know that it's not really going to
Speaker 6: be this actually because we know we changed all the
Speaker 6: sides a lot of the times.
Speaker 5: No, you you do. And and the thing a lot
Speaker 5: of people don't know is, and this is sort of
Speaker 5: rare for Linda because I've worked with other casting directors
Speaker 5: at different points, is very often you'll have an actor
Speaker 5: in that you think actually has real possibility or you
Speaker 5: feel like could use it, and you do a precession
Speaker 5: so right, because you know, thank you for that us.
Speaker 5: All thats for us, But it's also as a producer
Speaker 5: who's coming in and like Linda, look, I know what
Speaker 5: it's like to fail in rooms because that's all I
Speaker 5: did when I was an actor, so I how it feels.
Speaker 5: But it's there's something about going in because I just
Speaker 5: walk in and I just want, like you said, I
Speaker 5: want everyone to be good and to know that somebody's
Speaker 5: already had they've already had that begetting leg up so
Speaker 5: that you can really get into it is a gigantic
Speaker 5: piece of the success I think of the work you
Speaker 5: do because it's not a game. It's not like the
Speaker 5: actor is getting tricked into guessing what you're thinking, because
Speaker 5: then you'd have to be a freaking weird psychic and
Speaker 5: you should be an actor. You should make a lot
Speaker 5: of money on like being clairvoyant television. It's not your job,
Speaker 5: it's Linda. It's our job to know what we want
Speaker 5: or be able. And then so many times Lynn, it's
Speaker 5: like we will see somebody and kind of go that
Speaker 5: person's great. Either you'll put them in the this is
Speaker 5: a great person room, which I'm sure both of you
Speaker 5: know what that's like, and always go back and say, wait,
Speaker 5: is this the right part?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 5: Is this the right part? Because you fall in love
Speaker 5: with an actor and it's not true. Everything is like
Speaker 5: the part. Then the actor you fall in love with
Speaker 5: an actor, and all of a sudden, a part emerges,
Speaker 5: because I can say it from working with Shonda or
Speaker 5: and all the other writers we've worked with. All of
Speaker 5: a sudden, you write for somebody you know, and that's
Speaker 5: only because the way you spend time with people, and
Speaker 5: so many.
Speaker 6: Times when you were in the room and Shonda was
Speaker 6: in the room, we would look at each other and say,
Speaker 6: save that one for episode three, or that person's going
Speaker 6: to make a great senator and we have a senator
Speaker 6: coming up. Or And I always say to actors, you
Speaker 6: never know when you're auditioning for something what's going to happen,
Speaker 6: because we might be saving you for a bigger part.
Speaker 6: You might look too much like someone else who's already
Speaker 6: been cast in the scene, so we can't cast you now.
Speaker 6: But we love you, so we're going to bring you back.
Speaker 6: And it might even be for a series regular. I mean,
Speaker 6: look what happened to Kelly McCreary, you know that kind
Speaker 6: of thing, Or and a million.
Speaker 4: Every doctor on I don't know if we can say
Speaker 4: it's a different show on a show that was like
Speaker 4: a off of the medical show you all worked on
Speaker 4: together that took place in Hawaii or Doctors Without Borders
Speaker 4: starring Mamie Gummer and uh all those girls. I went
Speaker 4: in a bunch of times for inside the Sarah Drew situation.
Speaker 4: Like I just mean to say, I was knocking on
Speaker 4: your door.
Speaker 3: It's like bel.
Speaker 4: Kept being like throwlos in there, like throw her in
Speaker 4: there at some point, and thank god it was the one.
Speaker 5: That I got. Yes, I think definitely, because the other
Speaker 5: on a couple of the other ones not so much.
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't have as long as a shelf life.
Speaker 5: Now this is just an off the walk question because
Speaker 5: we're talking about this, but do you know what like
Speaker 5: the weirdest or most gigantically strange thing anybody's can you remember?
