How does an unknown indie filmmaker get marketable actors for a feature film?
People have asked many times how I got Michael Imperioli for “High Roller.” The answer is a combination of luck and hard work, and a little more luck. The first thing to do is to get your script in good enough shape to attract talent: actors are artists, too — they don’t ALWAYS do it for the money. The next thing to do is to RESEARCH: find out who represents which actors, where they live, who they know, what they’ve been doing lately, what kind of press they’ve been getting, and anything else in the six degrees of separation that you might use to get the script to an actor you desire. There are endless stories of how a name got into a film because of an obscure relationship. Next, get in the Hollywood pipeline, which can be done two ways: if you can afford a good casting director, they frequently have relationships that can get your script read, so by all means do that. The other way is to start with Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownservices.com/), who will read and summarize your script for posting to every talent agency in the universe: and they ALL read the postings. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit of chicken and egg in that you’ll start by getting a BAZILLION head shots of actors you never heard of (although you’ll recognize a few faces), but once you get a name (and word travels fast, believe me), you’ll get a much juicier selection of head shots to work with.
The way it happened for High Roller, we had a casting director in Vegas named Ray Favero who happened to know Steve Schirripa (Anthony is our film and Bobby Bacala on the Sopranos) from his days as the entertainment guy at the Riviera casino. Once Steve read the script, he asked if we would be interested in Michael. Um, yeah. The funny thing is, having Steve on board really started the Breakdown Services avalanche, where we got Pat Morita and Michael Nouri.
In the end, if your film is good enough, you don’t need marketable actors. But it certainly helps open doors and get your movie seen by people who count. And that’s a big part of the game.
