When you meet Bill Dance for the first time, it will likely be in a room filled with hopeful background players, and you will be told a story. Dance, a former dancer, an actor, and—quite possibly—the father of modern background casting, will share a tale about a woman he cast in Steel Magnolias. The woman—an illiterate senior citizen—was not only cast as a background player, but became one of the featured characters in several scenes. “Quietness is what is important about what I do. I have to notice the details—like that this woman [out of 1,200 who turned out for the open call] wasn’t filling out her information card—in order to choose the people who become the community in which the film takes place,” Dance explained.
This former dancer described his work as “basic. You have to have an eye for what works, but also the discipline of a dancer. You must know when it’s time to go back to the demi-pliea. You can’t just jump to the next level; you have to go back to the rudimentary beginning. The beginning is what really matters.”
First Casting Job
Palmerstown, USA, the 1980 TV series starring Michael J. Fox, Danny Glover, and Louis Gossett, Jr. “I did some little things before, but this was where I really learned casting. I learned realism from [show producers] Alex Haley and Norman Lear. I learned what’s organic. You see, people are watching you and you don’t even know it,” Dance revealed. “Quite simply, you are being observed in terms of instincts, emotions, personality.”
At the age of 25, Dance, who had been dancing professionally since graduating from UCLA, “wanted to do more. I started teaching dancing and choreographing a little bit. Then I did a stand-in job. When I stood-in, one of the producers came to me and asked me to do some casting for Alex Haley. Over the months of standing-in, I was being observed and they could sense that I would be good at casting. That happens all the time in this business. People are watching and observing and making notes.” Since making the leap to casting, Dance has cast background and featured players for films such as Fight Club, EdTV, American History X, The Truman Show, Jerry Maguire, That Thing You Do, Ed Wood, and The Doors, just to single out a few. His television work includes such critically acclaimed TV movies as And the Band Played On, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, *61, and Pirates of Silicon Valley.
Coolest Casting Gig
A Beautiful Mind. “We scouted all over, looking for people to play students of John Nash. We needed these people who would be graduate students in mathematics. They needed to have a certain tilt about them. They would need to have a connection to Russell Crowe when he would make eye contact with them in the lectures. We needed people who would be involved with the high-level of thinking that would go on there. I’m like an artist painting,” he said of his eye for populating a world for an Oscar-winning film. “I never take the details for granted.”
“During the screening, I sat behind a woman who pointed out to her friend that the Nobel Prize scene was stock footage of that event. I wanted so badly to tap her on the shoulder and tell her that we shot that in Newark, NJ, but my mother stopped me. She pulled me back from trying to tap that woman on the shoulder,” he recalled. “In casting, we watched the actual footage of the Nobel Prize ceremony and matched the people, matched the styles. We wanted it real. We wanted it to be natural. I realized—after we left the screening—that it was better to let that woman have the belief that old footage was used. I took it as a compliment that I was able to help her maintain the illusion of realism when she saw that scene. It wasn’t important to explain my work.”
Currently Casting
Seabiscuit, the new feature from Gary Ross, the director of Pleasantville. “We need racing fans from the Depression era. We need horse trainers, groomers, all of that.” For the 1930s period piece, Dance is specifically looking for actors with “no tattoos, no piercings, no streaked hair. You can’t even be too tan, for this one.”
Dance listed a few other projects for which he has been holding open calls. “The Cat in the Hat, The Alamo—which is being retooled right now—we don’t know what’s going to happen with that, El Dorado, which is in Hawaii right now. I do a lot of traveling,” he said with a laugh.
Key Things He Looks for in a Background Actor
“Sixty percent of film casting is, ‘Do you look like what we need?’ It is image-oriented, unlike stage,” Dance qualified. Still, Dance has actors audition when they come in for him. “When we did The Grinch, I had the extras write their biographies in Seussian language. I had them bring in props. We contacted circus groups, Cirque du Soliel, and Ringling Bros. We took Polaroids of these actors in full makeup and prosthetics. We’re doing the same thing for The Cat in the Hat,” Dance revealed. “There’s a whimsical quality, a frivolity, we need from everyone. But that quality has to be internalized.”
“All types of people do extra work. There’s an energy that comes out of every human being. Why is it that there will be that one person brought up to the front for one line? There’s something fragile. There’s focus,” he said. As for trends Dance has noticed in the casting of background players, it’s “reality. Today, there are more and more real people doing background work and we are putting the real people who lived experiences right into the mix. It can be hard, but whenever I’m given a chance, I go with the real thing. It’s not about credits. It’s about the fragile humanness. That is what’s real.”
Where He Finds Actors
“We hold registration here every day,” Dance said. “The attrition rate of actors is amazing out here, so we are always registering new people.” Background performers get a tour of the office, orientation, and an opportunity to observe the process of casting while they fill out their information cards and have a Polaroid taken. “We like to show them how we work, how we take it seriously here.”
Dance also travels across the country holding regular open calls. “We’ll get in touch with the papers ahead of time and create a public interest story,” he explained, while holding up a regional newspaper whose cover story was the open call Dance held the previous weekend. “I saw 5,000 people last week in Lexington, 6,000 in Cincinnati. That’s what I’m kind of known for, doing big open calls.”
Advice for Actors
“Have passion. Do theatre. There’s still the same technique to develop a character. It’s just a matter of dials. Be aware that, on stage, you need to project to the back wall and when you’re on set, you need to dial it down. Observe. When you do extra work, become involved. Watch the technical people on the set. Absorb all of the things they do. You need an awareness of the whole world. Get involved. Even an extra needs to create a character. Create conflict. Have direction. The misconception is that extra work is no work. It’s just not true. Develop subtext. Find out what’s underneath. Create the human element,” he advised.
His Favorite Casting Tale
Dance cast background players for Joel Schumacher’s thriller 8mm. “He needed a negligee model for setting up the effects of the killing in the opening scene. I had one qualification of the girl–a non-pro–I sent in: ‘Are you responsible?’ Once I felt like I knew she would show up, I asked her to stay up all night and go in with no makeup. She showed up early. I was thinking, ‘Thank God she showed up.’ I get a call a few hours later: ‘Joel has cast the girl.’ She let herself go in the scene. I mean, here’s this day player who gets killed in the opening scene and she had just gone in to be the body double for a test. Well, turns out, she’s on the poster and she narrates the entire film. She’s not a pro, yet she went for it. She brought herself to it.”
His Opinion on Alternative Submission Methods
While Bill Dance Casting has an online presence; Internet casting is not an element to their work. “Casting is making a hand-knit sweater. This [computer] is definitely efficient, but I don’t want a mechanical thing to interpret my human emotion. No doubt it is quick, but there is an art of communication. I’m an emotional artist, and that’s the key to casting.”
Most Gratifying Part of His Job
“I get to help actors bring something that they don’t know they can do to their performance. I’m a big fan of the underdog. There is enormous talent there. Casting directors must feel the empathy of the human being. I love my work. I love this process.”
This interview was conducted on September 16, 2002, and it originally appeared in Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews by Bonnie Gillespie, available at Amazon.