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    10-Casting Actors PDF

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    Asish Luchman
    Martin Scorsese places great importance on casting, believing it accounts for 85-90% of the success of a film. He looks for actors who feel natural and can authentically inhabit their roles. Scorsese prefers mixing professional actors with non-actors to help professionals lose artificiality. He seeks performances that don't feel like acting and inspire awe in the viewer.

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    10-Casting Actors PDF

    Uploaded by

    Asish Luchman
    87 views2 pages
    Martin Scorsese places great importance on casting, believing it accounts for 85-90% of the success of a film. He looks for actors who feel natural and can authentically inhabit their roles. Scorsese prefers mixing professional actors with non-actors to help professionals lose artificiality. He seeks performances that don't feel like acting and inspire awe in the viewer.

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    10-Casting Actors.pdf

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    Martin Scorsese places great importance on casting, believing it accounts for 85-90% of the success of a film. He looks for actors who feel natural and can authentically inhabit their roles. Scorsese prefers mixing professional actors with non-actors to help professionals lose artificiality. He seeks performances that don't feel like acting and inspire awe in the viewer.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    87 views2 pages

    10-Casting Actors PDF

    Uploaded by

    Asish Luchman
    Martin Scorsese places great importance on casting, believing it accounts for 85-90% of the success of a film. He looks for actors who feel natural and can authentically inhabit their roles. Scorsese prefers mixing professional actors with non-actors to help professionals lose artificiality. He seeks performances that don't feel like acting and inspire awe in the viewer.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 2

    10.

    CASTING
    ACTORS
    CHAPTER RE VIE W

    Martin’s experience with casting actors goes back to his days at


    “I always say that casting
    NYU. He met Harvey Keitel there when he came to audition for one
    is 85 to 90 percent of the of Martin’s short films. Martin worked early in his career with the
    picture for me. So, all of casting director Cis Corman, and since the 1990s he has devel-
    you just starting out ... oped a close working relationship with Ellen Lewis. He works well
    insist on what you want, with Lewis because he knows he will connect with the actors she
    and ...don’t settle for close brings to him. They have similar taste.
    enough or second best.” Martin often says casting is 85 to 90 percent of the picture. This
    —Martin Scorsese is why as a fledgling director it’s so important to insist on what
    you want. Don’t settle for close enough or second best. There is no
    SU B C HAPTER S shortcut, so don’t behave as if there is one. You must meet your
    potential actors, spend time with them, and put them together in
    • Casting Is 85-90% of the Picture
    order to really understand if they’ll work—both as an ensemble
    • Working With Actors Who Know and in their individual roles. It is key that you are all agreeing to
    What You’re Going For make the same film, so make sure to accurately impart to your
    casting director and actors the character of the movie you intend
    • Seek Out Non-Actors for
    to make.
    Authenticity
    What Martin hopes for is naturalness in his actors. He studied
    • Actors Inhabiting Their Roles
    the acting style of the 1940s and early 1950s, exemplified by
    Hollywood actors such as James Stewart, Cary Grant, Maureen
    O’Hara, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda, and by English actors
    such as Alec Guinness, Laurence Olivier, and James Mason. Two
    Elia Kazan films—On the Waterfront (1954) and East of Eden (1955)—
    were especially revelatory in terms of the kind of work actors
    could do with behavior. When casting, Martin looks for actors
    whose performances don’t feel like acting. While there’s no clear
    definition for naturalism or realism, Martin is always aspiring
    toward a mixture of nonfiction and fiction, a combination of
    magic and talent, to produce a film. He has a better chance of
    attaining this if the actors come from a culture or lifestyle similar
    to that of their characters. When Martin first began making films,
    he had no choice but to work with non-actors, so continuing to do
    so remains natural for him. He has learned over the years
    that mixing non-actors with professional actors can help the
    professionals lose any artificiality they may be exhibiting in their
    roles.

    MARTIN SCORSESE 26
    10.
    CASTING
    ACTORS
    You know you’ve found a talented actor when the way he or she
    inhabits the character brings you confidence as a director and
    lends authenticity to the film. A great actor will inspire a sense
    of awe in the viewer and bring beauty and power to a role. Sir
    Ben Kingsley as Georges Méliès in Hugo induced these feelings in
    Martin with his performance.

    LE ARN M ORE

    • Seek out films starring the American actors James Stewart,


    Cary Grant, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Maureen O’Hara.

    • Watch movies with Alec Guinness, Laurence Olivier, and James


    Mason to learn about the English acting style to which Martin
    alludes.

    • Watch (or rewatch) Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront and East of


    Eden.

    • Begin researching where to find actors in the area where you


    live (e.g., connect with local theater groups).

    A S SI G NMENT

    • Practice how you would audition actors. Make a list of


    qualities that define each major character in your short and
    the character traits the actor will need to embody in order to
    make the film come to life. Do you know there’s going to be
    a feisty protagonist or a down-on-his-luck supporting actor?
    Once you have this list for each major character, find
    monologues for actors to use to audition. Either pull from
    your rough script or, if you’re not that far along yet, use
    existing monologues. If your short film is dramatic and
    unhappy, try looking for a monologue from a tragedy. If it’s
    upbeat and light, pull a humorous monologue from a comedy
    you enjoy. Share the monologues you’ve selected, as well as
    character descriptions, with your classmates in The Hub.
    Provide insight into why you wrote or chose these specific
    passages as future audition pieces.

    MARTIN SCORSESE 27

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