I begin to feel the first effects of methadone while driving back to my office on the CBS/Radford lot, only five or six miles away from the clinic, though geographically speaking, another country. I wait for that little kick of “I can make it” energy—the ten-minute thrill I happily give up my entire life for. But there’s something wrong with this drug; I feel something very, very different.
I love the bang and the crash of taking drugs, that first sock of sedation. This isn’t happening with methadone. I’m not sick anymore. But I’m not well either. I’m just… gone. It’s a slipping-away feeling; I imagine it feels like dying. It’s a queasy uneasy detachment; a longing for home; a hollowness. My mind and body at such a remove, I seem to be two stops beyond the last stop. I’d be happy to just to get back to the Twilight Zone. A veil has fallen. And as I drive to work I think: “This is methadone? Where’s the romance?” No thrill, no high, no fun.
I run to the casting room, where the session is well underway.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” I say, brushing past all the actors on one of the biggest days of their lives. This is the all-important one, the studio test, the gauntlet the actors must run before going to the network where they will sign a pre-negotiated test option deal just prior to reading for the head of the network, the last hurdle they must leap. If the network says yes, they’re in. By pre-negotiating these deals, we, the money people, guarantee that should the network head decide that “Yes! That’s our Will!”—or Grace, or George Costanza—we don’t lose our bargaining power against an agent who now knows the network is in love with their client. The downside to this process: Should the actor be approved by the studio, only to die at the network, he’ll know just how much he’s losing. He’s already signed the pre-negotiated test option deal spelling out the compensation and yearly bumps, so he’ll be acutely aware that he’s blown not just this chance at stardom, but $1.3 million for thirteen weeks, the length of the standard sitcom shooting season. No wonder actors are such a mess on studio test day. Sometimes just a whisper into a nervous actor’s ear before she goes in to read—“You can do it. Relax. You’re perfect!”—makes all the difference between landing the job and not landing the job. And it’s the very least I can do for these few actors who have helped insure another pick-up on my option. These twenty out of hundreds are also making me look good, reminding my bosses that I can still spot talent in the face of rampant self-destruction. But today I don’t stop in the outer office where the actors wait. I’m too fried to spend those minutes before they read offering those last reassuring words of encouragement and gratitude
It’s taken many long months to arrive at this day. In television, the pilot casting is the most important work you can do. It’s during the pilot casting that you find the series regulars: the leads and the supporting players (the kooky neighbor, the nosy ex-husband, the acerbic secretary, aka “The Eve Arden Role”) who will define the show. In the early days of television, the great directors knew who they wanted, so the casting was a secretarial position. Today, with the proliferation of shows on networks and cable,and streaming services and the demotion of director as God, casting directors, or CDs, have risen up the hierarchical ladder.
To de-mystify what the casting director does: We get a script that a network has purchased from our studio. Then we break it down into the various roles, the so-called character breakdowns, and pick the scenes the actors will read—the choice scenes that will show the sides of the character the producers want to see. Hence these scenes are called “sides.” Then we send the character breakdowns out to the agents over the internet.
Within a day—and before everything went online—we’re buried under an avalanche of thousands upon thousands of pictures and resumes, enough to fill a moderately sized vault. The poor assistant divides the huge stacks into groups of “A” (top agents), “B” (boutique agents), and “C” (really small agents), then makes hundreds of calls a day to set up auditions.
Of course we’ve made list upon list of actors we know and love, too famous to read, but who may entertain an offer. And then begins the actual checking to see who’s interested and available. And the begging and pleading with our favorite agents to send in our favorite clients.
Pilot season is a race. Getting to the cream of the acting crop before another show does is the finish line. When an “A” list actor is offered to test for two series at once, it can get ugly. We’re not above coercing an actor to put our show in first position. But if we get a no, it’s back to the agents, all of whom claim they’ve got “the next Jack Black,” which seldom turns out to be the case. (Full transparency: When I hired Jack Black for Newsradio, I never thought anyone would utter the words, “The next Jack Black”.)
Casting is as labor intensive as it is creative. During pilot season (the equivalent of tax season to a CPA), casting directors seldom leave the office before ten pm, at which point tired, wrecked, and wracked with pain, we leave toting several hours’ more of work—hundreds of photos to look at, lists of cast members from prior shows, film clips to watch.
During office hours I set up the pre-reads, where I check out the actors I don’t know well enough before I send them to the producers. I read the role of the other person in the scene, while the actor reads the role for which they’re auditioning. Having trained at the feet of Jeff Greenberg, I’ve learned to give quick but effective notes to actors during the pre-read. “Throw it away”, meaning, Do less. Toss the comment off. “Emphasize the word “really?” “Give the character two more years of college.” And when an actor comes up with a wonderful take that I haven’t seen before, I’ll have him read just that moment with me several times until it’s perfect and cemented in.
I don’t bother with those long-winded psychological motivations directors and some casting directors are so fond of. “Okay, I want you to call up a sense memory of the time your father spanked you after you walked in on Aunt Tillie on the toilet and then he put you in that dark closet for an hour without your teddy bear. Ready? Your line is: ‘The doctor will see you now, Mrs. Milhouse.’” Having read a good fifty actors for each role, every one or two days, I’ll choose roughly eight actors for each role to go on to read for the producers.