Speaker 5: Because I can remember one thing that I thought was
Speaker 5: incredibly strange, a bit weird. In your experience an actress
Speaker 5: done to get apart or in the process of an audition,
Speaker 5: do you have does anything stick out in your head?
Speaker 6: Something one thing sticks out? I don't and I have
Speaker 6: no idea, but I auditioned. This is early in my career.
Speaker 6: I I auditioned actress and before she left, she handed
Speaker 6: me some toilet paper, and on the toilet paper it
Speaker 6: said I want this role or you know the role
Speaker 6: you have, like as she walked out of the room,
Speaker 6: and I thought, that is so desperate. And I kept
Speaker 6: that toilet paper for a very very long time until
Speaker 6: I just couldn't keep it anymore. To a roll of
Speaker 6: toilet paper that had her name all over it. God,
Speaker 6: I want the role.
Speaker 5: Well put Oh my god.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 6: Guys.
Speaker 1: I've told this story before where I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: even want to go in to audition for the political
Speaker 1: show that we all worked on because the character in
Speaker 1: the sides was described as a much older gentleman who
Speaker 1: was sort of nebbish and nerdy, and I was I
Speaker 1: remember being angry at my managers and being like, why
Speaker 1: am I going in on this? I don't. It was
Speaker 1: during pilot season. You know, you have fifty thousand auditions.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, no, and my manager kept saying, geirmo,
Speaker 1: Linda Lowe knows who you are. Just go in. So
Speaker 1: that's just a so our listeners have a peek into
Speaker 1: what sort of Linda Lowe and a lot of casting
Speaker 1: directors are. Like. I was thinking about it last night.
Speaker 1: I thought, you guys are are also magicians in a way,
Speaker 1: and like Crystal ball readers because you you somehow were like, no,
Speaker 1: I want to see Ghirmo Diaz. And I even remember
Speaker 1: walking into the room and just being like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not what felt like, it's not me? Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I yo, But then I started doing saying the words
Speaker 1: and something happened and I thought, I remember getting chills.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of my monologue, I looked
Speaker 1: at Shanda and she was just staring at me, and
Speaker 1: she said, you're a very interesting actor. And I felt
Speaker 1: in my gut. I was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna get it. And and that's that's I mean.
Speaker 1: I would have never gone in the room to even
Speaker 1: audition if Linda had not told my managers I want
Speaker 1: to see him. I see something in him, even though
Speaker 1: the sides describe the character much different from who he is,
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: So yeah, Oh that's so good, Piermo. I remember that moment,
Speaker 6: I really do. I remember so many of the elements well.
Speaker 4: Casting directors, because you're married to Jeff, and you really
Speaker 4: are inside, like you're just so inside. You're like you're
Speaker 4: such an inside baseball casting director and I and I
Speaker 4: think that you.
Speaker 3: Are the secret gatekeeper.
Speaker 4: Like, I don't think enough actors who are listening to
Speaker 4: this understand it is the same three casting directors that
Speaker 4: have employed me my entire twenty years, you know, and
Speaker 4: like one I was a nanny for.
Speaker 6: So by the way, you know, people like Laurie Metcalf
Speaker 6: could say the same thing. I'm not kidding. Do you
Speaker 6: have your favorite you have your ensemble ever casting director?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of my favorite casting stories of all time.
Speaker 4: Talking about different people reading stuff and correct me if
Speaker 4: I'm wrong. There's a certain character on a certain medical
Speaker 4: drama that's still on. It might be the longest running
Speaker 4: medical drama or drama of all time.
Speaker 5: It might be that.
Speaker 4: I think originally the role was for Kristin Chenowith type
Speaker 4: that's correct of Bailey, and then Chandra Wilson ends up
Speaker 4: booking it. I need to know in what world that's
Speaker 4: what we're talking about, where it's like get out of
Speaker 4: your own way.
