INT: We were talking about casting. You said, that right now you do it all from tape. I’m curious, in the last 20 years, I’m curious, before you did that, how would you go through the process of casting an Actor?

JS: Well, the, the, conventionally, you, you see Actors when the Casting Director has them all lined up and send ‘em in, send ‘em in one at a time. And you go through all of the, the ritual, making ‘em comfortable. And I found that, you know, it took quite a bit of time and energy performing that ritual. And, I suppose, you know, extending my compassion, having been there myself so many times, with the kind of tension that somebody has to got through to audition. And wanting to be accepted, etcetera, and looking for a job. And, and I tried it for a while. You know, they, the tape. But, I tried it on a very limited basis. Only tapes of people who, for some reason or other, couldn’t make it in, were visiting another state, they yanked some existing tape on ‘em, blah, blah, blah. And then I suddenly got very interested in the idea that I could evaluate a person’s type, of course, whether they had the quality for the role, and certainly what their, what their, their approach was in terms of their craft. And it’s worked. [INT: Now, it’s an interesting issue, for me, and I wanna pursue it. First of all, in those tapes, are you, are you asking them to do it once, are you doing a wide shot and a close-up; what are you asking specifically, now that you’ve been doing this to see on that tape?] Well, each Casting Director, and sometimes I’m referring to Casting Directors who are local to the area that we’re in. But each Casting Director has a different way, but mostly the standard is to hold one, fairly close medium-shot to close on the Actor, unless it’s important to see height, whatever their legs look like, if that’s a condition. But, generally it’s close-up. [INT: And you will have them read a scene, two scenes, or does it depend?] For the most part, one scene. Where necessary, since there may be a, well, for whatever reason, we’ll use more than one scene. Go for two, three if necessary, just to see what the range is like, if the part is that big.

INT: Will you go through the… Were you ever asked for, I guess, what I’m wondering… Here’s, here’s the question: it really has to do with directability. Here you’ve seen these tapes, of Actors that you don’t know, and you’ve said, “I really, like this one, or these two.” At that point, what happens? Do you, if you’re down to two, for example, of those tapes, what will you do next? ‘Cause in the other, the old days you might have had a recall session. You might have had a, you know…

JS: Well, in a sense, that can happen on tape. It’s happened several times, where you wanna see a little bit more of each Actor to make sure. In which case, you bring ‘em in; but not to me, to the Casting Director. And she re-tapes them according to either a different rea--a different part, just to test, or same role with certain specifics that I will give the Casting Director. And, ultimately, the selection process becomes rather as easy as it would if they were in a room with you. [INT: Now, do you feel, and this… Clearly, this works for you. So you haven’t been caught in the situation where, oh, the best thing that person did was on that tape and now I’ve got her or him on the set and I, and they’re not as good as I thought they were, because you were in the room, having one more chance to direct them, meaning, you know…] That’s only happened maybe once. [INT: Wow.] Luckily, on a small role, where for some reason, they don’t come in with quite the same brilliance that they had when they read. I mean, it happens, it happens all the time. But that would happen whether you were in a room with ‘em or not. I’ve seen that happen more than once, where somebody’ll come in, give a brilliant reading, wonderful, they flip, they leave the room and you mark “E” after their name. And then, they get in front of a camera, they either freeze or somehow they’ve lost what instinctively they had on that first reading. I like to refer to them as “first-reading type talent,” because… And it, it’s a phenomena that, that I suppose it’d be to able to capitalize on, and just not rehearse any Actor, and just have ‘em come on and do one performance, you know. But you can’t do that. [INT: Now, it’s interesting. Does this mean that in certain roles, an Actor will walk onto the set and it’s the first time the two of you’ll meet?] Yeah, but I, I, I don’t wait that long. [INT: Okay.] I bring, I see to it that they come into rehearsal. [INT: Got it.] And, and that’s for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is it’s awfully nice to meet them. [Laughs] [INT: Alright.] But also, it’s nice that they meet each other. [INT: Right. I wanna deal with rehearsals in a second.] Yeah.