The good actors always repeat the same performance I rehearsed with them. The others, upon coming face to face with the all-powerful producers, tend to go big (“Are you—[long dramatic pause]—(suspicious) Dr. Crane? I’ve come to fix the dishwasher!”) It’s not unusual for me to read a thousand actors for a pilot, then bring them into my producers in groups of fifty, only to have the producers hate them all. In fact, producers usually dislike an actor until he or she gets a hit series. Then they want to know, “Jesus, Cara, why didn’t you bring in Eric McCormack for the role of________?” Of course, I’m not allowed to say, “Because you banned me from bringing him in. You said stop bringing in Eric McCormack.” And of course when the writing’s bad, it’s always the actor’s fault. I’m not too sure that it’s statistically possible for a hundred actors in a town of working actors to be bad, or wrong for the part, but damn if the producers don’t find the statistical loophole every time.
Some producers pretty much hate everybody; I’ve had days when the ghost of Richard Burbage couldn’t get a thumbs-up from my producers. As is done for every pilot, my team and I have already read close to a thousand actors for That 80’s Show. Thanks to this buckshot casting, Tom, Marcy, and Caryn seem to actually like, not merely settle for, twelve actors for That 80’s Show and believe me, it’s been like pulling teeth, something I know a little bit about. Cecily Adams (the “on-line” casting director and daughter of Don Adams, the original Maxwell Smart) and I have worked out meticulous bits of business with each of these actors that they’ll insert into the audition “spontaneously.” The whole thing being about as spontaneous as a royal wedding.
I brush past all the actors lining the hallway outside Tom, Marcy, and Caryn’s suite. But I do notice Glenn Howerton, Brittany Daniels, Tinsley Grimes—the three most likely to get roles—as I walk down the hall. These particular actors are very warm, nice people. I look at them, attempt a smile, and manage a quiet “good luck.” They give me a warm reception that does comfort me a little.
I go into the suite that Tom, Marcy, and Caryn share and walk back to where the readings are taking place. Elizabeth meets me outside the closed door where Cecily Adams is now reading with the actors; I can’t go in yet. Not until they’re finished with this actor. The session is almost over.
Elizabeth looks down and says a quiet, “It will be okay.”
“Yeah, it’ll be okay,” I say. Then, even more quietly, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I think Elizabeth heard it. She nods as if to say, “I understand.” In the brief minute before the door opens, I sit motionless. I know I’m not going to be able to do my job much longer.
I enter the room where Tom, Marcy, and Caryn sit along with Kathy Busby the beautiful, Harvard educted development VP they’ve just hired.
“Where have you been!!??” Tom demands. I don’t meet his eyes, just wordlessly grab the sides the actors are to read in order to deflect an interrogation. Caryn looks up from over her glasses and shakes her head subtly; she’s really been onto me for sometime and I know it. Marcy, a veritable saint of the “if you have nothing good to say” church, doesn’t look up from her Hollywood Reporter. They’re rightfully disgusted with me. I’m glad Kathy Busby is there the new head of development, a beautiful, bright Harvard grad. But it’s not only my drug taking they’re fed up with. Within the last couple of years a series of legitimate, non-drug-related, calamities befell me:My mother died, my best friend was diagnosed with cancer, by the time I arrived to work after Christmas break on crutches, having broken a foot, they’d run out of sympathy. Cara Agonistes was not what they’d had in mind when they’d hired Cara the Capable. And here I am, hours late, sweating profusely, pale as Banquo’s ghost, limping my way to the head table.
There is only one actor left to read. Thank God it’s Glen Howerton, a solid Juilliard actor, who has to be aware that something’s wrong with me but is such a pro that he can hold his own and deliver a perfect audition.
Which he does, with Cecily reading her side. I have trouble keeping connected to what’s going on. I’m fading in and out of consciousness. Am I nodding off? I surreptitiously check to see if my head is on the table; nope. I’m watching the reading, but the methadone creates such confusion that my mind floats away and takes up residence in a far-distant land.
The session is done and everyone begins setting down their final decisions. I was always the bellwether during these discussions, my voice in the process decisive and huge. But now I’m being completely ignored except by sweet Cecily. Tom, Marcy, and Caryn offer spirited defenses of their choices. No one wants input from me and I have none to give. All of this would have upset me greatly before, but I’m too far away from my body to care.
Glen walks away with the part.
I really enjoy your writing! Entertaining and suspenseful while heartbreaking. You are so lovable and I’m sure that really gives a new perspective to views and the stigma of Drug Addiction. I’m rooting for you while reading this. You are the Tragic Hero we all relate to. The gifted and talented person who means well but because of determined circumstances is encountering tragic obstacles.
"And of course when the writing’s bad, it’s always the actor’s fault." Ha. I like the twist from purely drug addiction to more of the inside of the business, even though I knew it. Good writing as always. I'm sad this happened to you.