Speaker 5: Well, also, by the way, let's just I will add
Speaker 5: to that and say there was only one character and
Speaker 5: that whole script. My memory is that was described because
Speaker 5: one of the things from the beginning we Shanda never
Speaker 5: did and we never did, was we never identified look
Speaker 5: type an age race age race like. We were like
Speaker 5: not doing it except for one character.
Speaker 6: One character a Shonda, both of you, all the producers.
Speaker 6: They was like, you cast it the way you see
Speaker 6: the world. Cast it the way you see the world.
Speaker 6: And that's another thing, by the way, for casting directors,
Speaker 6: you got to see a little bit before you can
Speaker 6: cast it. I had been inside a courtroom. I had
Speaker 6: been inside a police station. I had been inside you know,
Speaker 6: I had traveled a little bit. You can't just be
Speaker 6: like a you know, go from teenager in LA to
Speaker 6: like an adult in LA. And I want to be
Speaker 6: a casting director. That's we can talk about that in
Speaker 6: a little bit. But you have to see some stuff
Speaker 6: to be able to reflect that back into your work,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 5: So yeah to that to your tier point, Katie, that's
Speaker 5: that's true story.
Speaker 3: Type. And you did not.
Speaker 4: We cast the greatest actress, one of my favorite actresses,
Speaker 4: and also directed some of the show that she and
Speaker 4: I were on.
Speaker 3: She's unbelievable.
Speaker 5: We saw a tape from her in New York.
Speaker 6: Remember we saw she put herself on tape in New York.
Speaker 6: It was a VHS tape. May I just say that
Speaker 6: I pulled it out of the machine. I watched it,
Speaker 6: I pulled it out of the machine and I thought,
Speaker 6: this cannot be denied. I walked down to where you
Speaker 6: and Shonda were in that hospital. We were in that
Speaker 6: hospital that that rented that It was a closed hospital
Speaker 6: that we were using for offices and to shoot. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 6: and I had an office in there, and I just
Speaker 6: walked down there and I said, you have to see this.
Speaker 6: You know, at that point, Chonda, we were just all
Speaker 6: we might as well have all been in the same room.
Speaker 6: We were all just always just talking to each other,
Speaker 6: and I just walked in.
Speaker 5: We did a lot of casting actually out of the
Speaker 5: old office that I used to work in, and we
Speaker 5: were all in this It's right. We were all in
Speaker 5: this conference room that was tiny, and we'd have all
Speaker 5: the additions. We met Dempsey in that one.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, West La off of Olympic, and we met everybody
Speaker 5: in there. And I remember like Jim Pickens going in
Speaker 5: and like Cape Burton going in. And the thing about
Speaker 5: pilot season, as you all know, which is it was
Speaker 5: the first time we'd ever made a television show. Neither
Speaker 5: us knew what the hell we were doing. It was Lenny,
Speaker 5: it was your first television show or like one of
Speaker 5: your second ones.
Speaker 6: I had been hired. I had been hired. I didn't
Speaker 6: do the pilot. I had done a handful of pilots,
Speaker 6: but I would never stay on them for the show
Speaker 6: because I didn't understand television. I didn't think would be
Speaker 6: good at it. And television and film were pretty separated
Speaker 6: until around this moment when films started to lose a
Speaker 6: lot of foreign financing and all of us became super frustrated,
Speaker 6: and the ship was sinking and we had to like
Speaker 6: jump off or sink with it. So Betsy jumped off.
Speaker 6: I jumped off. Shonda jumped off. That's why people jumped off.
Speaker 3: Were doing movies.
Speaker 6: Yes, we were all doing movies, and we were trying
Speaker 6: so which which added to some of the hilarity of
Speaker 6: Betsy and I doing these deals, you know, as time
Speaker 6: went on, because we didn't know what the hell had happened,
Speaker 6: and I you know that. But anyway, Shonda, Shonda, I
Speaker 6: just said you have to see this, and I shoved
Speaker 6: it into the machine and as soon as it started,
Speaker 6: she was like, no, but I want and then she
Speaker 6: stopped talking and she just we were like me, and
Speaker 6: she just said this is, this is, this cannot be denied.
