Bonnie Zane was nominated for an Emmy for best comedy casting on the critically-successful sitcom Sports Night, but it wasn’t just any casting Emmy. It was a nomination in the first year the Outstanding Comedy Casting Emmy existed. A thrilling night for Zane, “but what I was really excited about was the [Casting Society of America’s] Artios Award nomination for [casting the pilot] Ed,” Zane remarked. “That was such an important project to me.” Her wish was granted, and in her acceptance speech at the 2000 Artios ceremony, Zane thanked her sister—feature film casting director and fellow Artios Award-winner Debra Zane—for getting her into the business of casting.
With credits ranging from The Larry Sanders Show and The Job to The Chris Isaak Show and forthcoming midseason sitcom The O’Keefes, Zane has an eye for comedy and a love for laughter. After a quick tour of the home-turned-office she shares with Gayle Pillsbury and their staff of associate and assistant casting directors, we settled into the den-like session room for a quick chat on Valentine’s Day. Zane would soon rush off to the set of one of the pilots she cast. “We’re doing the first table read today,” she said with an eager tone, making it obvious that she loves getting to see the work come together.
First casting job
Assistant at Liberman Hirschfeld Casting. “I was in production for years and my sister pulled me in [to casting]. She really encouraged me. She thought it was something I would be good at. I watch so much TV that television casting just made sense,” Zane said.
By the time Zane left Liberman Hirschfeld Casting, she’d begun casting NewsRadio. “I took the show with me when I left—after four years with Meg and Marc—and soon began casting Mad About You as well. That was my first show on my own.” Zane’s current partner in casting, Gayle Pillsbury, also came from Liberman Hirschfeld Casting. “She’d gone on to become vice president of television casting at Imagine Television and—after about five years on our own—we partnered up about two years ago.”
Coolest casting gig
Ed. “Casting the pilot for Ed was the most rewarding—although the longest—process. It started at CBS and ended up at NBC. It wasn’t picked up at CBS so NBC got it and reshot the pilot with different scripts but the same cast all the way through it. It was such a long process. But it was the most rewarding: a true labor of love. I adore the cast, I worship the executive producers, and I love seeing how well it’s done as a series.”
Currently casting
Pilots galore. Zane and Pillsbury are currently casting a sitcom for CBS, two sitcom pilots for NBC, one for ABC and the duo continue casting The Drew Carey Show and The George Lopez Show for ABC. “I love comedy,” Zane commented. “I love to laugh.”
Most challenging part of her job
“With pilots, it’s always challenging to find new leading actors in the age range of 30 to 40. Right now, we’re searching for an attractive leading lady in her thirties. The challenge is matching the right actor to the right role, because a lot of these actors don’t have a lot of success until the right role comes along. In casting a lead character, I’m most likely not going to be surprised anymore. We have to find someone who has been around, who is established, but who hasn’t yet been matched to her perfect role.
“The challenge is there for leading men too. Since Ed, everyone wants to find the next Tom Cavanaugh. That’s my big joke each new season. I call Tom and say what a failure they’ve set me up for, asking me to find the next him! In every area of this business—the writer, producer, casting director, and especially for actors—it’s all the flavor of the month. It can be fleeting or it can be lasting. I think the difference is star quality, for any job,” Zane said simply. “We recently met this New York-based actress who definitely will be the star of a pilot this season. That star quality came through on her audition tape—which is really tough. If an actor pops on tape, there must be something there. When she arrived in person, the star quality was undeniable.”
Best way to get seen by her
Say yes to prereads. Part of seeing whether the star quality is there, according to Zane, is about having access to an actor early on. “Agents will say that an actor won’t preread for a role. People feel that the talent [they represent] is so precious. If an actor isn’t going in for a preread, that actor is missing out on an opportunity they may not even know about. Look, we’re not taking advantage of an actor when we ask them to preread. We’re a team! I think this is a misconception of casting directors—and, yes, there may be some who don’t feel this way—but we all want to make the best possible performance come through.”