INT: Let’s talk about dealing with, you know, casting stars. You’ve worked with an incredible slew of spectacularly talented people, and also had to work with networks, and studios, making decisions. How do you go about that process, particularly if the project doesn’t have someone attached to it? Then the star search to legitimize… What’s your process, or has been your process?

JS: Again, it’s collaborative, and it’s, it’s part of the contractual obligations that, thankfully, DGA help set up with a bill of rights, in that the Director, that we’re in, where all of us in a consultative capacity, when it comes to the marquis of that picture, as to, and who was gonna be marquis enough to make the picture happen. That can only be a cons--a collaborative committee-type thing, because it’s too important as to who is gonna make the decision as to who is important; who is marquis enough to do what we want him to do. Usually, the star is offered up by the studio and/or producing company, and you either go with it because it’s exciting, or you offer some kind of resistance. And, if you can make a good point, you’ll win it. Otherwise, that’s the star. Now, that happens when the Director’s hired before the star. In most cases, it’s the other way around. Even in long form, even in two hour, mini series form. It’s usually more standard procedure to hire the star and make the green light happen, before even hiring the Director. [INT: I’m gonna--] Most green lights can’t take place unless they know who the, who the star is.

INT: I’m gonna look at a couple of movies, just to talk to talk about some of the cast and wonder whether, you know, there may, the decision process, just to see. For example, Mos Def in, in, in SOMETHING THE LORD MADE. Now, was he part of this? Did, was he already on board before you…?

JS: In a sense, yes. As a matter of fact, because HBO had such a good experience and such a good reaction to Mos’s Def west, DEF POETRY [RUSSELL SIMMONS PRESENTS DEF POETRY]. He became kind of like an HBO heavyweight. And, naturally I’d never heard of him, ‘cause I had not seen the show, and most people haven’t. And, whenever I would say “Mos Def,” they’d look at me like, “What?” And, we saw how remarkable an Actor he really is, ultimately. But I didn’t know anything about him. I had to go on the instincts of the executives at HBO for even thinking of him in, you know, in a role like that. Because what I didn’t know, and what most people don’t know, is that Mos was an Actor first, and he was a child Actor. So, he’s had quite a lot of experience as an Actor, and then took on rap as a, as a way of making a living. [INT: Right, right. In terms of just this picture, Mary Stuart Masterson and Kyra Sedgwick. Now, were they on board, or were, was this one of the examples where now you’re in collaboration, discussing who should play the other roles?] No, they were, they were chosen by acclimation. Director and all of the committee, etcetera. And, and they made a, they made a hell of a contribution. [INT: Oh, they’re great.]

INT: My q--This issue of having to deal with the committee, because in the end, you have to direct those Actors.

JS: I know. That’s, that’s something I wish we could keep repeating to some of the executives. Because even to this day, I have to contend with having to shout down an executive every once in a while who insists that his choice is the final choice. And most of the time, we’re all in sync. Most of the time, it’s a very good, productive collaboration. But every once in a while, there’s that one… Let’s face it, casting, like anything else, is very subjective. It’s incredible, you know, some of the people that you would, you wouldn’t even walk across the street to acknowledge, will wind up being your star. [Laughs.]

INT: In terms of, just looking at some of the other films… In, in A LESSON BEFORE DYING…Now here’s a great Actor, Don Cheadle--[JS: You bet.] But, was he attached, ‘cause nobody really knew who he was, or he may have been, I’m just, cause I don’t know…

JS: He wasn’t attached, but he was highly, highly suggested by HBO. And, again, he was one of those, shadowy kinds of celebrity, Actors that not too many people had ever heard of. And, the, Colin [Colin Callender], from HBO, was convinced he was… He was strong enough for them, and luckily, for all of us, that was a good call. [INT: Yeah, that’s a great call.] Yeah. [INT: He’s a brilliant Actor.]

INT: Here, here’s an interesting one: THE KAREN CARPENTER SERIES [THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY], the, the show. THE KAREN--THE KAREN CARPENTER SHOW. In terms of who was gonna portray her, this is a real tricky one, was, had she [Cynthia Gibb] already proven herself, did, was this one where you were working together?