Speaker 6: We have to test it.
Speaker 4: I am flabber gasted. Wow, by the way you used
Speaker 4: to have to, which Linda and Betsy know more than
Speaker 4: gen I, although I did it a few times, like
Speaker 4: when you would screen test for a pilot, means it's
Speaker 4: so awful.
Speaker 3: Everyone listening. It used to be this old way of
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 4: You would have to do the audition for all the
Speaker 4: studio and you would either get cut or passed, like
Speaker 4: you could move on to network, and then you'd have
Speaker 4: to do the audition again for like a ton of
Speaker 4: other people in suits who were told like not to react,
Speaker 4: not laugh.
Speaker 3: Don't give you anything. It was a night mare.
Speaker 6: I remember when a friend of mine audition had a
Speaker 6: certain network and a certain head of the network at
Speaker 6: that time, who was you know, he had roped off
Speaker 6: seats like please like the house seats, so you know
Speaker 6: we had a Anyway, she said that when she went in,
Speaker 6: you know, auditioned her little heart out. When she left
Speaker 6: before the door closed, he yelled at what about And
Speaker 6: he said an actor's name that was like twenty five
Speaker 6: years older than her. So just to know you're not
Speaker 6: getting the role and to know that, like he you
Speaker 6: look older than you are. I mean, it was just
Speaker 6: all bad. It was a very bad way you did
Speaker 6: do any bad system and actors and actors had to
Speaker 6: sign their deals there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had to sign our deals before you go auditioned.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and a lot of times you were held up.
Speaker 6: You were held up.
Speaker 5: And everyone saw the deal didn't make and the person
Speaker 5: went home. I mean I saw that happen too, so
Speaker 5: it's yeah, it was sesty.
Speaker 4: And also a lot of times you're fucking broke as
Speaker 4: shit and you're seeing like, holy crap, I'm signing this
Speaker 4: piece of paper that my entire life would change. If
Speaker 4: I just booked one episode, I would make more money
Speaker 4: than I've made this year.
Speaker 3: Oh action, is it time to go?
Speaker 4: And then you would have to just act in front
Speaker 4: of all these people. It was so such a mind game.
Speaker 6: It sucked well and then it sucked for the producers
Speaker 6: too because in a little show that was about football
Speaker 6: that took place in Texas, the character of Riggins, we
Speaker 6: found a perfect person we thought was the perfect person.
Speaker 6: He was sitting there before he goes in for his test.
Speaker 6: I'm sitting there with Pete Berg and all the people
Speaker 6: and it was we were at NBC, and you know
Speaker 6: it was Kevin Riley who ran NBC. He find he
Speaker 6: had been He was so new to town that his
Speaker 6: manager at the time didn't even know that he was
Speaker 6: a series regular on another show. Didn't even know until
Speaker 6: we were like getting to the legal stuff. He was like, oh,
Speaker 6: I thought he was just recurring. No, he had a deal.
Speaker 6: He was a series regular on a show called like
Speaker 6: Models Ink or something. We all had to go home
Speaker 6: and go to bed. Pete Sarah mean, we all were
Speaker 6: just I was so freaked out because he was the
Speaker 6: only one we had. And then for the next week
Speaker 6: I went back and back into all the we all
Speaker 6: went crazy, and that's how we found the one who
Speaker 6: really did play Riggins.
Speaker 5: That actually happened on the Metal Coach Shows pilot, where
Speaker 5: somebody we were planning and casting somebody. Then it turned
Speaker 5: out that they in fact had to deal with another
Speaker 5: show that they couldn't get out of, and then we
Speaker 5: ended up having to recast that part. But the happy
Speaker 5: part of that story is we left that person so
Speaker 5: much that on another show a role was built specifically
Speaker 5: for that person and it ended up being a long
Speaker 5: running show.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, so a couple more questions I want to know.
