Actors race from audition to audition. Producers must decide quickly because often someone they think might possibly be good for a role is on the verge of taking something else. Do you take him pre-emptively or keep looking? Might somebody better come along? Or will it turn out you let the best guy get away? It's maddening!
Like swallows returning to Capistrano, New York actors fly in for pilot season. These are the casting Olympics. It’s a wild time and everything is up in the air.
But here’s what I’m seeing more and more now: Deadline Hollywood, the online trade website de jour, posts announcements on who’s been cast in what pilot. And invariably, I’d say almost 100%, it’s an actor who has already been in at least one series. They’ll have his name and in parentheses, the show or shows he’s been in before.
So my question is: How does a new actor break in? What do you have to do? It’s not like these actors with a previous series are necessarily that great. A third of them will be fired during pilot production or after. Do the networks really believe that someone who was a supporting player on THE REAL O’NEALS has a big enough fan base that he’ll actually bring in an audience?
Having done primarily multi-camera pilots I do see where it’s an advantage to hire people who have had multi-cam experience. They’re used to working in front of an audience. They’re used to memorizing entire scripts. But you get that with theatre actors too. You don’t need someone who had a recurring role on DR. KEN.
I feel bad for young actors. I wish I had the answer. But just know that if you somehow, someway DO break in, then all the network casting people who dismissed you two years ago for a one-line part will today be shoving your name down the throats of producers with ultimatums to use you or else.
And so it goes in pilot season.
from By Ken Levine
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