JS: She was set. She was coming in happily. She absolutely was a reincarnation of Karen Carpenter, it was, it was spooky.

INT: Do you find that--It--it's interesting, as I'm examining some of these movies, how many, sort of, do you find where you're not doing the final casting, although you still may be obviously wanting to be the voice that’s heard, but, like, will there be five, six roles? How many in some of these movies will you find that, that's when I have to deal with a group of executives to decide? I mean, how many roles are they often times, or are they trying to, sort of, get the say in?

JS: Well, I think at... Once upon time, I remember being able to cast virtually every other role, every role, really, other than the stars, all by myself. And that’s a long time ago, because what's happened; because of the proliferation of Producers, studio executives, it has become a committee process. Now even HBO, which is probably the best shop in town with the most compassionate, most sensitive, collaborative environment that you'd ever wanna work in, they want to check every Actor, regardless of the role. Now, of course, they too will be looking at the tapes. So there isn't, there is one drawback about tapes. And that really isn't a drawback, because if there is a question about the Director's choice in the casting process in the old way of meeting them and greeting them and, and reading them, even when you're doing that, you're taping them. And the reason why you're taping them is for those executives to check your work. So there is no such thing as the Director anymore, who makes the decision, makes the selection, and no one challenges it. Now fortunately, it's more of a protocol and a ritual than a reality, because when you really shake it down, you're making some pretty damn-good choices and they can't argue with it. But in that rare, one or two, there is always one or two, where the committee, somebody objects to an Actor, for one reason or another. Then you have to negotiate. Then you have a little struggle, a little this, and, and you either re-cast or re-select, or you go into warfare. And as Truffaut [Francois Truffaut] said, "Every time you make film, it's another war."

INT: How do you win that battle when you have that battle [regarding casting]? That--How do you win that particular battle when you have that battle? "I think this person is right, you're saying it isn't." How can you win it?

JS: Well, you know, it, it, it… One of the advantages of being in this business as long as I have is that you tend to pick up some respect [laughs], and that... So the weight of a, of a reputation tends to, to weigh a little bit, weigh rather heavily on a studio executive who may be in his early 30's, but not... You can't count on it. [INT: No] You can't. You know, it's, it's more than ritual, actually. 'Cause sometimes it's very seriously, maybe a necessary evil.

INT: I'm curious, in the… If I remember correctly, in THE WALL there's a, in one of the segments of THE WALL there's a kid that you were, that, in THE WALL? [JS: THE WALL, yes] There's a kid in that who's the… [JS: Yeah.] Yeah. Casting kids. Talk about that.

JS: Well, that's, that's a dice throw. But again, you can certainly tell, especially with the fact that their being taped, there's a camera in the room, and there's a Casting Director talking to them. You can tell who is not gonna make it, and who is. There's a, there's a magnificent, inherent, intuitive quality about a genuine, talented kid. The other night I saw an Actress, who's eight years old, and who just knocked me off the chair, and it's Dakota Fanning. [INT: Yeah, I know. I've worked with her.] I had never seen--You've worked with her? [INT: Oh yeah. In fact, I did, I did TAKEN, the Spielberg [Steven Spielberg] thing. I'm the... So, yeah.] Oh really? Oh, I didn't know. Oh, well, good for you. [INT: In fact, I just talked to her two days ago.] She's fantastic. [INT: Yeah, she's amazing.] Oh, she's the girl in that, 'cause I haven't seen that, but now I will. [INT: She's phenomenal.] I have two reasons now. [INT: Phenomenal, yeah.] Oh yeah. She's...I saw her in, in the Denzel Washing--Washington scene [MAN ON FIRE]. [INT: Yeah, yeah. She...The one that she did with Sean Penn [I AM SAM], of course, that was the one that introduced her, but she's a, she's, she truly is a phenomenon. And she's so...] So where does it come from? Certainly not training. [INT: No, you know, it’s a tough one. That’s a real question because I know her mom. Both her mother and her father both, sort of, they’re both athletes, so they have an ease with their bodies, and a presence, and her mom is an easygoing lady, the lovely lady, easy to deal with. You know, it’s just a gift. I mean, you know it’s interesting, I think about this often, about whether we are a product of our genetics, or a product of our nurturing and environment, and now I’m convinced there’s a third element: we’re also a product of whatever spirit, soul got in us, in this particular lifetime.] Absolutely. [INT: And this, this kid, she’s got this totally present ability.] Well she’s, she’s in that class I was talking about before with, with what happens with a near-genius, if not genius level, of being able to absorb the needs of a character so thoroughly that she becomes the person. [INT: Yeah.] And… You know one of the reasons why Stanislavski [Constantin Stanislavski] did all of the research and developed the, the philosophy and the, the techniques that he did was ‘cause he was a lousy Actor and he wanted to find out why. He wanted to find out what, why he couldn’t do that Salvini [Tommaso Salvini] and Duse [Eleonora Duse], who was a reigning king and queen of theater in those days, why--what was it that they did that he had to learn? And that’s what started it all. He never did fulfill… Again, what was up here [points to temple] has nothing, necessarily, to do with the emotional instrument. And that’s what Dakota and, you know, a child has the enviable talent, sometimes, the enviable advantage of being able to fantasize much quicker than an adult. So, but that’s not enough. You know, fantasizing on an improvisatory level is one thing, but fantasizing and making it real for yourself when you’re playing a character that is not you, that belongs to somebody else, is where the talent comes in and that’s where the genius comes in. [INT: That’s really, as you said, that’s stepping into another being and allowing all of that being’s life to become yours.] Exactly. [INT: It’s being occupied, you know?]