Speaker 4: So you guys, what I was thinking about was how
Speaker 4: I think you three, Betsy and Shanda Linda really changed
Speaker 4: the game in terms of we're not going to have
Speaker 4: the actors do this testing thing anymore. Like when g
Speaker 4: and I were, you know, going in for our DC show.
Speaker 4: That was the first time I had ever heard of
Speaker 4: us making tapes in a casting dutcher's office, and that
Speaker 4: somebody was big enough to just show the tape to
Speaker 4: studio and network and make them sign off on it.
Speaker 3: Right, Like Ge, you didn't have to go test.
Speaker 1: But I was so happy that we didn't have to
Speaker 1: tell you it was.
Speaker 3: The greatest thing in the world. How did you guys
Speaker 3: make that happen?
Speaker 5: I actually think that started to be a thing too.
Speaker 5: We may have been at the head of it, but
Speaker 5: it started to be a thing because as management changed
Speaker 5: at the studio in which we were working. Lyn, correct
Speaker 5: me if I'm wrong, but I think I think we
Speaker 5: were at the canary and the coal mine, frankly, because
Speaker 5: you didn't want to do it.
Speaker 6: And then it started to change. It started to change
Speaker 6: all over because people just started to keep bel and
Speaker 6: it just wasn't working. It was so different and as
Speaker 6: tape right better, you know, as this was way before cast.
Speaker 6: It once cast it became a thing, and then that
Speaker 6: started to really improve and you know, update itself. It
Speaker 6: was pretty much no more live because you know, we're
Speaker 6: not doing theater here. It was better to watch it
Speaker 6: right at your desk.
Speaker 5: It was now I can't speak to comedies because my
Speaker 5: memory is comedies were the last to go. And then,
Speaker 5: as we all know, for actors, the next waterloo is
Speaker 5: the table read. In the old day is because it's
Speaker 5: funny because I work on a British show, and the
Speaker 5: first table read we do with the British show, they
Speaker 5: were all very nervous because they'd heard in America you
Speaker 5: could get cut after the table read, and I had
Speaker 5: to explain to all of them that that was not
Speaker 5: the case. And in fact, we were pretty sure that
Speaker 5: we were in good shape and we were filming the
Speaker 5: next week, so I think it was all gonna be okay.
Speaker 5: But they'd heard these these stories of and they were
Speaker 5: all incredibly nervous. Where we started and I was doing
Speaker 5: stage directions and I stopped everyone. I was like, and
Speaker 5: it's like, well, you know, we might get cut. Oh no.
Speaker 4: I remember feeling that way at the network table read
Speaker 4: of our political show. It was like the Cutwork's gonna
Speaker 4: call an hour after I walk out the door and
Speaker 4: they're gonna say, get her out of there.
Speaker 3: She's not good at.
Speaker 5: Don't I don't like the cut of Girmo's jib.
Speaker 1: I remember feeling like I could be cut, like after
Speaker 1: season three, right after like episode I was like, oh shit.
Speaker 5: When me and Katie werew.
Speaker 1: Was like, are they going to kill us off? Are
Speaker 1: we going to get cut?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, wait Linda, before we lose everybody? What are what's
Speaker 4: your favorite?
Speaker 3: What we need to hunt?
Speaker 5: We need to part We may do a part two.
Speaker 3: What's just interestriate thing about casting?
Speaker 6: My favorite thing about casting is being in the room
Speaker 6: with the actor and how the reason I know after uh,
Speaker 6: you know, it's funny how you can hit potholes, you
Speaker 6: can hit you just can hit something very bad, whether
Speaker 6: it's the beginning of your career or as I like
Speaker 6: to call it, the last lane, the last lane of
Speaker 6: my career. And you know, a not very pretty thing
Speaker 6: happened in August of twenty twenty two, which was the
Speaker 6: HBO Max thing. It was sort of the unforeseen disintegration.
