MONDAY MUSINGS
I don’t talk much about casting but it is a part of what I do. Â One of my top casting tips is to watch auditions with the sound off. Â Ask yourself what is the actor giving off- regardless of the words he or she is saying. Â Casting is one of the times when I think the words get in the way. In one of my consulting jobs, I was called in to help figure out why an actor was floundering in his role.
He was a young pop star in the country involved.  He was cast in an extended recurring role.  He was meant to be a “bad boy”, rebel, slightly dangerous love interest for a popular young actress on the show.  They dressed him in ripped jeans, scuffed motorcycle boots, and a cool leather jacket– meant to emulate a young James Dean.  But he wasn’t connecting with the actress or the audience.
I asked the producers to cut together three scenes in which the actor was prominently featured. They could be from anywhere in story. Â We watched the scenes with the sound off. Â I asked the writers and produces what this actor was giving off. Â They chose words like: eager, open, sweet, puppy-dog like. Â There wasn’t a dangerous bone in his body. Â We changed his Character Type and he became a great success.
Casting is one of the things that makes Scandi Noir so compulsively watchable. Â The actors look like real people engaged in a professional, criminal, or ordinary pursuits. They have faces you might see on the street in an ordinary Scandanavia town. They don’t have “Hollywood teeth”.
When I was in South Africa I learned Black Sails was shot at Cape Town Studios. That series passed me when it aired, Â I decided to catch up. Â The pirates were very authentically dressed for the ragtag dangerous life they lived. Â They had missing fingers and toes, lost legs, gouged out eyes, and cruel scars– but they all had perfectly even white teeth!
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