INT: Do you think that your ability now to look at these tapes is based on your experience? I mean, if you had started by tapes, do you think you would have had the same ability to choose and say, “Okay, I’m looking now at the, these tapes and don’t need to meet this person.” I’m curious if you feel that, you know, you, your experience gave you the knowledge and the sensitivity so that you can look at tapes, but maybe 50, 40 years ago, or when you were first starting 30 years ago, whatever it was, you needed to meet the person, you would not have trust the tape. I’m just curious if you feel, as you look at that, whether there’s a difference, or not?

JS: Well, it would never have occurred to me, when I first started out. Simply because, it, it was convention, you know, it was… And it seemed like absolute, irrefutable methodology. You just, you met the Actors, you felt them out, blah blah blah, until I realized… Well, actually there was an incident that stimulated this and taught me probably for all time, how valuable sometimes it is just to see them on tape. Way back, I had--and I’ll keep it rather open as to which show it was, we couldn’t find a black kid, from the streets, in LA, to play the lead in this project. At the time, the, the African American pool of Actors wasn’t anywhere near what it is today. So, it was pretty rare to get a kid whose 17ish maybe, teenager, who really, conceivably could, and credibly be from the streets of New York. So we went to, we, we called a, an Agent, a Casting Agent in New York, told ‘em our problem, and she sent a tape of a guy. We flipped. He’s exactly what we were looking for. I mean, he was so believable, so natural, and the New York ease that came out of ‘em, etcetera, and the street, the black street New York ease, was so exactly what we were looking for. So, now it’s time to meet him. And I, and first day of rehearsal, in he walks and he’s, he has the sibilance in his speech that would knock you off, off your rocker. None of which was obvious when he became a character. Now, he was a gay man, young man, who was able, again, to immerse himself in another role. And when he was himself, he was absolutely as gay as you can be. And, I thought we were in trouble, until I realized, “Hey, what he’s doing is precisely what an Actor should do, which is, he’s taking on the character.” And that’s precisely what gave me the idea. If he had walked into the usual method of interview, he would have been thrown out of the office. Not because of, of, of any phobia, but because you couldn’t use a gay kid in that role, because it required, you know, that street thing. But he knew what that role was, and he became that role. [INT: That’s a good, a good proof.]

INT: Let’s talk about rehearsal. Now, its gotta obviously play a big part, particularly if you haven’t spent personal time… [JS: Yeah.] Talk about rehearsal that--your process of rehearsal, and be, and specifically how you go about doing it before you have your first day of shooting. What’s the rehearsal process? And sometimes you don’t, you’re not supposed to get, they don’t give you any, but I’m curious what you do.

