What Does A Casting Director Do?

So you wanna know what a casting director does?  Well, I’m sure you already know that they have a very important part to play in the movie business and I’ll explain why.  Casting directors are the liaison or “go-between” for the director and producers of a movie or television project and the actor’s agents.  They basically help find the right talent for directors and producers.

A Busy, Busy, Busy, Job

Casting directors probably have the most busiest job in Hollywood.  It’s their job to find or “cast” all of the roles for any given movie or television project in a limited time.  They are the ones that send out the “breakdowns” (see what an agent does to find out what a breakdown is) to the agents for specific roles they are looking for.  So for example, in a movie script, if there is a little Asian girl who is eight years old, it will be up to the casting directors to let all of the talent agents know that they are looking for an eight year old Asian girl for that particular movie project, get it?  Now as you know, there are many characters in a single movie or television show so you can now guess how busy it would be for the casting directors to find just the right actor…a good enough actor to fit the right roles.  So to sum it up, the casting director spends most of the day looking at tons of theatrical pictures (like these) from various agents.  Once they see someone with a good resume’ or experience and someone who may look like the character described in the script, they request an audition to the agent for that particular actor.

The Audition Process

Next comes the actual audition.  After the casting director feels you may be right for the role, you have to audition.  Ha, ha, ha, you don’t get the part yet.  You don’t expect the casting director to just give you a part after only looking at your picture do you?  Now here’s where all of your training and knowledge of acting has to come through.  The competition is fierce so you’ll have to be prepared for this part--the "audition process".  One mental breakdown during the audition process can mean you not getting the role so you’ll have to pretend that you’re not as nervous as you feel inside.  Pretend, see?  You’re acting already---even before the audition!

Did You Get The Part?

If you think you did great on the first audition, hang in there, you’re not done yet.  If you did good the first time, you’ll have to most likely audition again but this time in front of the director and producers of the project.  So, your first audition would have been with just you and the casting director.  The second audition will be with the casting director, director, and producers.  The casting director is basically taking you in to show the top people what they found for that particular role for the television or movie project.  This process may vary at times and sometimes you may even have to audition a third time but this is basically how it goes.  You shouldn’t be afraid of casting directors though.  They actually want you to do good on the audition because it makes them look good.  They’ll be praised because such a talented person like you so do good on the audition! Once you do get the part, they let your agent know and then your agent will call you with the good news!