Speaker 6: So that was a gigantic thing. And the reason I
Speaker 6: know that I want to keep doing it is because
Speaker 6: I just like, I was just in London and I
Speaker 6: just saw you know, I just saw Mark ry Lance,
Speaker 6: I'll just say it in Doctor shermel Weiss. And then
Speaker 6: we saw a play a key at the National called
Speaker 6: The Effect that was written by one of the writers
Speaker 6: of Succession. Blah blah blah. And I find myself still
Speaker 6: all these years later, you know, leaning forward and leaning forward.
Speaker 6: And it's not just that I love it. It's more
Speaker 6: than that. It's that I want to take the actors
Speaker 6: with me to the next thing, and I want to
Speaker 6: find stuff for these people, all the people. I want
Speaker 6: to be able to cast, all the people I've seen
Speaker 6: in the last four years or five years, you know,
Speaker 6: because I got when I got the HBO Max job,
Speaker 6: and I wasn't really a casting director anymore. It's more
Speaker 6: overseeing everything, and even though I cast some people, it
Speaker 6: was different. You know. The great thing about television, and
Speaker 6: the great thing about being a casting director for television
Speaker 6: is you see every age all the time, every week, amaze,
Speaker 6: all the time. In movies, you could be four years out.
Speaker 6: You're like, I haven't seen a forty five year old
Speaker 6: woman because I haven't had the need for one, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, you really could go a long time.
Speaker 6: But in television, that was the big secret that I
Speaker 6: never thought about. So I like to be in the
Speaker 6: room with the actress. I like to find people and
Speaker 6: then push them in to the light. That's what I
Speaker 6: like to do. So I have a whole list of
Speaker 6: people for my new bat Cough that I'm starting.
Speaker 3: Gary Diaz and Kittie's.
Speaker 6: Everybody could have worked together. I My thing is, I
Speaker 6: would love so much to all work together again. You know,
Speaker 6: I just I love working with the people that I
Speaker 6: love and me and I just love it. I just
Speaker 6: want to work with my friends. Everybody else.
Speaker 2: Tired.
Speaker 6: I'm too much of a hag to meet new pupils. Well.
Speaker 3: Linda Lowing, Oh thank you Linda, Linda. We love you
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 4: We're so grateful for you coming on the show and
Speaker 4: telling and like giving us a peek behind the curtain
Speaker 4: of the toolbox of casting.
Speaker 6: I loved everything and go second and Betsy, I need
Speaker 6: to see you more. Bets and Bruce. I love that
Speaker 6: husband of yours.
Speaker 5: He popped his little head in and wanted to know
Speaker 5: what the hell was going on in here, because I
Speaker 5: was having such a good time yet I was alone,
Speaker 5: So I think he thought that I was going crazy
Speaker 5: because all he can hear is me talking.
Speaker 3: He's right now, Are you Matt's Betsy, just going crazy?
Speaker 5: Do we need to put you in a rubber room again?
Speaker 5: It is so wonderful to get to talk to you here.
Speaker 5: We will be making plans immediately when I get off
Speaker 5: the podcast.
Speaker 2: Yay.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for doing this and spending the time,
Speaker 5: I think for anybody listening to this, you learned so
Speaker 5: much about so many different possibilities that are available in
Speaker 5: the beautiful world in which we work, and Linda has
Speaker 5: made such an eloquent and gorgeous case for how special
Speaker 5: and how meaningful and how important this job is. So
Speaker 5: thank you so much for that, Linda.
Speaker 3: One actor at a time, you too.
Speaker 6: We love you so much, Love you all so much,
Speaker 6: and see you again soon.
Speaker 4: Scandal is executive produced by Sandy Bailey, alex Alcea, Lauren Homan,
Speaker 4: Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and editor is
Speaker 4: Vince de Johnny, with music by Chad Fisher. Unpacking the
Speaker 4: Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 4: or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Yeah