JS: Well I don’t do a picture without rehearsal. It’s just standard, almost contractual demand, simply because the difference sometimes between rehearsal and no rehearsal can be the difference between disaster and success. Disaster may be too strong a word, but certainly, to deny everyone involved, Actor as well as Director, the opportunity to fall on they’re ass a little bit, away from the crew, away from the committee, away from any audience whatsoever. Part of the conditions I impose on rehearsal is that we have no audience; it’s just a bonding between Director and Actor. I would only allow the continuity person and maybe the Second AD [Assistant Director] usually answers the phone outside, so… [INT: No Writer and no Producer?] No Writer, no Producer. No… Psychologically, no audience whatsoever for the Actor to suddenly feel he’s gotta perform. And I insist that they shake the material down, that the point of the rehearsal is precisely to take chances, fail if necessary, but fail among collaborative professionals, and friends, and warm company rather than a cold-ass floor with crew people that are, that are meeting for the first time. Imagine asking an Actor to come in, cold, on Monday morning, meeting the Actors for the first time, that he’s gonna work serious scenes with, meeting the crew, the cameramen, the this, the that, all of whom are total strangers, and asking them to suddenly jump into the emotional needs of a character? I mean it’s absurd. So what will you get when you have a situation like that, is that the Actor will very quickly rely on what he’s gotten away with and what he feels safe with. Not anything fresh, or innovative, or totally leading to an involvement. He will obviously jump to what he thinks you expect of him, and it may or may not be the right choice.

INT: So, on first rehearsal, where do you like to do that rehearsal, and what, what’s the first thing that you say to everybody as they’ve come in? On this, you know, rehearsal before.

JS: The, usual speech is, “Feel free to take flight. Feel free to fall on your ass ‘cause this is the place to do it.” That immediately gives everybody license. I tell ‘em that, “This is not the time to worry about performance. We don’t have an audience, you don’t have any obligations, certainly to me, because I would rather you dig into the material, dig into the emotional needs of the character, dig into all the specifics that you can--we’re gonna build before we get on the set. What’s the environment? What’s the weather? What’s this, what’s that? What props? What activity? How do we build a reality in each scene? And we’re always at the table. I’m not anywhere near staging--[INT: Got it.]--until the very final day, and I’ve learned kind of, to get used to the idea of bringing the cameramen in on that last day and staging, or rather staging and then bring the cameramen in, of the first couple of days work, so that we’re ahead of the game. [INT: Got it.] So that that first cold day, when you’re meeting the crew for the first time, isn’t the usual plodding, kind of getting used to and figuring out where the camera goes, etcetera. It’s all been done in that last day of rehearsal. [INT: Great.] So it’s a double whammy, you know. You got the Actors warmed up, comfortable with each other, you’ve got the cameramen who knows what you’re gonna be shooting that first shot, as well as your ADs [Assistant Directors] and everybody else, you know.

INT: Now how many days of rehearsal do you like to have, if you can?

JS: I usually fight for one week, and I mean fight, because, again, we are only now begging to accept, as an industry, the concept of rehearsal. Because traditionally, in film, there was never even a thought given to rehearsal. It was unheard of. Now, over the succeeding years of my career, I’ve had to fight less and less simply because the younger crop of studios executives and that committee that’s always there, has gotten used to hearing about and knowing the advantages to rehearsal. Because the advantages are quite obvious, certainly from a studio point of view, they save money! [INT: Yeah.] You save money, because time on the set is money. And the more time you spend on the set trying to figure out, work out the kinks out of a scene, or take the time to delve into character needs and what’s going on, etcetera, and make that ensemble that you’ve worked f--that you normally would work for in rehearsal, try doing it on, in front of a camera, you’re spending a lot of time doing stuff that you can use elsewhere.

INT: What were you, in that first rehearsal, will you--that first day of rehearsal, will it be essentially a read-through, or--[JS: Oh yeah.] And will you do it a couple of times?

