I am a huge believer in doing improvisation when casting. Have your actors do either a loose version of a scene that’s in the movie or perhaps, better yet, a scene not in the movie. It’ll reveal the ones who turn in canned readings that will fool you for their slickness, but are thin, stuck and never develop beyond that. On the other hand, it can often be just the trick to turn on the real talents you want to work with. Give them a scenario, what their objective might be in an image (i.e. get her to laugh, get him to leave the room), and, before you start, warn them you have no interest in having them make up clever dialog. Oh, and for god’s sake, you sourpuss filmmaker with so much on your mind, act enthusiastic about their acting.
Shoreh Ahgdashloo, Tariq Trotter, & Me from my film, On The Inside.
I don’t care how low your budget is or what backwater you want to shoot in, there’s no excuse for not having good acting in your movie. Real actors want to act and they will do all manner of Herculean and, I dare say, shady things to have the opportunity to play pretend. They’ll travel, they’ll dress in cars, sleep in cars… break permit laws with you. You just have to put out the birdseed and keep the cats in the house.
D.W. Brown is the head instructor at what’s commonly considered Los Angeles’ premiere acting school, The Joanne Baron/DW Brown Studio in Santa Monica. D.W. has written a definitive book on acting, You Can Act published by Michael Wiese Productions (“Shot By Shot,” “The Writer’s Journey”), and is in post production on the feature film On The Inside, that he wrote and directed, starring Nick Stahl, Olivia Wilde and Shoreh Ahgdashloo.