Zane invests in talent when she knows it’s the right actor for the role. “I spent several hours Sunday talking with an actress about her network test, the role, and some of the things happening within the casting process. Her fax machine was down, so I took a revised script to her home so that she’d have it for Monday’s network test. I know it helped her tremendously,” she continued with a modest shrug. “Hey, she got the part!”
Does she attend theatre?
Not only does Zane attend theatre—she has recently cast her first play—the successful run of Turnaround at the Coast Playhouse. Starring David Schwimmer, Tom Everett Scott, Jonathan Silverman, John DiMaggio, and Jaime Ray Newman, this Roger Kumble play was scheduled to run only six weeks, but its success has trumped that decision—which brought Zane back for more casting in the extended run.
“When I read the script, I said to Roger, ‘This is the darkest thing I’ve ever read. It is so disturbing. Let’s do it!’ We had a table read with David, Johnny, and some friends at Roger’s house. Later, we were sitting in his kitchen and Roger started describing the actor he wanted for the role of Seth. He gave me very specific bullet points of how he envisioned him, physically, and the qualities he should posses and I said, ‘Oh, you want John DiMaggio! That’s exactly who you’re describing.’ The next day I had John’s agent fax over his resume to Roger and John was the only one to audition for the role,” she recalled. As for the task of recasting the extended run, Mark Feuerstein has been tapped for the role originated by Schwimmer and Gabriel Macht will replace Scott.
“I’m so proud of that cast. Across the board, they’re doing great work and I’m glad they’re getting the extended run as a reward for all that great work.”
Advice for actors
“Listen to the casting directors. Trust us. We know what we’re talking about,” Zane said with a hearty laugh. “I once got a call from a producer who had a bad experience with a casting director and asked me, ‘Can you just cast for America?’ So, I know that there are some not-so-nice casting directors out there, but I believe it’s nice to be nice. So, I always try to make actors feel welcome, work with them, and suggest adjustments. But you have to listen. I just don’t understand when an actor won’t make an adjustment after asking being given a specific note.”
Zane speculated that the inability to make an adjustment comes from one of two things: actors simply not listening or actors having over-rehearsed to the point where an adjustment is impossible for them. “Ask questions,” she advised. “And you don’t have to use your middleman or agent. Call me if you have a question.”
But an important note, from Zane, involves knowing the limits of your interactions. “Don’t chat the room up. Don’t bring too much of your personal life into the audition early on in the process. At the callback, yes, you can share a little more—especially with pilots—because we’re building a family at that point,” Zane explained about the sitcom casting process. “But it’s not necessary to turn the audition into a cleansing of the soul. Remember, you are judged by everything that happens in the room—not just the audition.”
Her favorite casting tale
“Tom Cavanaugh is a Canadian actor who had done a pilot a year before Ed, so he was known around town. He had read for a pilot that my friends—the NewsRadio producers—were doing. And they kept saying, ‘You should meet this guy,’ and I was like, ‘Who the fuck is Tom Cavanaugh?’ That’s become the ongoing joke for me and Tom, whenever we see each other: ‘Who the fuck is Tom Cavanaugh?’
“Well, he was the second guy to audition for the lead role in Ed. We read close to 300 actors for that role! But his talent was undeniable. My associate and I looked at each other and said, ‘That’s our guy.’ We knew he was it. The producers in New York weren’t sure because they saw him on tape and you just never know from a tape. But we were certain he was the one for the role.”
What she would change about the casting process
“I’d like to see people start believing that they don’t need a celebrity to lead a show. A name does not equal a hit. There’s plenty of proof of that! I love to discover a new person to lead a TV show, to see people find success, to become big stars, become famous. We [casting directors] are in the shadows here, and we don’t need to be thanked—although it is appreciated. I enjoy my own success—I’m not going to lie,” Zane laughed. “But what’s wonderful about this job is the success of others.”
This interview was conducted on February 14, 2003, and it originally appeared in Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews by Bonnie Gillespie, available at Amazon.