JS: Well, again, it depends. A read-through from top to bottom is worthless if you don’t have the entire cast, or at least 90 percent of the entire cast. So, the reality in most cases is that if you start an Actor, he, by SAG [Screen Actors Guild] rules, he has to be carried for the rest of the picture. So, it became almost traditional not to bring Actors in to rehearsal, unless they start within a few days of the first shot, as you know. That’s been relaxed a little bit, and now the companies are getting used to starting an Actor and then being able to drop ‘em if that 10-day spread allows for it. If they have to come back within 10 days, they get, they get paid for those days. But they understand that the value of what that rehearsal is going pay off like.

INT: So, if you’ve got--let’s say you’ve got most of your cast. Let’s say if you, if it’s possible. That first day you’ll have--go through what? You’ll go through the whole the script? Will you then start to break it down and, that’s what I want--

JS: Well, again, it all depends if I have enough of the cast members to go through a whole script. There isn’t no--there’s really no necessity of going through a whole script unless you did have a cast, because what are you listening to? You’re listening to my reading it with a, with the continuity lady, for all the other characters. That’s not gonna help. No, I concentrate on the principles that I can have on that first day, usually the two main principles. And by the way, on this picture I’m doing now for HBO, I have two weeks of rehearsal. [INT: Wow.] And I feel rich. I actually was given two weeks of rehearsal. [INT: That’s fabulous.] Again, you know, it’s with people who understand the value of these things.

INT: Lets say you had four people together in your first day, or six or whatever, will you--you’ll read the scenes that they're in, will you go through the whole piece once though? Even in terms of just, lets say, there are on--there are 50 scenes and they’re in 30 of them. Or, or will you actually plunge into issues you feel you need to deal with right away?

JS: Well, if I’m with the two principles, the two main principles, chances are I’m gonna go through virtually every scene they have, at least within the first two days. [Coughs] And I prefer concentrating on them because they’re carrying the big load. They also feel they don’t have to perform for the other Actors, because after all, other Actors sitting there constitute an audience as well. And there’s a definite necessity of, you know, coming up to performance level psy--just subconsciously, psychologically, it happens. And I shoot it down as much as possible, but that’s the only reason for going through the piece. However, part of my opening speech is to remind them, and too look for, and work for what is the difference between the character at the beginning of this piece, and where is he at the end? So that there is an overall perspective, a graph if you will, of growth. Because in most cases, there is growth one way or another, usually not necessarily up, but down. But he’s not the same, or she, is not the same at the beginning as he or she might be at the end. One of the traps, and certainly its true in film because we’re shooting in fragments all the time, is to lose sight of that growth graph, or the growth factor. And play the end of the, of the picture, at the beginning.

INT: So, can you give me an ex--There are some Actors who really thrive on rehearsal, there are some who, it scares them. How do you deal with that?

JS: The only time I’ve had to really deal with it was with, of all people, Gregory Peck, on MACARTHUR. [INT: MACARTHUR.] Greg despised rehearsals, through probably an insecurity. He probably felt that he was much better off working it all out at home and coming in with a little strength in his own belief system. I said, “Well, I have to respect that, you know, you’re the star, but unfortunately it might be a little un--a little unfortunate for the, for the rest of the cast. Because you have day-players coming in, you’ve got supporting actors, you got other generals that you’re going to be inter-relating with. Without a rehearsal, there’d be no way, and I couldn’t fill them in, I couldn’t be your surrogate of knowing what, what the interaction’s going to be.” He apologized for it, but nevertheless stood firm. And being a nice guy, you know, he wasn’t hardheaded about it. He was a, I guess, a pretty frightened guy doing a characterization, again, that was a, a total stranger to him. And interestingly enough, you talk about immersion, as the film developed, he became so, so compassionate for General Douglas MacArthur, that he forgot, Greg forgot that he was a liberal playing a highly conservative general, and fell in love with, with MacArthur. So, it was a little tough to, you know, kind of remind him that it was a multi-dimensional and very complex human being. He was a lot things; he was a, an absolute… How shall I put this politely? [INT: Don’t, don’t.] And he was also an adoring husband, he was a lousy father, he was a great ligition, and he was a terrible human being. He was a lot of things. [INT: Yeah.]