Episode 259: Interview with Casting Director Maribeth Fox

Free Masterclass About Maribeth Fox: Maribeth Fox has worked with Laura Rosenthal Casting for fifteen years and has had the privilege of working alongside major talents like Todd Haynes, Paolo Sorrentino, Oren Moverman, Joachim Trier, Ed Burns, Mindy Kaling, Anton Corbijn, and Lisa Cholodenko as well as up and coming feature directors, Guy Nattiv, Olivia Newman, & Paul Downs Colaizzo. Favorite credits include Olive Kitteridge and Mildred Pierce both for HBO, Jay-Z's music video for Smile, Wonderstruck with Todd Haynes, A Quiet Place, Modern Love for Amazon and Liz Garbus' narrative feature debut, Lost Girls. Two of her three films at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival broke sales records, Late Night and Brittany Runs A Marathon. Most recent credits include Sharper for Apple TV, directed by Benjamin Caron, Bottoms, produced by Elizabeth Banks, Murder Mystery 2 with Happy Madison, and the upcoming A Different Man from Killer Films and A24. How did you become a casting director? I learned how to work with actors, what they need you to tell them, and what they don't need you to tell them about ego. And I just decided to spend five to seven minutes with actors instead of a career with them. So I switched to casting, and I worked for CBS primetime casting for two and a half years, which was a really good learning experience, but corporate wasn't for me. I wanted to do more film, and I wanted to be freelance so my eight-week job with Laura turned into 16 years. How does a casting director get a film job? So oftentimes, we are one of the first people hired and production companies hire us, producers that know us, that know what The material is that we're drawn to. Sometimes we're hired by our directors who you hope to get repeat business if you've worked with them before. The first thing we'll do is read a script to make sure we're creatively aligned and feel like we strategically know how to cast the job. And then we're offered one of two situations. The first situation is. Attach names to this to green-light the rest of the financing. So we do that side, and then sometimes people come attached to a film, which is wonderful news. And they're like, "We just want you to cast this movie if you like it. And this is who's doing it." So we're normally found by producers and directors, and we're one of the first hires. So, just a question I have: if you are asked to attach a name talent, and let's say it's one part, let's make this real simple, Sure. How long does it generally take to cast a film, would you say, to attach that kind of name talent if it's a good script? It's a long time. It's a long time, so much so that Laura has received producorial credit on quite a few of her features because of the time, attention, and effort it takes to get those attachments in place. You think about somebody, let's say you're offering something to somebody like Julianne Moore. It could take a month for her to read it. Not because she doesn't read quickly but she's got a lot going on. And somebody of that ilk, their whole team, has to read it. She has to read it. Everybody has to have an opinion. They have to have a discussion about it. And so we try our best to set respectful boundaries with agents and managers to say, "We really need this to be read by this time." But if a creative team is invested in a certain person, oftentimes, that deadline will stretch. So you could be with one actor for a month or more. We try to get them sometimes to line up like their top three for each part if we're doing more than one part so that if there is a pass, it's not an utterly crushing situation. The producers knew that a writer strike was imminent, and I was a little shocked to hear what you said, that you stopped getting calls about six months before. Can you talk about that and what that was like? It's helpful to know just in terms of our similarity to what actors go through that a lot of our business is independent film and that really continued. That was not a problem. We were still getting calls. We were still getting pings for that, but in terms of the book of business that would streamers and network, which is a lot of people's businesses, they anticipated the strike. And normally, we have no shortage of things to read, think about, sign on to, or not sign on to. And I think all casting directors experienced a similar shut-off. That was very different than the strike in 2008 where we were out of work for a little while, but no big deal. But yes, like the work has been. It's been different this time around. How has it been different, do you feel? So I think a lot of people feel, there's a lot of feelings this time around. Where, as there should be, right? I obviously heartily support the actors and what they're going through, and it's, it's time, right? It's time to do this and ensure everybody gets what they're owed fairly. And also, I think there is, within the SAG interim agreement, there's some stuff where I think we all need to ...